Turning a Travel Hassle Into a Must-Have Invention – Craig Rabin of The AirHook

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hey there, entrepreneurs. My name is Sushant, and welcome to Treptalks. This is a show where I interview successful e-commerce entrepreneurs, business executives, and thought leaders, and ask them questions about their business stories and dive deep into some of the strategies and tactics that they have used to start to grow their businesses.

And today I’m really excited to welcome Craig Rabin to the show. Craig is the founder of the AirHook. The AirHook is a patented two-part travel system, which includes a stable drink holder and a secure mount for your electronic devices. And today I’m going to ask Craig a few questions about Hi his entrepreneur journey.

Some of the strategies and tactics that he has used to start and grow his business. Now, before we dive into this interview, if you enjoy this content, please make sure to hit the like and subscribe button. And for more interviews like this, please visit the treptalks.com. And with that, Craig, welcome and thank you so much for joining me today at Treptalks.

Really, really appreciate your time.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Yeah, thank you Han say, thank you so much for having me. Excited to dive deeper into the passion and the story behind the air hook and also how that transitioned me into helping others invent using the same strategy that I did. So, uh, we’re really looking forward to today’s chat.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So do you call yourself an inventor or like a product developer? Like do you have a name or do you, are you basically, you know, finding the challenges in your own life and saying, you know, there, there isn’t a product. Why don’t I create one?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: First, if I could zoom in my camera, I probably would. All of the phrases that you just use give me goosebumps.

Um, I do remember the first time I introduced myself as an inventor. It was something I always wanted to be as a little kid. I actually have my very, very first sketchbook, two feet, three feet away from me right now. Um, now granted it’s full, there was one idea in it that I pursued, but anyhow, I wanted to be an inventor for my entire life.

So I remember the first time I was able to say that. So that I love that title. Now I actually have a cooler title, uh, and I was just on vacation in Mexico and folks were asking me what I do, and I told them that I was an invention coach. And they’re like, okay, those are two words. I like them. Both explain.

And I immediately realized, wow, do I maybe just possibly have the coolest title in the world? Um, but that would be what I would like to call myself as an invention coach. I do have a few products that I invent. It’s something I am passionate about. I have a 3D printer right behind me. I actually have a laser, CNC as well.

So I’m always doing that side of it. But now as I, um, transitioned through Covid, I began doing a lot of speaking engagements and beginning to start to help others that say, I have an idea. I, I have something I’m working on. And it’s like, well, sure, let me help you. And so that’s where the coaching came in.

And so now, uh, the, it’s called Vision two Invention with the number two. So vision number two, invention, uh, dot com. It’s an online course and it’s free right now for your listeners. Okay, so for just for your listeners, we are gonna be increasing the price very soon, so go ahead and sign up exclusive for your listeners, so feel free.

Um, but that said, now I’m helping others get through the invention process using the same pattern I did for the Arup.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. And it’s so interesting, right? People sometimes think, uh, you know, and, and the title coach makes sense because sometimes people may think that either they are creative or not. Like, you know, that’s something some that somebody else does, like, you know, that’s not me.

But I think everybody has. Uh, the ability to kind of recognize the problems around them. And, and I think the, I think a coaching may be something that can help them to overcome some of their limiting beliefs to, to actually start, uh, you know, creating some of these ideas.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: 100%. And actually that’s the first lesson in my course.

You must have checked it out. Um, but it’s really to train your brain to think like an inventor. And the easiest way to do that. And for your listeners right now, we’re gonna do an exercise together. Just simply look around your room and everything you look at was invented by someone. Every single thing that you’re looking at right now, unless you’re looking outside at the mountains, I don’t want to get into it.

Um, but it was invented by someone and why not you? And so when I started to realize that and I like to say, Hey folks, if I can do it. You can do it. And I don’t wanna sell myself short, but at the same time, I want you to believe that you can. And so, yeah, that’s why I like to call everyone an armchair inventor.

We all sit at home thinking, you know what would be cool if, I wish I had a, some of ’em may already exist, but it’s still fun to say

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: for sure. So let’s talk a little bit about your product, the air hook. Um, how did the idea came, come about and yeah. Can you walk us through like what, uh, um, how do you create a business out of it?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Yeah, absolutely. I’ll try to give you a bit of the abbreviated version and I should time myself and see if it’s possible. It has been a minute since I have given an air hook interview, so thank you again for having me. Um, I had done about a hundred of these when we were in the Air Hooks heyday, and it all started on a flight when I was wearing a sport coat.

And so I had a biggest meeting in my life, and so I’m wearing a sport coat. I’m feeling all good, and I get on the plane and I’m like, okay, uhoh, I didn’t think this part through. I don’t really wanna wear it ’cause I’m gonna be a sloppy mess. Okay? I don’t wanna put it in the overhead compartment because it’s gonna get all wrinkled and I gotta look good.

And I chose the option to drape it over my knees. Now, as you can imagine, that sport coat turned into a blanket and I started to sweat anyways, I then put the sport coat on and the sweaty mess begun. So I wore my sport coat really the entire trip until I got, until I got somewhere I could change. During the process, I was staring at the airline tray table thinking, wow, I should be able to just make a little hook to hang my coat up.

I’m sure I can do that. And I had bought a 3D printer and I taught myself how to use it and design two months earlier. So weird lining of the stars, I guess. And so I went home. I built a bunch of different prototypes ’cause I wasn’t sure how it was gonna fit, and that’s one of the secrets as well. Rapid printing and prototyping is so cheap before the existence of 3D printers and really the residential versions, um, this would’ve cost me a hundred thousand dollars, uh, to create a mold to then use just one to see if it fit.

So anyhow. Mm-hmm. Um, I went home, tested them out or printed ’em out, I should say. And on the next trip I hung it over the trade table. I found one that worked and I clipped my sport coat over it. And it was like, oh my God, this is the coolest thing By far, that aha moment. And also, and I get goosebumps again, uh, where I kind of feel like I became an inventor in a sense, right?

