The Secret Behind Jonathan Katz-Moses Sold-Out Product Line + Slow Ventures Investment

0:00That day I sold 27 jigs that I all handmade and I felt like I'd climbed Mount Everest. It was one of the coolest moments of my life and it was like a drug. I wanted to share my journey on YouTube and teach.

0:13Ian Shepherd:In the latest episode of The Business of Creators, I speak to Jonathan Katz-Moses about his inspirational journey as a content creator and his highly successful product company. It's led me to where I am today with over 150 plus products that I've created, invented, patented. Many of them, more than two thirds of them are manufactured right here in our 33 ,000 square foot facility. The feedback of being a creator is so much better than any company could ever get because I get comments. I get direct messages. I answer the same questions day in and day out. And so it's very simple to say, here's what people are unsure about.

0:46And here's something I could bring in that makes them confident in a buying decision because I've recommended it.

0:50Ian Shepherd:Plus, Billy Parks from Slow Ventures also joins us and explains why they've invested$2 million into the business. I also think something is great signal when a creator has like built actually a supply chain and has actually built their own warehouse and has actually, you know, achieved velocity with product sales. That is signal for us at Slow where it's like, hey, look what this guy's built. Like, that's not easy. And if they can do that and we think that there's like a lot of room to grow, it really shows the initiative. This is an episode that takes you inside a killer content creator business and the investment powering the next chapter.

1:33Ian Shepherd:so Jonathan let's start can you tell us all about the background to the business well you know about I don't know 12 years ago or so I was a bartender I had a construction company I had a company that put up Christmas lights and I was sort of in a hamster wheel of things that did not fulfill me and I happened to be getting off a bar shift one night and was walking my dog and stopped a bunch of gang members from killing a couple. And I paid very dearly with my health. And I had this moment where I woke up on the pavement, covered in blood and surrounded by police and paramedics, and really was one of the lowest points of my life.

2:13But realizing I had lived through this and coming to terms with that over the next couple of weeks made me realize how short life was. And I'd had this dream of making things my entire life. I'd always been into it When I was 14, I started my first business building car stereo speakers and installing them two years before I was allowed to drive here in California. And I was always into it. And so I just said, screw it. I walked away from everything. I left it all behind. I gave, you know, my company had 50 employees. We're a big construction company. I hated it. I just gave it to my partner. I walked with the, you know, basically the shirt on my back, as you say, and said, I'm going to make things.

2:51And I bought some tools and I took a 120 square foot shed that was on at my house and ran power cords out of the house to the shed to power tools and started building things. And it was pretty shortly thereafter that I invented my first product and thought it was cool. And I had no money. I mean, I was I was maxing out credit cards and and I said, well, I want to tell people about this. But at the time, I thought that the regular person didn't have any power and that only mega corporations could launch products. And so I said, you know what, I'll post a YouTube video. I'll share a YouTube video and see if people like it.

3:27And that day I sold 27 jigs that I all handmade and I felt like I'd climbed Mount Everest. It was one of the coolest moments of my life. And it was like a drug. I just, I wanted to share my journey on YouTube and teach. And being involved in a really active community was so just vibrant and fulfilling for me. And so it was just incredible to get that first hit. And it was something I've been chasing forever. And it's led me to where I am today with, you know, over 150 plus products that I've created, invented, patented. Many of them, more than two thirds of them are manufactured right here in our 33 ,000 square foot facility.

4:05So in a matter of 10 years, we've gone from 120 square foot shed where I did everything to this 33 ,000 square foot facility, now 15 plus full time employees, along with another half dozen really awesome fractional remote employees. And it's been a really incredible journey.

4:25Ian Shepherd:I mean, that is just an incredible story. And I'm excited to unpack it and learn more about the business. And you've reached a new milestone with the business now with the investment from Slow Ventures. So why now the time to raise capital? Well, as you know, we've bootstrapped this business from day one. We're profitable, no debt, and we've been working really, really hard. A really important person to me, one of my mentors, said to me a few years ago, I said, well, I want to grow really fast. And he said, well, I don't know that now is the time. The only reason that you would want to raise money is if you can't survive without it or you are leaving money on the table.

5:01and we've gotten to the point where we've grown two to three times every year for 10 years and we started to get to the point where i'm choosing which products to let go out of stock so we can take the money from that and invest it in new development and then we you know do the new development we got to bring let other things go out of stock so we can reinvest in that inventory and we're delaying key hires and we're just there's there's so much more that i can bring to this world with just a little bit more gasoline on the fire. So it really now seemed like the right time to do it because I felt like we hit a glass ceiling as far as operational capital went.

