How He Turned a Tattoo Idea Into a Viral Product | Episode 19 with Corbin Briggs

0:00Chris Cruz:What if the thing that nearly broke your business is actually the thing that made it take off? Corbin Briggs didn't have investors. He wasn't a tech bro. He was a tattoo artist. But what he did have was an obsession with design, a gut read on his customers, and the courage to shut off all ads when stakes were at their highest. In this episode, we unpack how Corbin went from DIY prototypes in his garage to a$100 ,000 a month product that's gaining the attention of top-level tattoo artists and helping newcomers enter the craft in ways like never before. You'll hear how he handled copycats, the process of product development, and how he actually leveraged social media virality to build this brand.

0:40Chris Cruz:This is Anatomy of a Brand, where every week I talk with people shaping culture, founders, marketers, entrepreneurs, and creatives, to uncover what drives great brands forward. so yours never settles. This is episode 19 with Illumino Heart Inc. founder Corbin Briggs. This is a unique one. This is fun. It's a different product that I'm excited to dive in with you. I want you to do something for me though, an exercise here that you weren't prepared for. It wasn't something I set you up with, but I'd love to be able to, before we dive into your product, anytime we've had a product-based brand on the podcast, I love to ask them, can you describe the company without describing the product?

1:17Chris Cruz:Could you tell me what it is that your brand is without describing the actual thing your brand does or the product your brand offers? So if you were to describe what you guys are, no, that's why I'm not saying your name either because it has some employment, some implications in that. So I'd love for you to say, Hey, this is, if I had to describe us without saying what we actually do and what product we offer, this is how I would describe us. Sure. Uh, I would say the, the brand is kind of like doing what makes your heart come alive or creating what makes your heart come alive. Um, okay. Yeah.

1:51I love that. Does that answer the question?

1:54Chris Cruz:That's great. Yeah, bro. That's that work is it. And did that, did that kind of concept that of doing what makes your heart come alive or what your heart has been dreaming doing that kind of work? Has that been, um, for you kind of a common thread before you even created this product product? Like it was a lot of how you thought about things and saw the world. Yeah, absolutely. I always had a hard time working at like a nine to five. I actually worked at Dutch Bros for a little bit and that was fun. Everybody who works at Dutch Bros goes, and that was fun. Yeah, it was a fun job. But, you know, anywhere else I worked, it was just like, man, this sucks.

2:35I wouldn't, I want to just work for myself, but I don't really know what that looks like. And, um, and so, yeah, I'm Michael. My whole thought is like, why, why would you spend your time, your most valuable asset doing something that you hate or don't love? You might as well be doing it, uh, spending your time doing something that makes your heart come alive.

2:59Chris Cruz:So, yeah, love that. And for you, creativity, we'll get into what your product is and where you'll explain it. creativity seems like to be a part of your life for a long time or like where you were, where you were like an artist as a kid or no, was it like, nah, not really. This came later in life. No, I always did some sort of art and it was, it was always in seasons. So I, it was, you know, graffiti at one time it was, um, so you were talking vandalism, you out there tagging streets, uh, trains, you're that guy. my mom didn't know but i'd like hide like the spray paint cans down the street and sneak out at night and and then let's go and then hide them at a different location so your mom couldn't find them and then you'd go and sneak out and go pick them up where you stored them yeah that's awesome she knew that i had like drew graffiti but she like on paper she didn't know that i actually like tagged stuff so sometimes and she knew my tag so sometimes i made it too obvious and i did like have to go back and like spray over that's awesome go past the spot too much so you're like whoa that was too obvious mom almost caught me in that one i put my tag too obvious yeah that's awesome all right so tell us tell us what the product is that you developed and you created sure explain it to us so um i was a tattoo artist for a short time only two years um and i was um self-taught which is really looked really on in traditional tattooing um yeah there's there's quite a quite a tattooing i have my whole arm is done so tattooing has some real like tradition in it sometimes and when there's innovators they don't always like no innovators yeah i'm accepted now my products in the beginning people did not like it but um so yeah I was self-taught and that came with a lot like I have so many tattoos on my legs and they're not great I have like I have one on my arm that I just like hate and so um but it's I don't really trip over it's like it is what it yeah but yeah so I think one thing that I was maybe lacking in starting out was just like how how to hold a tattoo machine how it works like understanding understanding how it works like when you start you don't know anything and I do highly recommend getting an apprenticeship if you're starting out but um anyways that's kind of where the idea came from and I had also seen some other tattoo artists kind of doing concepts of what I invented.