I turned something that I had in my head into a tangible product and it was like, okay, this is neat. So the flight attendant comes to mind. I’m feeling all good. I go ahead, I grab my cup of coffee, right? And. Oh man, I looked back at the tray table. I had to put the tray table down for like a cup of coffee.

Mm-hmm. And you all probably see where I’m going with this. Right. So then it became, oh wait, I wonder if I could print something that held my coat and also held my cup. Hmm. So that then came, I was then observing and I was looking in the airport and I found that everyone was on their device. Okay. What if we add that to the mix?

I remember I thought of that on my way to my father’s house and my mother’s house in Arizona, and I went in the garage just like kind of a, a Steve Jobs moment in the garage. Of course, everyone assumes that. And I cut the elastic off underwear. Mm-hmm. I drilled two bolts through an existing arrow hook.

Pro a prototype that I had, and I attached the elastic from underwear with a clip on top and on the flight home used it to pull it over my device.

Hmm.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: And it held, Hmm. And that then became the universal device holder. So out of necessity for something completely different, it grew into something that I noticed.

Everyone needed a problem that most didn’t know they had until they saw a solution for it. So that was how the era hook was created. We then launched on Kickstarter, which is a whole different question. So, okay. That was four minutes. I’ll, I’ll take it. Uh, but that was the birth of Air Hook, um, in general.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: No, that’s a very inspiring story. And as you were telling, you know, as you were sharing it, I mean, so many questions were coming to mind. So even, I believe you started this or created this product, uh, somewhere around like mid, uh, 2015 or something like that. Right.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: We were, I believe it, it was right around 2014 that I came up with the initial concept.

And then in 2015 we got the provisional patent, which were actually noted as one of Washington states’ greatest inventions, which blows my mind.

Whoa, uh,

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: for, for the mid, for the mid two thousands there. But, um, but yeah, it was right around that time. And then we went through the provisional patent process, the patent cooperation treaty.

This, by the way, folks, I teach all of this in my class. No need to be worried about the patent process. It’s not that daunting. I’ll get you through it. Um, but that was right around when I got my, uh, first patent issued with the air hunt.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Now, one question, I mean, you mentioned the use of 3D printer, right?

And it sounds like such an interesting idea. If you have an idea and you can create the product using 3D printing, I mean, it’s, it can expedite your. I mean, just testing the product or you know, creating the prototype process. Now not everybody has a 3D printer. Like do you suggest, but I’m sure like these days every big city probably has a certain lab, 3D printing lab where you can go and use that as like a maybe at a minor fees or something.

Like do you, do you know anything more, uh, around that, uh, or have you have any advice around that?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: 100%. So, funny enough, I have my own meetup group that I run for Vision Two Invention, and every two weeks we do a step around the invention process. Today we’re just so happen to be on step three, which is rapid prototyping.

I love how some things just fall in line. And folks, you probably didn’t know that we had to reschedule this. I had to reschedule my course too. They both ended up being on the same day. All perfect. But yes, if you don’t have an accessible 3D printer, here’s some ways to think outside the box. And in the past I would’ve said go to a local print shop, right?

You probably have a design studio in your area. Uh, a maker space is what they’re called. Uh, you could go to a university as well that’s gonna take more research than the tip I’m about to give you. Okay, use ai. Now, for some of you that are not a fan of it, this is, just think of it as a smarter search engine.

And what I mean by that is go to AI and go to chat. GPT is my preferred one. And say, imagine you were, and put in your location, put in your town. So I’m gonna use Kirkland Washington. That’s where I am based. Hmm. And I would put in, imagine you were in Kirkland, Washington and you had a great idea for a product that you needed to 3D print.

Hmm. Provide me the 10 closest resources where I can get this prototyped.

Hmm.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: And you will be shocked. Okay? It will give you the resources you need and then respond with, also give me phone numbers or websites or try costs. It may be able to find it, but anyhow, it, that should not be a barrier for anybody.

Really use that AI kind of in a search fashion to provide resources close to you. ’cause the most important thing is making sure you turn something from here into something you hold in your hand. For

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: sure. And just as a side note, I mean, you mentioned ai, I realize that now when I have to search something or I’m looking for an, an answer, I’m not going to Google.

Like that’s not my default response. Now I go to chat GPT or I’m trying out grok AI now. Um, I mean, it’s such an interesting thing that, you know, search engines have finally been disrupted, but that was just a side note. Um, I want to ask you, so you created your prototype. Um, you have the idea and it seems like you patented the, the, the invention before you went to the market.

Um, what happened next? How did you, did you know that there’s a market out for this or did you do some sort of like a study to, you know, figure out that people will be willing to pay some money for this? How did you kind of launch this product as a business?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Yeah, absolutely. And again, your, your questions align perfectly with the lessons of my course after rapid prototyping or finding what I like to call, I guess everyone calls it your MVP, your most valuable product, your most viable product.

Excuse me. Um, that’s just something, it’s the Scrappiest way. It’s the most viable way to produce something that you can evaluate your, uh, assumptions that you had behind the product. The next is getting a patent. And I would never recommend getting a full patent, five to $10,000 right out of the gate. Get a provisional one.

I teach it in my course on how you can do it from home if you are in the US for those that may be listening in other countries. I was just chatting with some folks in Canada. Um, I know the process is a little different, but anyhow, in the States it’s really easy to get a patent yourself, and from there you get to the step before launching, and that’s customer feedback.

Okay. And so for us, and this was before we had ai, I did a ton of research on who the most influential people were in the travel industry. Hmm. And as folks can imagine, there’s so many bloggers out there now that have a huge following.

Hmm.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: And we reached out to every single one of ’em, every single one.

And we got enough feedback for folks to say, sure, I’ll try your product. It’s 3D printed so I could send it to ’em. Now folks, here’s the catch. I did this all incredibly legally, and this is 3D printed. I don’t know if it’s gonna hold up. If you put a hot cup of coffee in this and you’re trying it on a flight and it falls and it burns you, uh, bye-bye air hook.

