Finally! someone is listening: A case study of the La Mansio
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”
– Peter Drucker
In the entire 8000 plus days, a million minutes and 756 million minutes I’ve spent breathing air and dumping shits, never have I ever
- Cared about laptop bags
- Watched a YouTube Ad till the end, most especially one as long as 3 minutes
- Googled a business I discovered from a YouTube ad
But here I am, writing about a brand I found from a YouTube ad which I clicked, watched till the end and then googled.
So what exactly is La Mansio and why does it seem like it could be a great product?
La Mansio is a single but multipurpose women’s bag with so many built in functionalities, straps and zippers which helps transform it into a hand bag, a laptop case or a camera and travel bag.
It’s creators, a team of three women, (Bianca, Lavia and Kate) say on their all their platforms that they designed it from the over 1000 feedbacks they got.
Though it seems to me like they’re still in beta stage, their kickstart campaign to raise eleven thousand dollars ($11,000) for production has successfully raised over a million dollars and counting.
You might be thinking, okay, it’s just a bag that shape shifts but it’s not. For years, patriarchy has dictated how women present themselves. Granted that there weren’t a lot of working women some 200 years ago and designers felt there was no true need for big or wide bags (still ridiculous by the way) but even in this new are of smart phones and tech, pop culture continues to encourage women to exist for desirability, style and color not practicality.
What this means is that there’s a wider range of women who carry tiny purses their phones, ID, and tablets would never fit in than women who use big and functional bags. It’s almost like designers don’t expect that women, just like men also use or need to carry devices, ID’s keys and chains around.
This are the issues. Bigger bags are often viewed as ugly and less cute. I guess that’s not a great thing for the male gaze (*rolls eyes) and smaller bags although more colorful and helpful in enhancing a woman's beauty aren’t in any way practical or functional enough for the 21st century women with active lifestyles.
Side Note: Women can’t win
This is why La Mansio seems like a perfectly versatile product I won’t stop yapping about. It’s not just that it’s a bag. It’s a carefully crafted women’s bag these three women have come up with by listening and iterating.
Imagine speaking to 1000 people before creating or building your product? That’s a lifetime of actionable data and feedback.
Feedback that’ll help you solve a problem and build a product a half of the worlds population have been complaining about. And that’s what solving should really about. Not valuations or funding or competitors but actual solving!
It feels to me like finally! Someone is listening to women! and isn’t that what your prospects are asking? That you listen to them before and as you build instead of carelessly producing for and marketing to them? Another great part about the team? They didn’t just stop at creating this product.
They also figured out distribution. I guess it’s a practical case of how it’s never enough to just build great products without an even greater distribution strategy. If it wasn’t for their killer product showcase video and YouTube ad(which is all the content and distribution they seem to they have at the moment), I who’s currently typing in Nigeria would never have heard of this product which is clearly not in Nigeria.
Key takeaways for building great products that solve age old problems
1. Let your prospects guide you with feedbacks: Along with research, customer feedback is necessary. Speak to the people you’re trying to solve for, get to know them, their experiences and expectations and use those feedbacks to deliver a kickass product.
2. Distribution is also key: Great products are important. But what’s distribution like? How do you want to create awareness for people in other cities? Online ads? Influencer marketing? Content marketing? Figure that out early along with the angle you’re gunning for.
3. Take your prospects through your journey with storytelling: Great products only sell themselves with the right story. Lay yourself bare to your prospects. Help them understand that you didn’t just wake up one day and it happened. Tell them how much work you put in, how much listening you had to do before coming up with the final product. If possible, tell them the number of times you had to rework on it e.g ( we got feedback from 200 prospects, we worked on over 15 models of this product). Your prospects are humans just like you. They’re emotional and averse to rigidity, they love behind the scenes. Give them!
Wherever these three women are, I want them to know they’re now my heroes and mentors. And when I’m experienced enough to pick up problems to solve, I’ll always think of them and the kind of magic they’ve created with La mansio.
I also hope they can fulfil production and product distribution strategies now that it seems like they’ve exceeded their initial number of productions.
In all, I’m rooting for you queens.