5:45Basically, I'll tell you what the product is and kind of how it came about. Yeah, let's go. But I actually have it right here. So this is what a tattoo cartridge looks like. And instead of there being a needle on the inside, it's a ballpoint pen. Okay. So you can take like a tattoo machine, put it in your tattoo machine. and when you turn it on um turn it on okay it moves up and down i don't know if you can see that yeah yeah yeah yeah the needle so bro that sound alone that sound alone my whole body is

6:18Chris Cruz:just like i feel like i'm about to lay down because i'm like someone's about to put a tattoo on me yeah that's funny yeah um so basically it allows you to create really cool stipple artwork so you have like oh wow stuff like that um okay you can create flash sheets and uh which flash sheets are something like if you walk into a tattoo shop they'll have flash sheets that you can look through and choose tattoo designs that you want to get tattooed or you'll use a flash sheet to get an apprenticeship you'll show them these this artwork you created so they know what your style is so you can do that and then there's also a practice element to it where you can practice lining whip shading dot work and like there's a there's a relationship to like the the machine settings and how fast your hand is moving it's the voltage and your hand speed and so you can kind of get a a handle on that too and understand how they're related um one one big uh thing that people complain about is like oh but it doesn't teach you needle depth and needle depth is what you need to like figure out how to get the ink properly in the skin because if you go too deep it blows out if you don't go deep enough it doesn't stay um and yeah obviously you can't learn that on paper yeah you actually can't learn that on fake skin either so yeah that's a challenge regardless it's a challenge regardless um and you're only going to learn that tattooing real skin so i'm like you might as well get a handle on these things before tattooing someone for real.

7:58So that's the product. Did you want me to kind of explain?

8:02Chris Cruz:Well, let me ask you a question in that process. How did something like this not exist? Dude, that was my thought when I thought of it. And actually, it came with a bit of anxiety when I had the idea because I'm like, it's such a good idea. Why has no one made it? And so, yeah, But then I'm like, I don't know. I feel like I'm supposed to be the one to make this. I'm going to go for it. Well, you have that thing where they talk about when founders are sitting there, they have blue ocean. Either nobody's done it because it's blue ocean and it's time for someone to create it and there's no competitors because it's just too hard.

8:40Chris Cruz:And people have said, forget it. I'm not going to dare try. And you were like, I'm going to try. And there's others that are like, hey, no one's done it because it doesn't work. But you're like, you know what? I think there's something there. I'm going to create it. the and you started to figure out and toy with this like what from when you saw the problem and that it didn't exist what was what was happening and that how did you go from this like idea phase to maybe prototyping what was your journey there yeah so i had the idea as soon as i had the idea i ran into my office and took some i took some needle cartridges some ballpoint pens and started like taking it apart to see if it could actually work.

9:22And, um, I'm like, Oh my gosh, this can totally work. Like this should be pretty simple to do actually. Okay. Um, and so I have this funny video of the first one I ever made. It looks like garbage. Um, but it like worked

9:36Chris Cruz:and you don't have a history of doing anything like this, right? Like you're not at home tinkering with like inventing products and creating products. This is you going like, Hey, as a tattoo artist, I know the machine I use and I think this could work. I'm going to duct tape this thing together and see if it, if it does it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. No, no Tony Stark over here. Yeah. So I did that. And, and then kind of the steps in the creative process were first I made a few samples like that just to see if like it could work. I'm like, all right, this can be a thing. I just need, I need like a 3d model.

10:14so um are you familiar with fiverr yeah so i got on fiverr and i found someone who uh could make me a 3d model in okay okay yeah and so i think it was like 80 bucks and i didn't have money at the time either so i'm like i have this idea how do i how do i like when i when i get to the point where i can get this manufactured how am i gonna pay for it but I'm like, I don't know. I, I just felt like I, this was my thing to do. So I'm like, I'm just, the money will come, I guess. So, um, I, yeah, I just started taking like the steps that I could think of to do. And that was like, the next step was making 3d model.

10:58Next step after that got made was like, all right, I need to print this like on a 3d printer. So I put on my Instagram story, I'm like, is there anybody in town who has a 3D printer?