Mm-hmm. So I had to have them actually sign something that had death. In the waiver, and they still were eager to try it. So we had a really weird, uh, uh, bubble here of people that were like, Ooh, I see the problem. I see the solution. Yeah, I’ll be your beta tester. So we found those. So that was that step of the process.

Then we started, I think everybody

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: loved getting free products. O Of

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: course.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Of course. Why they’re willing to put their life on the, it

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: wasn’t free.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Now here’s the

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: key, because it, yes, it was free monetarily, but it came with an exchange of their following. Okay. Okay. And so when I could see the reactions that their following had to different products that were in, not even as similar categories, but just in travel.

I started to gauge what the numbers behind a launch for us could be. And so I just kept getting more and more support. I get more and more people to sign up. And the great thing was we had the provisional patent. So as folks were testing it for me in flight, everyone around them was asking where they could get it.

So each flight that someone would use it, we were growing by 10 to 50 people. And so that was key for us, was coming up with that large base. And that was when we determined to then launch. We knew the numbers, we knew the following people were signing up when they saw video and they were ready to buy.

And so that was how we knew things were ready to go.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So did you, when you sent this product to these influencers, um, was the discussion that they’re going to be posting it on their social media or something, or was, was it more like. Try it out. Give me feedback on, you know, is it useful for you or not? And, you know, people around were just, uh, seeing it and asking questions.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Great question. And I would say build the relationship. Like you said, everyone loves free product. And so for us, and this was at a time where, you know, nine years ago it wasn’t as popular. The now everyone seems to wanna be a travel blogger, so you really do have to pick and choose. And now there are more products and more people using this kind of strategy, but it was all about building the relationship and more.

So if you can go to an industry event, that’s the best way. If you can meet some of these influencers in person and get to know them, tell them your story, have them use the product and then say. Okay. You love it. I’m trying to get it out to the world. Hmm. So that everyone else could love it too. Do you want to be the first one to introduce it to your followers?

Hmm.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Right. It almost is like you’re doing, you them a favor.

Hmm.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: And so start playing with the dynamics really of a relationship, knowing that they want grow their content as well. They want to see better products and, you know, the, the best partnerships are when everybody wins.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. Yeah. That, that makes a lot of sense.

Now I did also notice that you’ve been, well I saw your Kickstarter, or I believe it was a Kickstarter, Kickstarter campaign for the second version of your product, which was quite successful. I believe it was. You received 43,000 for like 15,000, uh, initial ask. Um, can you talk a little bit about, was that part of your, what was crowdfunding part, part of your launch initially, like when you launched the first time and was it successful and.

It was successful for you for the second time. So I’m curious like how Yeah. Yes. How did you do it?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Yeah, so the first one was even better funded. I think we hit 80 or 90,000, uh, I believe, and we were funded. Is is a reason. The

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: second time it was not as good as, because there’s a lot more competition. Uh, sorry, sorry.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Um, no, actually we’ll get to, I’ll, I’ll mention that piece as well. But when we launched, uh, yeah, we were funded in. The 25 hours, I believe it was the first 25 hours of the campaign, we had hit 15,000. And then we ended up hitting, yeah, close to almost, almost, uh, six figures. But the reason we launched and got so much traction is related to the last strategy, and it was because we had so many people that had pushed this message out in a coordinated time.

I mean, it reminded me of that scene in hackers at the end when everyone is looking at their clock coordinating and when that ball hit, right? Everyone tuned in. And it was very similar to that. And in Kickstarter, you trick their algorithm, so you become a trending product. Then even more people get eyeballs on it.

If you can get into their newsletter, you’re even better. Okay. And so that was how the first campaign did so well. But my message was a little different. I was this budding entrepreneur. I was this budding inventor who’s living his childhood dream, who developed an air, this air hook in a living room, and now I want to bring it to yours.

So people were very compelled by this message. And also some people were just giving to that message, giving to the character of Craig, right? And so that was why the first campaign was more successful than the second. And why in typically, like the vast majority of campaigns the second time around, if it’s the same product, um, have this, that, that same trend where they don’t.

Do as much, and people just aren’t as compelled. You already had traction, you launched,

Hmm,

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: why do you still need my money? Hmm. Right? And so it’s like, no, no, we just want to give you an exclusive price. And so the messaging and the feel for, for why changes a little bit with that type of approach to crowdfunding.

Uh, which is why the second one was about, you know, 30 k short of that. So, yeah. Okay.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: No, but I mean, you surpassed your goal. And so I think it, I mean, if I’m looking at it as like, to me it was wildly successful, um, yeah,

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: no, and uh, that’s again, that’s one of the. Courses as well. So after the customer feedback, you get to funding.

And I have a whole bunch of strategies that I teach in my lessons around crowdfunding, uh, from working with other cross-promotion campaigns, to having different stretch goals, to different ways that you can maximize that opportunity even after it to get upsells and so on. Which leads directly to maybe what your next question is gonna be around manufacturing and fulfillment, right?

And it’s like, what does that next step look like? You just launched your campaign, you had. Uh, thousands of people buy into it and it’s like, okay, like that was so much fun.

Mm-hmm.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Oh, no. Now turn off all the TVs. There’s no more excitement. There’s no more dollar sign that keeps going up in the high fives.

It’s, we need to manufacture this. How do we do that? Mm. Like, how, how, where are we manufacturing it? We are in an ever changing world, as we all know, with, with recent, uh, uh, fees and tariffs being put on where goods are made. And so it’s a very, very, I. Analytical thing I should say to, to, to have to jump into and to knowing the numbers so well and where you’re gonna manufacture, how you’re gonna get the products to you, and then how you’re gonna get them to the customers.

Um, we ended up being in 86 different countries. Mm-hmm. And so we had to get real good at fulfillment, not just in the States. We ship to every state in the us, um, but also abroad. And it. That to me is not as fun. I love the creation side of it. Um, that was where I was like, okay, I’m kind of ready here.

