Derek Miller – Smart Passive Income

Derek Miller, Genius Lab Gear

GeniusLabGear.com
@GeniusLabGear is on Instagram, Twitter, tick tock, Pinterest, Facebook

What was your dream career as a child?

I always wanted to be an astronaut (just like everyone else?).

Describe the moment you decided to become an entrepreneur.

I always wanted to be an entrepreneur because my father consistently planted the idea in my mind of whatever I was trying to do at the time. In science, this is not common and not easy at all. I actually decided to do this when I was working very late in the lab and saw a small piece of plastic someone had taped to a jar to help organize the containers in the fume hood. I’ve realized that laboratories are designed to do mostly technical work, and are rarely designed with the user in mind, which is a constant source of frustration. I wanted to design helpful tools to find these small frustrations and fix them

What drives you to work?

Our world is facing many problems right now, and we will need every STEM researcher to solve them. But many drop out of research because of frustrating experiences and cultural issues. By helping them love, not hate, their labs, I can help them stay in research and have a significant impact on progress toward these grand challenges.

What is the most exciting thing you are doing in your business right now?
One of the biggest frustrations most researchers face on a daily basis is their lab coats. Lab coats designed with scientists (not doctors) in mind will have the greatest impact on how researchers feel about their work in the lab. I started the Lab Coat Project to lead the scientific community in designing their own lab coats. With over 1500 survey responses, we used the data to crowdsource the design Now, we’re about to launch a pre-order to crowdfund the first manufacturing run. The response from the prototype has been fantastic, so I think this lab coat will have a real impact on the lives of thousands of scientists.

What does entrepreneurship mean to you?
This means that you can finally share your most unique combination of skills and abilities with the world. It’s almost impossible to build a business from scratch that isn’t a fingerprint of your personality and talent area. When you’re in a specific role for another company, you have guardrails about what you can do and how you can do it.

The mastermind we created was something I was missing in my life until now.

What led you to SPI Pro?
I started listening to the SPI podcast around 2018. After watching many videos on make money fast about dropshipping retail arbitrage Pat had a fresh take on life and business that resonated with me. After 4 years of being an entrepreneur and realizing that none of my friends wanted to hear about it anymore, I decided I needed to find more like-minded friends to talk shop with. I wasn’t having much success locally, and at that point Pat started talking about the pro community on the podcast. He finally got to me with the urgency that the community was approaching a membership cap. Works every time!

What is your most powerful interaction or learning moment in the community?

The mastermind we created was something I was missing in my life until now. It’s a great place to bounce ideas off and people can tell me things I don’t want to hear. They help me keep a pulse on trends and new tools which has been extremely helpful.

Pros tend to gather people who are very passionate, vision driven and morally grounded. This is a group that can help put me on the right path to growing my business.

What role has SPI Pro played in your business?

When you look back 5 or 10 years and realize that you were living in a very small box and everything was blurry? And now you feel like you’ve cut a hole in the wall of that box and entered a clearly lit, much larger box? Going from high school to college, from college to grad school, to my first job in grad school, and now back to being a silent entrepreneur running 1000’s of different businesses like myself, I’ve felt that way. I’m sure I’m still in a box, but it’s pretty big and it might be a while until I have to cut a new hole in the wall.

What do you like most about SPI Pro and what sets SPI’s community apart from other entrepreneurial communities?
I was hesitant to join because my business is eCommerce and I assumed most professionals were into online courses or coaching. That turned out to be true. But after a few weeks I realized that my biggest business growth areas weren’t just in ecommerce—things like logistics, inventory, or advertising. I need to be big on email marketing, building superfans, storytelling and content marketing. I even want to build a community to support my mission. Doing these things well will help my business and brand stand out from all the other ecommerce sellers who are too focused on ROAS and the color of their website buttons. Pros tend to gather people who are very passionate, vision-driven and morally grounded. This is a group that can help put me on the right path to growing my business.

What would you say to encourage non-community entrepreneurs to join one?
Measuring ROI is probably impossible. And it takes extra time. But the leverage you get for your time spent is greater than any single task you could do at the same time, and will ensure your path toward the strongest version of your business, not just the one you currently have in front of you.

If you were to start a brand new online business from scratch today, what would it be?
I will start a dedicated community for scientists and make it my full time focus. The community will be meant for scientists to help each other with tools, techniques, tips, careers, mental health and coping with the research environment.

If you had your start current Starting over today in business again, would you do one thing differently?
I would probably adopt a content-first or creator approach, still with the same mission of finding ways to make research more enjoyable. If my following is big enough, I might think about adding some physical products. Fulfilling my second bedroom orders for three years was rough and put a lot of restrictions on my vacations.

If you were given $1 million today, with no strings attached, what would you do with it?

I will just move quickly with my business. I’m often frustrated by inventory costs and want to keep my risk low, so I add inventory incrementally and launch new products as money becomes available. This will give me the green light to take a few big leaps that will get this business where I want it to be a few years from now, and it will help more scientists soon.