5:39Ian Shepherd:It's absolute sense. I've run a consumer products business and I know how hard working capital is to maintain that. So what convinced you that slow are the right partners? You know, I've been down this road before. I think when I heard about the slow creator fund, I applied. I kept expectations low because, you know, you get your heart broken over and over and you realize that this is a world where you need to catch the right people at the right time and be in the right place in your business. But all of any serious offer in the past had come with a caveat that I was unwilling to do, which was give up some control.

6:12And I think that I bet on myself too many times in 10 years and one to say I'm ready to give up the reins or to check in with somebody. And one of the things that I loved about meeting Billy is from day one, he was like, look, man, we don't we don't want we just want to let you cook. We want to just be here to support you. We're here to invest in you. We're not investing in just your company. We think that you as a creator, as an entrepreneur, have something special and we're going to let you do it. And we just want to be here to support you. And I thought that was really important.

6:41Ian Shepherd:Good to hear. And Billy, what stood out for you in those early conversations? yeah i mean i think from the story that you've heard from jonathan about how he you know he's very much a serial entrepreneur he's been building businesses and letting them go and trying new things and taking lots of different shots on goal and he had built an amazing audience that really trusted him and loved him and we did a lot of interviews with super fans of his and people that had commented on him you know lots of all the wood blogs and the you know people who are learning how to build this or build that or reviewing tools like all had great things to say about him you look at the you look at a list on uh you know reddit a reddit post or one of the wood forums about like some tool that he had made or some jig that he had made and you know he always came up on the list of like oh you should check out this guy's tools you should check out this guy's channel like you know jonathan katz moses so kind of like won't lead you in the wrong direction so very clear that there was like a passionate audience that was following him and he was like amongst the the top creators that were always mentioned in these blogs and then yeah you meet him and you're like hey this guy's like wants to build a massive business so i think like when we kind of like meet creators and we kind of consider investment opportunities or considering backing folks like we say to ourselves like hey is this person going to do everything they can to win and continue to take shots on goal even when they get beat up and so a lot of questions we asked were like, okay, man, what was the, what were the biggest mistakes you made?

8:10Not shy about them. No ego about it. Like, Hey, listen, man, I over-ordered this thing because it killed on black Friday on this day. And now it's still sitting in my warehouse collecting dust. Um, you know, like that's, that's what being an entrepreneur is. And so it really fit. It really checked all the boxes. I think we think of things in like team and theme where it's like, is this market interesting? Like thematically, like, is this a place where you can see a big business growing where people where you can see this going from zero dollars or five million dollars or ten million dollars a year to a hundred million dollars like is there does it feel like this is a place where people are spending time energy money and then team and team is generally one person which is the creator like are they resilient can they hire people do they have interesting stories about hiring people from nothing and bringing them into like key roles in their organization over years Like these are all things that show that there's an entrepreneur there, not just a creator.

9:07Ian Shepherd:That makes absolute sense. Well, let's talk more about the products, Jonathan. So can you tell us, I believe 70 % of the revenue comes from your products now. Was that by design or how has it evolved over time? Certainly. I think the key thing that got me to like really take this business seriously was I kept creating products. And it's a slow process. Development can be a year or two. and you sell these things, but then you're sending people off platform to buy things that go with it. Right. So I have this signature tool apron that you'll see in many, many of my videos. And I released that and we sold 12 ,000 of those in the first video.

9:46It was such a massive success. But then underneath that apron, there's three other links. It's like, go here to buy the square that goes in the leather thing. Go here to buy the marking knife. And I look at, you know, we track, We've tracked data since day one, emails and links. And so I look where everyone's going on these links and I'm doing$3 million in sales through affiliate links on top of the, you know, million dollars I'm doing on my own. It's very simple math. Like, why am I putting other people's kids through college when I can put mine? And I said, look, we need to get the ancillary things in here that complement our products and build a brand that makes sense to people.

10:22But it makes sense based on my content, right? I've been teaching a certain way and recommending a certain amount of things. So those trajectories are very simple to suss out. And the feedback of being a creator is so much better than any company could ever get because I get comments. I get direct messages. I answer the same questions day in and day out. And so it's very simple to say, here's what people are unsure about, and here's something I could bring in that makes them confident in a buying decision because I've recommended it.

10:48Ian Shepherd:What does that content flywheel look like? How do you think about the product and how frequently you post the content? Mm-hmm. Well, I think that the content is the best way to do product development. Some things we can't share because they're going to become patented products, but a lot of times we can share the idea. We can talk about it and we can get feedback. And one of the, I've got to have one sitting right here that we filed a patent on. You happen to have one right there? Yeah, I have two. Both of these are some of the best examples. I did a video where we released a patented product.