We’ve, we’ve done good. And that’s why the very last lesson is the exit strategy. And so we kind of got forced into the exit strategy with COVID when flying got shut down for a while, and then my passions changed to teaching. But now we’re looking to bring the air hook back for a third version and licensing it out to a company that will take over that part of the process that, you know, I and many others don’t like as much.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, I mean, that’s a very interesting point because when you start, when you launched this product, I think the landscape, not only for, you know, e-commerce, but also how people flew. Was a little bit different than where things are now. Right. So manufacturing in 20 15, 20 14 was still very new. Like, you know, Alibaba was probably very new at that time.

Now it’s, I think the whole landscape is quite evolved. Um, and I think even traveling on airplanes now, I, I find when I travel, because, you know, everybody carries a, you know, a either a laptop or a tablet, or, I mean, of course everybody c carries their phone. Um, I find now in airplanes, like now they, they have actually evolved the, the seating experience.

Like, you usually have like a hook to, you know, uh, use it for something. Now they have like a thing for your coffee mug and all these things. So it seems like things have moved forward. Um, but I’m very curious to know, um, in terms of manufacturing, like what. Did you go the Alibaba route or, um, no, no.

Alibaba didn’t,

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: yeah, it didn’t really have the prevalence it does today. Um, and by the way, I, I must say for the options that you do see on an airplane, I don’t mean to get cocky, but you’re all welcome. Um, no, I’m just playing. But I do live here, like I mentioned in Washington. I’m close to Boeing and there was one meeting where I did meet at Boeing and they had my product deconstructed on the table in front of them.

Whoa. With a bunch of other products.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Well, actually I, sorry to interrupt with that. That’s what I forgot my question, but I I was going to ask you because

Yeah,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I was going to ask on around the licensing because rather than creating your product, I was going to say you could have just. Licensed your idea to these airlines?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Yeah. Oh, we definitely did. So, so, okay. We, we definitely tried, I should say. Okay. And so that was what my originally intention was. I was on Steve Harvey’s thunderdome. So if I step back to my early days of being an entrepreneur, I created a product much, it was called View in Your Room. Actually now you can do it on Amazon, where you can take a photo of your room and drag and drop artwork and it changes in size and proportion.

It’s actually called View in Your Room on Amazon as well, which bugged me. But I didn’t know anything about intellectual property at the time. But anyhow, I filmed for Shark Tank and we got to the last of the third rounds and Shark Tank was produced. It still is by Mark Burnett. And so he found me to be this kind of flamboyant character.

And this was, I was much younger obviously at that point. And so myself and their team stayed in touch. That’s another thing is all of these budding entrepreneurs, inventors, whoever it might be out there, you never know when something or someone may come back in your life.

Hmm.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: So it’s best not to burn any bridges.

And I especially did not want to do one with the producer of a TV show.

Hmm.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: So years later and just happened to be when I was coming up or the air hook had already launched, our Kickstarter was already done and they were spinning off another show and his team had reached out to me before. We’ve kept in touch and said, Hey, we have this show Steve Harvey wondered on on a, B, C, would you like to be on it?

We saw it, but we need you to still film. We, we know you’re gonna get it, but go through the process. I went through, they’re like, of course you got it. Come through. Ended up finding out I was the very last person. It ever on the show. So the whole thing had been filmed.

Hmm.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: I was the last episode to film and the last person on that last episode.

And so that was such a launch for the product. But my idea that I mentioned to Steve Harvey is just that I wanna license it out. I want to have something where it’s like, uh, the 3D glasses at a, uh, uh, a movie theater. You use it, you put it in this bucket, it gets sanitized on Steve Harvey. Looks at me, laughs and goes, that ain’t gonna happen.

And so it was very funny because they wanted to own it and so they built, they tr their tray table, they rebuilt it. I didn’t think they would do this to get around the way that our patent functioned, so that was funny. Um, but anyhow, we ended up being the last to film on the thunderdome. I actually have, I dunno if I’m doing it right there, the uh, ribbon.

I wore a cancer ribbon in honor of my mother. We gave a portion of every air hook to cancer research for her, which we can talk about in a second. Um, but I was so out there on stage and we became the first to air even though we were the last to film. ’cause he wanted to put my face out there. So that helped grow tremendously.

I mean, we sold probably 10,000 units that day. I remember having friends in Washington fly in to help me fulfill and to help me box up. So, I mean, little things like that along the way actually that wasn’t, little things like that along the way, obviously really help propel your brand, uh, to the next level.

If you’re on Shark Tank now, it certainly will too. But remember that also adds manufacturing headaches because you don’t know if your manufacturer can scale up as much. For us, if we had super rapid growth in manufacturing terms and injection molding, you can have basically multiple molds. And so in ours we only had one, what we call air hook, and so it got injected and that was enough for one design.

When you get to a certain level, you have multiple versions of your product in one injection. So you are manufacturing at a much quicker pace. The price goes down, so on and so forth. We would’ve had to retool, which is where you have the tool made, your laser scene seeing it. That’s the most expensive part.

So you really have to think about all these things, especially if you have rapid growth on some of these shows.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: No, it’s, it’s, uh, such so, so interesting. By the way, your story about, you went to the airlines and they had your product deconstructed. What, what, what happened there?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Uh, no, it was more of me kind of still trying to pitch them of here’s how the product works, here’s my vision for it.

I don’t think that they thought the design part of it was good enough, right? They couldn’t put a hot cup of coffee falling on someone. And so a lot of ’em only have the pop-up, um, device holder. They still don’t have somewhere for your drink, which we do, which had mixed feedback when we surveyed our audience and surveying and feedback and analytics.