11:10Chris Cruz:I love that you went to 3D printing for it and versus thinking like, I'm going to go get this professionally made. You're like, no, I can get scrappy still and just get this 3D printed. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I looked into that and it's like an absurd amount of money. And I don't think I need that, nor do I have the funds to pay for it. I love it. So then you got somebody with a 3D printer to help you make the first model of it? yeah my my friend and he actually knew how to use cad so he he kind of helped me tweak the design a bit um and we printed off a bunch of different samples and like yeah it was really fun actually it was a really fun time like i the video looking back on the videos it's fun to see that that's another tip of mine actually is take videos of the process because you're gonna when you get to like the finish point or yeah the thing you're gonna want to look back and see yeah all those fun fun yeah bro that's real that's real documenting all that stuff at those early stages pays off later when you can even just refer back to it so you started to you started making this prototype you made the prototype you're you you have a a 3d printed version of this thing but still you're just in you're just in tinkering land you're still like testing this out yourself right and it's it hasn't gone from we have our product working um where were the hurdles did you immediately go like this this is going to take off like were you immediately like so obsessed with it and going this is going to work or were you immediately like i don't know still like i don't know if this is going to work what was your honest take after you started tinkering around with the 3d printed version um no i definitely was like this is going to work like it's too easy i'm like we have we planes in the sky like it's gotta be of course this can be made um but the funny thing is when i after that phase it was like all right i need to find a manufacturer so i i started looking and there was i got told by several different ones that i could it couldn't be done and i don't know why i didn't think of this but i didn't ask tattoo suppliers first i should have started there i was just asking like manufacturers who make 3d or who make um molds okay um and i should have just started with the tattoo interesting yeah you should have gone to the tattoo industry first and see what they were oh wow that's a good call out so kind of like realizing like your industry itself might have some good intel on how to develop this product further and yeah that that would be another tip too is like if you can you want to get ip protection you want to get intellectual property protection and and figure out how you can protect your ideas so i mean i would suggest even talking to a lawyer before that step just because because you ran into something it sounds like you're talking from a place of like on the line i did but i'm just thinking like if i could go back i would talk to someone earlier to figure out like i shouldn't be saying this or i shouldn't be talking to these people or i should have this document whatever it was yeah um yeah so anyways i i started talking to these manufacturers and i i worked with one for like a whole year okay and and it was like issue after issue that we get to i'd like kind of give them the information they needed to get past that and then at some point after a year it got to like hey um i can't solve this problem like i don't think i don't think you guys can make it which was super disheartening for me yeah um because i just spent a whole year yeah a whole year my time trying to get this paid and it just came to nothing so i actually i like put it down for three weeks and during that time um uh my wife my sister-in-law and my friend Michaela um Shepler not your Michaela they all woke up on the same day and felt like they they heard God tell them business together um fascinating like uh separately and separately uh they called each other and they're like um they're kind of freaking out and they're like all right I guess this I guess this means like we need to do something so they start looking for a product and um and that was during the three weeks that I wasn't working and you're like I got something guys well I didn't think of that yet it wasn't the time I guess so uh yeah like towards the end of that three weeks my wife is sitting in the living room telling her brother hey we this crazy thing happened and we're looking for a product and and I'm sitting in the kitchen drawing or something and I can't remember what I was doing and then it hit me I'm like oh my gosh guys you need to take my product and I like freaked out he tells them they're like let's do it like this seems like what we're supposed to do and the other cool thing was my sister-in-law her day job was sourcing products interesting which was part of like, Oh my gosh, I don't know why I didn't ask you sooner.

16:29Yeah. But I don't know,

16:31Chris Cruz:like, yeah, just works that way. Sometimes I mean, it was perfect. So, um, anyways, yeah. So we all start working together. That's my sister-in-law gets me two samples or I think it was three samples from three manufacturers within two months. Um, wow. The process you were taking so long to get to you get the one key person on your team and you get it in like a couple months there's there is some wisdom there yes that's another thing i've learned along the way um find people who like stick to what you're good at and find people who are better than you at yeah wow um but so yeah she got me samples within two months and then and then a month later we had our first order.

17:20So within three months of starting to work together.

17:22Chris Cruz:Were you testing it out though? Like, were you, were you just like, no, dude, this is going to work. I don't need to do any kind of like market testing. I don't need to have anybody look at this. I just know because of my experience and I think this is going to work. And so you just, you didn't go like, Hey, I'm going to take this to 20 different people who do this and see what they think of it. You're like, nah, dude, I got enough insight. I'm good. Yep. That's, that's kind of how it was. So there's a little bit of like, you're like, I'm a little bit naive to be like, let's go. And then a little bit like, Hey man, I don't know what I don't know.

