54 Making Whatever You Want with Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost, co-founders of Studio Neat

Well Made

Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost are the founders of Studio Neat, a design company making gadgets and tools through Kickstarter. Their first campaign, the Glif tripod mount, helped launch other Kickstarter hardware back in 2010. Since then, they’ve crowdfunded seven more projects, everything from the Cosmonaut to the Neat Ice Kit. Their products are simply designed and delightful to use.

On this episode, Tom and Dan share how a diverse product offering and slow-but-steadfast audience growth are tenets of running their business (7:00). Stephan, Tom, and Dan ponder being generalists versus specialists (12:17). Tom likens Studio Neat to a band (16:04). They talk about growing their email list through Kickstarter (21:18) and the long tail benefits of selling through Amazon (22:40). They talk about the creative process of making practical products (25:10) and how a product story is important (28:05). They explain why outsourcing works for their small operation (40:44), and finally, they talk about jealousy as a source of inspiration and motivation (48:25).

Link and images from this post are on the Lumi blog.