Super big for the air hooks growth. Even for just my normal day-to-day. I love Excel. Um, not everyone used that, that wasn’t as popular of a feature. So anyhow, they had a lot of options as Steve Harvey noted, and they didn’t go for it. They went for their redesign. Um, and so yeah, we, we had to live with it.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, these business executives, they, they don’t want to share their, their profit, right? They didn’t.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: But at the same token, and this is why I started it by saying I don’t mean to be cocky. I love that I played such a small part in advancing the comfort and convenience for everyone who flies. You know, like I, it, that part in itself gives me goosebumps.

It’s something I often talk about to different students. I’ve, again, I, I love speaking in a lot of interviews. I’ve done that the most. But I’ve also spoke at, uh, about eight different universities, maybe a dozen now. And my favorite is talking at like K through five ish and kind of walking ’em through a lot of these things and the different dreams that you can have, you know, along the way.

So it’s, uh, it’s, it’s all real fun.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Very, very interesting. So I want to ask, um, you are coming up with the third version of this product. Um. So far, like what were your most successful channels? I mean, you have your website and I, I think I saw Amazon, uh, listing as well, but I think there it was, uh, there wasn’t the, the product.

Um, what, yeah, what, where were you selling the, the most, uh, uh, most of these products?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Yeah. I mean, we really had, I wanna say three channels. The first was just direct to customer through our website. That is where we made the most margin. Okay. Uh, because we controlled all of the overhead. I had my own fulfillment center.

I could get very, uh, uh, cost efficient in what I bought. I would drive down to Uline, which is like an hour from me, versus shipping it to save money and just pack my car up. So I did everything I could to make it more cost effective. So e-commerce and I, as I mentioned, my first couple. Companies were web design, so I was able to jump right in.

So yeah, those, that was the most cost effective for me, but not the most value. And then the second tier was like us going to trade shows or cold calling, um, different companies, different retailers, trying to get them to pick up our product. Meeting someone at a trade show, having them pick up a hundred units here, a thousand units here.

We had customizable versions that didn’t have the air hook branding just in case. And we ended up doing some for a wedding, like a destination wedding, which was so cool. Uh, some for C de sole, which was awesome. ’cause there was a trade show in Vegas and they were like, this would be perfect for our guests.

I was like, really? And they gave me free front row tickets as part of it. So I was like, I am in, um, so that was probably the second tier is just going direct to, I. To the retailers that had probably the lowest margin, right? Because they need to mark it up as well, and you need to get them the product. So it didn’t have a lot, it had more brand awareness and recognition, especially with those that we sold to in an airport.

Sometimes we would show it in an airport and they would go buy it on the third channel, Amazon. And so Amazon is right in the middle of that, um, where they’re a major retailer, it’s online, but you don’t control it. And so their fees are pretty extensive, as we may all know. Uh, so for us it was trying to figure out the most efficient way to do F to FBA or fulfillment by Amazon.

So we started switching to shipping them pallet loads. Then we ship, we switched from us doing the pallets to going direct from our factory. And so the less hands we had on it, that’s a few hundred dollars there. So it’s really about finding cost efficiency. But uh, we sold the most units on Amazon.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. I think that makes sense.

I’m very curious, um, while you are selling this because, you know, products like this that are solving a consumer problem, they tend to get replicated rather quickly even though you have, you had created the, uh, the patent and so forth. Uh, in China especially, I mean, because there’s lots of factories there.

I mean, they are so good at now, you know, making minor modifications and basically creating their own spin ver or version of a product. Did you run into that kind of an issue when you were selling your product on Amazon or like, you know, kind of copycat products coming into the market?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Um, I wouldn’t say copycat in terms of ones that altered a specific piece of the air hook in order to try to mimic and sell it as is.

Definitely ones that had concepts of their own, some that had been selling that aren’t the same. Patents that we have of fitting over the back of a tray table. So some of ’em definitely are unique. I can’t hate, um, I didn’t have any issues though with my factory abroad. The reason being is part of my vetting process.

And as this were, we were talking about Alibaba, I didn’t have that resource. I would just talk to anyone I could. And so what that meant was me going to any type of networking event I could, where I perceived someone in the room had invented a physical product, some of which I would just stand up and say, I’m trying to do this.

Does anyone have experience manufacturing? And I ended up finding a handful of people that had experience. And so I started to, again, that relationship card is not a card, that’s a bad way to put it. The importance of relationships is I was. Able to find a really great factory to work with through my designer, through a friend of his, all of which had manufactured very successful through this facility.

Um, and his, his, uh, the gentleman I work with, Ellis, I’ll have to send this to him, but shout out to my man Ellis. Um, he’s been absolutely amazing to work with, and I’ve never had to worry about, you know, knockoffs or, or, or ripoffs, if you will.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hmm. Okay. That, that’s, that’s, uh, very interesting. Um, I also saw on your website you had quite a few successes with PR or getting, um, on different shows and so forth.

Um, did you mostly, you know, cold, cold, uh, cold, uh, cold outreach or like, did you have a, a PR company promoting you? Or how did you kind of get media exposure? Uh, easily, uh, not, I shouldn’t say easily. Nothing is easy.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: No, no, absolutely. And I remember my first, uh, first publication in Chicago. Um, I believe it was The Herald.

If I’m not the person who pub who, who publicized me, she’s gonna be really mad at me. So Sarah, I’m sorry. Um, but I believe it was that paper. Um, I just remember that and I found. Publicity’s. So fun. And then when we launched a poker tour that traveled around the country and did poker tournaments for scholarship, for, uh, run through university intramural programs with my best friend Mr.

Jason Beck, someone I look up to in the business world. Um, we were an entrepreneur magazine, which was like, oh my God, I subscribed to this. Do do we remember when we subscribed to magazines? By the way. Yeah. Uh, what, how nostalgia was that? Um, but I was like, oh, I, I subscribed to this. This is awesome. So, yes, when the air hook got initial traction after the very first, uh, really after the first three days of our Kickstarter campaign, we started reaching out to media and it was very cold college emailing, sending hundreds of emails to every news reporter.