17:51Chris Cruz:I'm breaking the rules. So I'm just doing this thing. I mean, this is the first time I like ever done anything like that. So I don't know the rules of, or I don't know the steps. I don't know. Oh, it's so good though. Um, and I was just so certain, like, um, I just knew that this was like my thing to do. And, and so I didn't have, I didn't have any thoughts like this isn't going to work i just i know it's gonna work it's my thing to do like i'm gonna go for this so wow like so you get your prototypes done you get your next stage of manufacturing done you take how many orders were you in your first order oh do you remember that i think the first round of inventory was like was only like seven thousand dollars it wasn't very much money um but then how How many actual cartridge tips, things did you?

18:45I can't remember. Okay.

18:46Chris Cruz:So it's all right. In that process, I want to ask you another question there, actually. So you're going, okay. Because I think this is a key part for a lot of people who build a good product. And they're in this process. They believe in their product. Their product is good. They themselves have tested it. Whatever way they get to that confidence. For you, it was this constant reassurance. Like, this is going to work. For other people, they need to do X, Y, and Z to get that assurance. So you have this assurance that this is going to work, but then you have to figure out, all right, not only do I have a good product to have a good idea now that works, but now I got to get it in front of people.

19:18Chris Cruz:I got to start taking this into a company and a brand so that it actually has legs on it. And it's not just a product. What was that step for you? How did you go from going, I got to kill a product to now we have a, something that wraps it, holds it. And now we're going to get people to know about it. What was that process like for you? Yeah, I think it was a few different things. And, and it wasn't really until last year in October. It's almost a year ago. And you're roughly three years old as a brand. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't say like, like up until a year ago, we kind of really found out who we are as a brand and like how to be successful as a brand.

20:01But before that, in the beginning, I had other friends who had e-commerce businesses. And, and so I was kind of just getting advice from them on how to, um, how to market yourself and be a brand. And so I just, I'm like, all right, I guess I get, I like, I didn't really know what that meant. You know what I mean? Like, how do I, how do I sell this thing? And that meant running Facebook ads for me at the time. And, um, and just filming content, posting it and see what, seeing what happens. and then kind of like taking whatever did well and trying to reiterate and make different forms of that content.

20:46But yeah, as far as like brand identity, I don't really think I had a clear picture of what that looked like until a year ago. And I think a big key part of that is storytelling. um like you know i wanted to be a i wanted to be a tattoo artist and i had no idea how to get there and then letting people kind of see see themselves using your product and um and where were you doing this you were just doing this on your own personal social um on the on the business's instagram okay uh-huh and and making content also that people are like wow i want to i want to draw like that Like I want to, I want to create cool artwork on paper like that too.

21:33Where can I find this product?

21:34Chris Cruz:Where can you find this product? Yeah. Okay. We're going to, I want to dive into that because when we look at branding, we look at it holistically. Our, our, our perspective here with, that's why with the show is called anatomy of a brand is because we look at all these different elements that feed into a brand. And we look at content as the way that this brand invites and spreads its idea and going, okay, here's how, when you look at content, this is the strategy and the tactic you use to spread your idea and your product to the right people. to bring them into your tribe. So when, when you started using social to do that, was that, what was that process like?

22:06Chris Cruz:Did you, um, did you already have like, oh man, I've done a bunch of stuff on social media and it's, it's blown up in the past. Cause you've had a bunch of different moments on social with, with your brand Illumino that you have gotten millions of views on stuff. So it's worked. I have some other questions for you about that, but were you already doing a bunch of Instagram stuff on your own that you just took that knowledge over? Or were you like, nah, with this brand, I'm starting from scratch and I'm just going to start toying with stuff. Yeah. So I have another business that it's completely different niche of people.

22:42And so I kind of had an idea of like how to make organic content that people liked, but it was like a completely different type of content I was making. And so I really didn't know how to, I knew that it was possible to, to make something viral. Um, but I didn't know like what the sauce, what the, what the ingredients were for this, uh, niche of people. And, and, um, actually pretty early on, I had, um, content that, that did really well. Like I think our third video got a million views, third video ever got a million views. Um, on like Instagram, saying no followers um and then as time has gone on i've kind of figured out like what what works

23:27Chris Cruz:and what doesn't what works and what doesn't talk us through that like how did you what was the stuff that you did that you're like hey this is some of the ways i looked at our product because i think so many product-based companies just feature their product in cool lighting or they do cool like shoots with their product they still don't understand how content delivers differently what's your take on content what's your philosophy how do you look at content as a product-based brand uh-huh well the the nice thing about my product is that it's super easy to film being used like i can go in my room and put a piece of paper down and turn my phone on and start filming immediately and there's so many other people too who also can do the same like it's a very easily uh filmed product and people want to show their artwork they're making so the affiliate side of this was super easy.

