Owner & Managing Director of Heath Ceramics, Robin will welcome everyone to the company's beautiful factory and share a bit about the history of Heath. he will also speak about the creative and business philosophies that have helped grow their company while remaining conscious of their impact on the people who work for them, the San Francisco community, and the larger environment they operate within.
Drawing on his years of running a thriving design shop that has collaborated with companies such as Target, Nordstrom, Disney, and more, Ted will share his thoughts on how businesses can effectively work with other brands. He will walk through some of the different types of partnerships Poketo has worked on to highlight best practices collaborators can use to make sure all parties are getting what they want out of the deal.
Running one of the funnest brands on the internet isn’t easy. Jen will share her secrets of how she is able to grow her business while still having a good time. She will share her tips and tricks for making sure you can keep your head up when things get tough. Confetti, disco balls, and kittens will most certainly be involved.
Brian has spent the last decade creating exceptional customer experiences for those who have been drawn to his company’s classicly styled products. He lives to delight customers and knows that delight is what has helped his company grow as quickly as it has. Although many challenges will arise as a brand begins to grow, it’s important to focus and not lose sight of what has made a brand successful. Brian has experienced this first hand and will talk about why it’s important to work on the things that make your company special.
Nearly every product company these days uses Instagram. From major brands devoting entire teams to churning out beautiful imagery to small companies sharing whenever they stumble across an “Instagram-able” moment, there seems to be little consensus on what actually works. Instagram’s visual and immersive experience combined with a highly engaged community makes it endlessly appealing for product makers to showcase their products and tell their stories, but what is the best way to take advantage of this social media channel? With a mix of small and large companies, this panel discussion will investigate how companies are using Instagram to build their brands.
As companies focus on the mountain of work required to develop and sell delightful products, they can forget to plan out how many they can actually sell. Being sold out of a product can cause customers to become frustrated and hinder potential partnership opportunities. At the other end of the spectrum, having more product than you know what to do with can take focus and resources away from other important tasks. This panel will investigate strategies for product forecasting and inventory management that will help your business operate as efficiently as possible.
The name of your brand or product is one of the most important impressions you will leave on someone who interacts with your company. Large brands spend months and countless dollars coming up with the “perfect” name for their projects. While your company may not have the same amount of resources to invest in naming, you can use some tips and tricks professional naming firms use to create something memorable. A mix of advice and exercise, this workshop with naming expert Eli Altman will share some ways smaller brands can approach their future projects that require a great name.
With a neverending task list, you have to pick and choose which items to spend your time on. Setting clear and actionable goals with your business plan in mind, you can then determine where to focus your team's efforts. For this workshop, Rick will share the goal setting process used by Google which is now used by tens of thousands of people at hundreds of companies around the world. Not only will he cover how to set actionable goals, he will also talk about another important part of goal setting: measuring your success.
The Expert Lab is a portion of the conference where each attendee gets a 15 minute one-on-one session with an experienced professional. With areas of expertise including marketing, product development, manufacturing, logistics, collaborations, planning, and much more, our experts offer a level of advice that helps attendees solve real problems they are struggling with.