Like, look, look at this new idea. Funded in, you know, X amount of days already through the roof, about to break records changed the way, you know, we had our pitch. And so we had a publicity, we had a PR company. They had helped us. We tried to push it as much as we could. We got a ton of traction. As you’re noting, that led to.

A couple opportunities. Now, I like to say that the one with Steve Harvey was my doing from previous, but what we did land, and this was my mother’s, would’ve been her absolute favorite. God rest her soul. She’s looking down at me now. She’d be so proud. Um, home shopping network. I can just remember her watching it as a kid and all the memories of that.

And they flew me out and said, you are so good on the thunderdome. Why don’t you present? And I’m thinking of the movie Joy, and it’s like, of course, get me on stage. Let’s do this. And so I, I love being on stage that then transitioned into me then speaking on stage right to other inventors. So it’s interesting how some things work out and start so small, but transition out to be so big so many years later.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I know you mentioned your mother, um, and I also saw on your website you, um, by the way, sorry about, sorry to hear it. Uh. You know, uh, she’s no longer with us, but you are doing some sort of a philanthropy around that now with your product or you were doing it when you were selling this. Uh, can you talk a little bit about, about that aspect of your business?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And this was something that we brought up in our kind of pre-interview, something that I am so passionate about and what I like to say is another value for those entrepreneurs and inventors out there. When you control the money coming in, you control the money going out. And so unfortunately my mother was unable to see the very first air hook.

So what we did, and I’ve got one here, let’s see if I can zoom in on it. We put that on the box so that she was on every single air hook. Okay? And so she unfortunately passed from that thing that starts with a c, I don’t say it in this house. And I realized that so many others are obviously affected by this as well.

And so we don’t just put that on the box. We donated a portion of every single arrow hook, and we still, still would if we sold one today. Another reason, I really wanna bring it back, because we donated thousands, tens of thousands to cancer research. And that folks, that’s why you invent, that’s why you make a difference.

It wasn’t flying, you know, but it was a little further in heaven. But it was for those on the ground that are still fighting. And so. I love being able to influence other inventors, but then also showing them this Phil philanthropic side and this responsibility that we have when we are going out and creating.

It’s important to honor the, the, you know, less fortunate.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: No, I think that’s, that’s, uh, such an important point because I mean, I was going to ask you, um, creating a product like this, like a physical product, right? It’s, uh, it’s so challenging, right? Like you’re, you have to do so much work upfront, you know, you have the prototyping, you have to find the customers, you have to fundraise, you have to do all this thing work upfront.

And then when you go in the market, um, there’s, there’s a lot of challenges. You know, you have to market, you know, you have to, uh, as you, as you said, you know, you have to reach out to retailers, pr, all these different things. And then when you sell, let’s say, on Amazon or you know. They take away your profit margins and everything.

So my question for you was, is it, is it worth it to go into a product entrepreneurship? And of course, you know, part of the reason is, as you said, you know, if you’re giving back to a, uh, a worthy cost that makes it all worth it. Um, but would you do it all over again? Like if you were, if you, if you, if you were to create another physical product, knowing that it, it’s a, it’s a uphill battle in a way.

Um, like do you, do you recommend people go through it where there’s no guarantee that you’re going to make money? And even if you do like there, it’s the profit margins are, I’m assuming are not that, that great. And there’s a, there’s a certain lifecycle of a product, right. So,

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: yeah, no, that’s a good question.

Now are you comparing like, entrepreneurship to retirement? I. Because if you’re comparing, doing all those things to sitting on a beach, I’m gonna vote sitting on a beach. I have a feeling though, you’re comparing it to working somewhere or someone else is doing all the same things that you just said. So you’re either living your dream or you’re living in a part of someone else’s.

Okay. Um, and that’s the way I look at it. Right. I think and it’s, it’s that simple. So if we’re, again, if we’re comparing it to retirement, I would always, and, and you have the funds and, and the, the freedom to do that. You send me a ticket, let’s talk on a beach, I am with you. Right. But if you’re comparing it to just simply working for someone else who has all the same tasks that you just mentioned, they’re just delegating it to you and making the decision so you don’t have to 100% worth it.

I would do it again in a heartbeat versus working for someone else.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I guess, uh, in a HartBeat, of course. I, I, I totally agree. I totally agree. Um, entrepreneurship is so worth it, even though it’s very, uh, challenging. I mean, the, the, the whole, I think the people who go into it, it’s like, um, part of it is, I mean, I, a big part of it is freedom and controlling your own time and, you know, being your own boss and not having to, uh, not having to Yeah.

Uh, report to someone else. But I guess I, my question was more from the. You’re always reporting

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: to someone, you know, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s an interesting loophole when people, when people, but it, it’s not, it’s not necessarily the who you’re reporting to. It’s the amount of responsibility you’re waking up to.

How much are you willing to wake up to? Are you willing to wake up with all of it or just some of it? And there’s nothing wrong with waking up with just some of it, not, this isn’t for everyone. And most importantly, there’s no way that for the person that does say, I’m my, I’m waking up with all of it.

They can’t take all of it. They need folks like the ones that, that don’t want to have that on their shoulders to help them build the company. So I, I’m not discouraging anyone from finding the career that they find the most rewarding, understanding that we don’t live to work. We work in order to live the life that we’ve always envisioned.

And so whatever we wake up with, little responsibility, all the responsibility, it’s all needed in order to make a dream come true.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. Um, now of course you’re working on the third version of this product. You also are working on a course, uh, and all these things. What, what is kind of your future vision for yourself and you know, what you want your business to be?

Or do you want to focus on more on the digital product side of things versus physical products? And so you, you know, how do you see yourself, uh, in the next five years or so?

Craig Rabin of the Airhook: Yeah, great. Sorry about that. Great, great question. And something that I often ask myself in the mirror, and one that I actually don’t do a really good job of writing down, I, there should be an app for that.

You know what? And, and for those listening, if there’s not, here’s a free idea. There should be an app where I put in five years from now, or three years from now, I want, and it automatically comes up. Not necessarily a reminder that I can read, but something that almost gets locked that I can’t see that holds me accountable.