24:17The content that I was creating, there's a few elements that I found are like key ingredients. And one is going to be like the visual aspect, like you want it to look good, obviously. I don't I typically don't have any clip go longer than like two seconds. and in every clip I'm zooming in, panning to the left, zooming out. So there's always something visually happening and it's short. So the time really matters. And the very first few seconds of every video is really, it's the most important because you want to like, you know, get the person engaged immediately. Otherwise they're going to keep scrolling.

25:05The next, the other key ingredient is the um the audio so i have like super asmr heavy videos so like every aspect of that is is engaging and interesting and and you know it catches your ears it catches your eyes and and you see yourself using this product if you're an artist you're like wow that's sick like i don't have to steal things by hand anymore i can i can have this machine and like oh i can learn how to tattoo using this machine too and it also is like i could create flash art that i could use to get my apprenticeship as well um so i yeah i don't know if that answers the question yeah well so what when you i think a lot of brands they're like they they hunt for virality one and it's

25:54Chris Cruz:not always the best tactic but they'll hunt for virality um and then they they don't really quite understand the game of content but there was you understood from the get-go that there was some level of your business will grow because your content. Yeah. There was some kind of like connection there for you. Yeah. The question, the question I have though, is did, did it actually, is that the main way you drove your product revenue is through that? Did that actually happen? Did content convert to sales? Yes, absolutely. Um, yeah. So like I said, a year ago, up until a year ago, we just ran Facebook ads and that was what was like actually causing our, our business to like, we ended, we kept ending every month in so much debt and it was so frustrating.

26:40Chris Cruz:Cause you're spending all this meta money. You're spending all this money on meta ads. You're like, what? It's not converting your return on ad spend isn't happening. Yes. And, and like, again, this is my first time. I don't really know. And I've hired, I've hired a professional too. So like, it's not like, I don't know what's going on. Like, I, I, I mean, I don't really fully know what's going on. I've hired someone who, you know, supposedly knows what they're doing and he did he's a he's a great guy I've actually hired him again but um that was what was putting us in debt and and I didn't realize it but in end of September last year beginning of October we turned our ads off completely because I just really felt like we're only supposed to focus on organic content and it was pretty scary because I didn't know anyone else who just only relied on organic marketing to drive sales.

27:30But I'm like, I, it was that feeling again of like, I just know this is what I have to do. And I know it's going to work. I don't like, I can, I just know.

27:40Chris Cruz:I love it, man. I love it. Yeah. And so we turned our ads off and within the first month we, we profited$18 ,000 and we hadn't, we hadn't made a profit it in like nine months. Uh, we just, hold on pause, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause. So you turn off the ad spend, right? You do counterintuitive to what a lot of people would tell just, Hey, just run Google ads, meta ads, or Facebook ads. And you're going to get this return on ad spend. Your product is worth this much. So if you spend this much money, it's a no brainer, but you're not seeing those, that, that dollar amount line up to what you're spending.

28:14Chris Cruz:You then say, I'm going to go double down organic social. Did you start creating more organic social? Did you increase the volume? Did you just stop doing ads and just kept the same pace? Did you change anything after you turned off the ad? Yeah, so I did a few things. I only three things. I turned off my ads. I fired all my contractors because we had a lot of overhead from all our contractors. and I only focused on organic content. Um, and, um, yeah, so kind of crazy. It was really counterintuitive. Um, but, uh, I just started pumping out videos and, uh, and they started getting traction and I, I really was not sure how it was going to do.

29:02Um, I, and the reason I, When we got rid of all our contractors and all that, our overhead was super low. It didn't cost a lot to run the business. So I didn't have to make too much to keep the business afloat. But we made far beyond what I projected. And then every month after that, we only made more. And within three months, all the debt we had had from Facebook ads was paid off. Um, and so we were able to start paying for all our inventory by ourselves. Like we actually were profitable so we could take money and get paid, which was amazing. I didn't get paid. I didn't get paid up until, um, really like consistently paid until this July.