11:24You can see it right there, the Katzmosis Jig Square. It's now our number one selling product. We released that last year. And I used it to do something and say, I took a process that takes two hours down to five minutes. And I can't keep it in stock. I don't care how many I order. They're sold out before they get here every time. In that video, the number one question was, I used a drill bit that countersinks the hole for the screw. The number one question was, what was that countersink you used? What was that countersink you used? What was that count? And I said, it sucks. I hate it. I can't even recommend it to you.

11:57That's what I say in my head. What I can do is create a new way to do it without a tool. The last one required an Allen key to adjust. This one has a snap ring and it adjusts the depth. Watch this part will come out here. And then it just locks into place. We filed a patent on this. This isn't even been released yet. This came into my shop two weeks ago, getting the product launch ready. But all All I did was take the massive amount of feedback. This video has half a million views and there's 300 questions saying, what does that countersink you use? And all I hear from that is people want a good countersink.

12:31They're not finding things they like in the market, so we can create that. This is another one here. This is a product we filed a patent on. I just placed an order for. We have 5 ,000 of these coming and it's an expandable miter slot runner. and it comes from years and years of being an expert on making something called a crosscut sled it's where our number one product prior to the jig square goes on and people being frustrated by this aspect of it so we solved it and we solved it in a very innovative way but it's just i get to listen to my customers before they ever know they need something just through the questions they ask in the content so to answer your question again that you asked earlier in which i i assume that you're picking up on which is like deep category expertise right like there is a which is why it's interesting in working with creators who are who are in a niche passion area because they not only have a feedback loop with their audience they know exactly what the audience needs and where there are gaps in the marketplace and so jonathan is like in a you know and by the way we could sit here for four hours and hear about every product that he has like built out that really solves an issue that he spends dealing with in his shop all the time.

13:44And then he hears back from his audience and like the fact that you're rapidly creating products that last a long time for an audience based on really understanding the category, really understanding the white space, not just like what his audience wants, but also looking at the entire market and saying, Hey, what's, what's missing here. Yeah.

14:02Ian Shepherd:That community feedback is something that's just unique from social content. And Jonathan, you mentioned that you published that first video on YouTube, perhaps by accident, but you've primarily focused on YouTube. How do you think about YouTube and then content on other platforms? YouTube, I like to say, is it's where you get to know somebody. Instagram, TikTok. I mean, TikTok's a really great place if you want to sell to angry, prepubescent boys. On YouTube, I can talk to somebody. It can live forever. Whereas Instagram, Instagram will, for the most part, stop recommending a popular video after about three, four weeks.

14:41And that content is gone. So it's great for quick hits with potential customers or potential audience members, people who go, oh, you know what? That guy is saying what he's saying and makes sense. I want to check out more. I'm going to go follow the links in his bio over to his YouTube channel. But YouTube is a place where you can communicate with somebody on a regular basis. You don't have to stop communicating with them. I check the comments every day. I respond to comments regularly. And so with YouTube, you can develop a loyal audience. And what I like to tell up and coming creators is they say, oh, my God, I got a video with 100 ,000 views.

15:16That's the most I've ever gotten. I said, what's your least watched video in the last six months? Because those are the people that will click anything that you put out. And that's who you need to speak to. So you don't want to focus on virality. You want to focus on the people that will come and see you every time and trust you. And so I don't focus on doing content that will get a million views. I don't care. I've never cared about subscriber count or video count. I care about who responds, who wants to talk to me, who believes in me, and who trusts what I have to say. We're talking about my audience and knowing gaps in the market.

15:48I say every time I talk to people, I say, if it's in my shop, it's in my store. If it's in my store, it's in my shop. Meaning there's nothing on my website that I don't personally use and enjoy. And I've curated that for you. You don't have to worry about it. If you click add to cart, not only will I stand behind it, like you can return it if you don't like it, but I know you'll use it because I use it and I beat the crap out of it every day and I love it.

16:09Ian Shepherd:Very wise words there with regards to the audience. And have you looked at other creators in other niches like beauty or fitness and thought, oh, I could take a lesson from there and apply that to your world? Or is it all very organic? Just talk about what you see and how you're operating. Certainly. I think that both of those areas are really difficult because a lot of those creators who are releasing products, I don't want to pigeonhole anybody, but sometimes they have a tendency to white label things, call it their own and disassociate from their audience in an effort to take something that isn't innovative or not something they've created and sell it as something that people should buy.