If that app doesn’t exist, someone please design it. Send me the link, I will download it immediately. Um, and as I always do that, here’s where I want to be in five years, my brain immediately goes to man, five years ago. Would I have said what I’m doing right now? No way. There’s no way I would’ve said I want to, I, I was gonna be an invention coach, that I was gonna be helping others get their ideas off the ground and be so passionate about supporting the dreams of others, right?

And so as I start to think about what my next five years can be, I’m thinking, man, I, I wanna be that same, that sounds great, but in reality, I’d love to continue to grow, to be on a board, like similar to a Shark Tank esque that’s helping at a much larger scale, at more of a, I mean, not, not as Shark Tank, but more of a sustainable scale, right?

I’d love to further my interests in that regard and continue to design products that better really everyone around me. But it’s always interesting when we think about that, that five year growth plan and, and what makes us happy both in the moment and what we perceive will in the future.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: For sure. Um, when you were running your business as an entrepreneur, um, everybody make mistakes.

You know, there’s lessons learned, it’s an evolution process, what, you know, is there a mistake or two that comes to your mind, where, which was a big learning lesson for you, and what did you learn from your mistakes? What can other entrepreneurs learn from your mistakes?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I like saying this on stage.

I get this question a lot when I’m speaking to students, is, can you explain to us a time you failed? And so I’m gonna start by giving you the real, the cheesy answer folks, and it is when you learn from your failures, they become your success, right? So in a sense, I’ve never failed. ’cause I’ve always learned from what I have, right?

And so I always like saying that, but I, I certainly have, I, I’ve started 13 different companies since I’ve been 16 years old and I didn’t sell them all. Somewhere along the way, something must have happened. Now it’s not necessarily a mistake, it could just be a pivot in the road. Um, but when it comes to the air hook, when we got our very first shipment in, we only got half the products that we were guaranteed.

And it turned out that there was so much paperwork and it was my very first time going through both a manufacturing sheet of doc. I mean, this was bef way before I could have AI read this too. A stack of documents, folks, and then another stack for importing. And I completely missed the number on the pallet.

Wasn’t the same as the number I thought were gonna be in a box.

Hmm.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: And so I was comparing two different things and it turned out it was me and now they couldn’t produce more at the time. But what happened was we got these products, I went into crisis mode because not only did I have to figure out one, what happened, two, then I had to figure out it was me three.

And this was the most important. I had to reach out to all our Kickstarter supporters and say, guess what? So sorry. And I can’t blame it on anyone but me. I actually cried in the update. If you go and look on our first Kickstarter campaign and you look at the shipping update that has the most hearts, it’s that one.

And I’m pretty sure the video’s still there. And I cried to folks and it was like, I am so sorry. I’ll never let this happen again. And I was very upfront about it, but I learned from it. And the next time you can yarin. And every time since, not only do I know what to look for, but I know what not to look for in, if you will.

Mm-hmm. Um, and so I learned from that mistake. But at the time, oh, life, like life shattering, air hooks done, turn this place into a parking lot, give everyone their money, it’s over. Um, so yeah, we learned a lot from that.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Uh, now I’m going to move on to our rapid fire segment. In this segment, I’m going to ask you a few quick questions and you have to answer them maybe in a word or two or a sentence.

The first one is one book recommendation for entrepreneurs and why

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: the magic of. Thinking big, um, similar to how I was saying look around you and see that everything is invented. We’ve got so many thoughts going through our brain. Uh, mental health is so important to me. It should be so important to you as well.

And it’s important for us to all stay positive and to learn the tools, not just to wake up, be like, I’m gonna have a positive day. Right. It’s hard to do that, you know, we’re inundated with negativity sometimes, and so what do we need to do to think positive and then hopefully be positive

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: that, that’s really great advice.

Um, and innovative product or idea in the current e-commerce retail or tech landscape that you feel excited about?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: I mean, honestly, I’m gonna have to use a, a large one here and go AI again, I’m not sure if everyone’s comfort level with it, but chat GPT obviously is one that we were mentioning earlier as a search engine function.

There are so many tools for so many different functions for say, business productivity, of organizing emails or summarizing them to transcriptions, listen to a meeting, and then put together a list of next steps, bulleted next steps when they need to be done. Those actually blow my mind, um, to, to AI created videos and voiceovers.

Sometimes that can be a little scary sometimes. Um, but just the amount of productivity that you can find with some of them is, I think we’re still scratching the surface.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, I mean, it’s so interesting like. Everybody’s productivity is, is more, is better now. And I’m sure people get more rest time because they can do more.

Um, but we are still, I mean, this is just starting out. I think. I mean, we, it’s, you have to wonder how things will turn out five years down the road. Sorry, I, my background went to, we fix that in a sec.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Oh no, you’re good. And while you’re doing that, I will just remind our listeners to check out Vision two Invention While the course is still free, I, um, I was doing it originally to get some beta testers in.

I got great advice and feedback from them. As a part of the process, I actually patent a new product and I show you all the steps that I’m using. So I needed a little bit of time to get my product ready too. It is a tennis related product if we do have any tennis stars out there. So just buy and use some time there.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: It’s okay. Uh, no, I did, I did see your tennis product. And by the way, some of, some of this, uh, I’ll edit out, so don’t worry about it. We don’t need to, um, worry about this. I’m just, yeah. But I did see your tennis product and, uh, oh, no, you, your, um, seems like you’re still in the invention process. You’re still working to create new products.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Well, it’s part of my teaching philosophy, um, is to demo the process for you so that you can learn from me doing, but also, so do you wanna ask the, oh, so also in, uh, teaching though, in demoing, I reinforce my knowledge of what I’ve learned.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. No, that’s great. Um, so AI is the innovative product or idea.