16:48so the lesson I take from those is not to oversaturate like listen I could go out today spend a quarter million dollars on 50 products have the company print my logo on the package and claim it as my own but I like to say you know here's things that I sell that other people make that I really love and I've curated for you but then you know the tools that are red and gray like this those are cam tools that you're going to love so I really do I think that there's a tendency with creators to get FOMO and say, I need to do products. Products have to happen. And so they take shortcuts in getting it to market.

17:20And I think if you take the right amount of time, bring in the right people, spend the real product development time talking to other people, listening to other people's feedback, that's how you have massive success.

17:31Ian Shepherd:Yeah, I think from experience as well, I know that every creator can't have a product, right? There's only certain genres which really align to certain types of products. And I think you've really nailed that with your content and your genre. It's 2025. So I can't not ask about AI. I'm curious whether you use AI at all, whether you think about AI when you're producing your products or your content. Certainly. I think AI is an incredible tool for increasing efficiency. I think that AI is a great way to proofread a script. It's a great way to flush out an idea. It's like a unpaid feedback loop. You know, you can get feedback on things, but you have to be really careful because AI has a tendency to say everything you did is like the most genius.

18:14Like, oh my God, great edit. I can't believe that's so captivating. And you're like, and that's when you need to bring in the real people. But as far as efficiencies go, I mean, just billing, for example, right? I work with multiple other creators. We use our logistics that we've created, you know, our million dollar logistics operation here to distribute their products from them that they sell through their websites so they can avoid having to hire employees and use my network, my negotiated shipping rates. But billing gets really complicated, right? Because they've got 40 different shirts, they've got stickers, they've got this, that and the other, and I have to tally that up.

18:49I can throw it in chat. I could throw a 10 megabyte CSV file in there and say, tabulate every product for me, put it into a spreadsheet. And it's like, boom, I can do billing in three minutes. Something that used to take me an hour in the past.

19:02Ian Shepherd:Can you expand on that work you do with other creators? is sure i think it's important to work in your community and it became really clear for me early on that i had built something that nobody else had and that was a logistics operation that actually worked and was built like i always say build like you're a bigger company and so we built it out to be you know with the best software the best people the you know everything early on and so i allowed other creators to get in on that network and so you say hey look don't ship to your house ship you You know, you and your wife sitting up till three in the morning filling packages.

19:37That's not how you that's not how you stay creative. I have the team here. Give it to me. We'll do it. We'll take a small cut, much less than it would cost you to have an employee. And we'll do that for you. But then what that leads to is good ideas, right, is they have great ideas to say, hey, Jonathan, what do you think about this? I said, let me develop that for you. I'll develop it. We can partner on it. And then they get to have massive hits like I've had in the past, but they get to do it without having to build an organization like mine. When you create products, you have two choices, right?

20:05It's 3PL, which I don't know if that – okay. It's 3PL or you – I don't know if you call it something different. Yes, 3PL.

20:13Ian Shepherd:We do, we do, we do, and I'm very familiar with that. Or they have to hire people and buy tape machines, label printers, computers, scales. And then the thing that I hated when I was starting was that I paid retail shipping prices. That used to piss me off so much because it's like how can I compete with anybody if I have to pay what anybody walking into the FedEx office pays. I should, as a business, I should get better rates. But then as you start shipping more and get more volume, you get way better rates on express shipments and all these things that make your customers happy, better tracking and all those things.

20:47And so we went to creators early on and said, hey, work with us. We will, for less than it would cost you to build out an organization, we will solve all these problems for you. It'll be 10 times better because we have the experience in product development and we have the experience in logistics. And you can create a business of your own that is built on the back of my organization. And that's paid dividends. Like we said earlier on, 70 % of my revenue comes from my products, but another 10 % comes from creators with great ideas. And so, you know, we've had several huge successes with creators.

21:23And I think if I could identify any skill that I have, which would be similar to what Billy was talking about earlier, is identifying creators that have that it factor, the ability to speak to their audience and create a loyal base that will follow them into the trenches.

21:40Ian Shepherd:That's great to hear. I was smiling as you were describing that because prior to my current company, Electrify, I had a business working with content creators to sell products about 10 years ago. And I know all of the challenges there are to releasing and selling and distributing and fulfilling consumer products. And I know how hard it is for creators. And I spoke to so many creators that thought that they could do it themselves. And they thought they could send the t-shirts from their garage. And by the time the third or the fourth day comes, the novelty wears off and it's just not practical for them to do it.