That’s awesome. Uh. The third one is a B business or productivity tool or software that you would recommend or a productivity tip.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Yeah, I mean, right now I was, I work with a lot of startups in the Seattle area and there’s one out now called Mebo, ME. P-E-B-O-S-S, which is a brand new tool for recruiting like high level managers and IT, and things like that.

And they go with a completely new recruiting philosophy where you’re able to connect almost instantly via phone and, and FaceTime potential employers, like you cut through all the cloud and the, the, the fluff, I like to say of the resumes. And now with AI, as we were just talking about, that’s one thing that I don’t really agree with.

We have AI reviewing resumes. We have AI writing resumes. Now we have res, like it’s missing some human touch when it comes to that realm. So this tool of being able to create a instant communication, imagine being at an event and while you’re at the event finding out about a job and don’t go anywhere.

Right here, hit your phone, go through an initial interview right now, like, oh my God. So I was just talking with them earlier in the week. I think it’s such a cool concept.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: That’s awesome. And I think, you know, job seeking has to evolve. I think if people are not doing, like, not having a social presence or don’t have like, some, uh, portfolio that they can show, I think it’s, it’s, it’s difficult because now everybody can write the best resume using ai.

Right. Um,

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: yep. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I think that’s a cool one.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: A startup or business and e-commerce, retail or tech that you think is currently doing great things? Another startup for business? Uh, I would

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: say yeah, probably the same as the last question. I would lump that in. I think they’re, they’re also in the startup category.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. Uh, a peer entrepreneur or business person whom you look up to or someone who inspires you.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Yeah, I would say, uh, Jason Beck, I mentioned him earlier on the show. He was the one that initially called me when we did the collegiate poker tour, and he needed someone by his side and he chose me. And so we’ve been designing businesses together ever since. He is now down in Houston designing some really neat things around clean energy.

So, um, from a mentor perspective, yeah, I’ve always looked up to him.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Final question, best business advice that you have ever received or you would give to other entrepreneurs?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Hmm, that’s a good one.

Mm-hmm.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: I mean, outside of what I used earlier on, turn your failures into your success. I think the best advice I could be is surround yourself. With the right people. It’s very interesting how one bad nut, especially when that nut is at the top of the pyramid, can derail an entire company, can derail the people underneath it.

Both inside of work and outside of work. So I think surrounding yourself and, and we’ve talked about it, I guess the, the word of a theme of today’s show is maintain those relationships. Um, but yes, I think ensuring that you surround yourself with the right people, especially when it comes to being an entrepreneur.

You’re gonna go through a lot and you’re gonna have those sleepless nights. And, and just like we were talking about, you may wake up wanting to throw the towel in. Who are you going to call? That’s gonna be your accountability buddy to pick that towel up and say, we ain’t done yet. And so that is very important to figure out,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: by the way, maintaining the relationship.

Like let’s say you meet someone at a networking event, how do you, I mean, people usually, or I have found usually in the past is like you connect with someone, maybe you exchange business cards. Um. Then it kind of fizzles out from there. Right? Like how do you, like, do you have a process of like who you want to build a relationship with and how do you build relationship over time?

Any, any advice?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Yeah, no, great question. And similar to I. What we’ve been discussing around, around value, kind of tying those two things together. And, and that’s another good piece of advice I like to give as a coach, is when you’re creating these relationships, start with the value that you can bring in that relationship, right?

And so, uh, obviously our brain immediately goes to like, boyfriend, girlfriend, what the hell are you giving me? But if you’re just meeting someone, getting to know what position they’re in and then saying, oh, okay, I am an invention coach. You’re going, you know, you’re crowdfunding. I’m able to bring this to the table, right?

What are you able to bring to the table? And, and it just might be me giving them some pieces of advice or maybe me describing what I need and what I’m going through and so on. So I think the lucidity of the relationship and just really expressing the value that you’re gonna be giving strengthens that bond, but also just weeds out who you wanna.

Further with like, it’s, it’s so easy to take your phone out, pull out LinkedIn QR code, connect right on the spot, and then you completely forget about it. I, I don’t talk to 99.9% of people that I’m on LinkedIn with, but at the same token, if I needed to get in contact with someone I’m connected with, it’s a fast way.

Okay. Longwinded answer.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: No, that’s a great answer. I mean, I’m always trying to find new ways of, you know, building relationships and finding value. So thank you so much, Craig, again, for your time, for sharing your story. And I know you’re working, as you’ve mentioned, you’re working on a new, uh, course and you’re patenting a new product and things like this.

If people want to, uh, check out your existing product, the air hook, or, you know, get in touch with about your, uh, invention product, what is the best way to do that?

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: I appreciate that and thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I would love to do a, a future episode. Maybe we should do like a half hour.

How, how are they doing episodes? Maybe with some of your past ones you can extend your, your, your podcast, um, uh, broadcast here, but no, definitely the air hook, A-I-R-H-O-O k.com is gonna be the best way to find out more on that product. I actually just recorded a new video from the airport, um, flying out to do tests on version three.

You can’t see it, but I have an airline seat right behind me. So in order that was more expensive than some of the 3D printer stuff.

Whoa. And

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: that was so that I didn’t have to get on an airplane and fly in order to test. That’s something when it comes to rapid prototyping, I. I was able to design quick, but test hello.

So knowing those variables. But anyhow, um, that’s the best way to get on there. Please sign up for our newsletter to be notified when we launch. We’re gonna be doing another Kickstarter, just like I said, I love the numbers, so feel free to sign up and be among those that get the best early bird discounts.

And now that’s another strategy that we go over in my online course is the use of Super Early Bird, which I’d love to give to your, to your listeners. And then Vision two, invention with the number two. Remember, it’s only free for another limited time, and then we’re gonna be charging unfortunately. So get in there, be a beta tester user while you still can.

Um, and that’s the best way for us to help you get your dreams, make them tangible, and then bring them to the world around us.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Craig, for, uh, coming on, for sharing your story and, uh, inspiring us. So thank you so much again, and wish you all the very best.

Craig Rabin of The Airhook: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me.