347: Making 7 Figures Selling Massage Guns With Victor Yang Of Addaday.com

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Manufacturing your own plastic product starts with the mold, and a good injection mold that produces clean seamless parts runs into five figures. Cheap four-figure molds wear out after roughly 5,000 runs, and anything involving electronics pushes tooling into six figures by default.

In this episode I spoke with my cousin Victor Yang, founder of Addaday, which sells massage and recovery devices in REI and every Target store nationwide. He built the company from about $80,000 in starting capital, designed his first product remotely from pencil sketches, and grew it into a seven figure business.

Below is the whole build: what molds cost, how the remote design iteration works, why you need two sets of tooling, the retail-first path into REI and Target, and why he would do the whole thing online if he started today.

Key takeaways

• Good molds cost five figures. Four-figure molds last roughly 5,000 runs and are worth avoiding.
• Electronics tooling starts at six figures because of the component count.
• Always own two sets of molds. Victor’s factory owner fled and workers blocked the tooling from leaving.
• Price drives the mold design. Your target unit cost dictates the injection approach and tooling cost.
• Retailers rejected his Alibaba samples for having no brand, which is what forced him to build his own.
• He asked 30 stores what to build and designed the product they described.
• Consignment removed the risk. Stores paid only after the product sold, which launched the brand.
• He would go ecommerce first today, because SEO and paid keywords were cheap in 2010 and cost far more now.

What injection molds actually cost

Mold pricing splits into three tiers, and the cheapest tier is a false economy.

Four-figure molds exist and Victor recommends against them. They wear out after roughly 5,000 runs and produce parts with visible seams.

Good molds sit in five figures. Those last a long time and produce clean parts where the seams do not show.

Electronics change the math entirely. Any product with a circuit board and components starts at six figures for tooling by default.

His practical guidance for a first simple product is that under $20,000 is achievable if you are smart about it.

How much capital it takes to launch a molded product

Addaday started with about $80,000 in capital, and the mold plus travel consumed most of it.

The travel line surprised most people. Going door to door to retailers was a major expense category alongside the tooling itself.

That split reflects the go-to-market choice. Retail-first meant physically visiting stores, which is a cost ecommerce-first brands do not carry.

How to design a product remotely with an overseas factory

You can develop a molded product without ever visiting the factory, working through drawing iterations.

Victor started with pencil and paper. He sketched the concept and sent it over rather than commissioning CAD work upfront.

The factory converted it to CAD, which is cheaper to do there. Those drawings came back for review and refinement.

Once the CAD was right they produced a CNC sample. That physical part is what you approve before committing to the mold.

Two advantages made this smoother for him. He speaks the language fluently, and his family had manufacturing connections from his grandfather’s business that helped qualify the factory.

How mold negotiation and unit pricing interact

Your target unit price determines the mold design, so bring the number to the tooling conversation.

The negotiation runs in that order. You settle the mold first, and inside that discussion you state the per-unit figure you need to hit.

The factory works backward from it. If you want a $10 unit, they specify an injection approach that shoots once to reduce labor, which raises the mold cost.

You do not commit to a unit quantity to get tooling made. The mold is paid for separately, and quantity comes later.

A good mold takes about three months to produce.

Why you need two sets of molds

Molds are heavy blocks of carved metal that live at your factory, which puts you at that factory’s mercy.

Victor lived the failure case. The owner of one factory fled, workers went on strike, and they refused to let any molds leave the premises.

Getting the tooling out took cash. They sent a representative to pay the workers directly so the molds could be moved to another factory.

The timing made it worse. This happened in August, right before Christmas delivery.

The fix is duplicate tooling. If you can afford it, keep two sets so a single factory failure does not stop production, and Addaday does this.

The common assumption is wrong. People expect to physically move molds when switching suppliers, and what actually happens is that you have a second set already.

Minimum order quantities and factory tiers

Once you own the mold you can technically run 500 units, and the constraint is whether the factory will bother.

Addaday’s first production run was 5,000 units. They knew the product would sell through over time, even if not immediately.

Victor’s framing on inventory is worth keeping. There is a line between having enough stock to motivate you to sell and having so little that nothing motivates you.

Factory tiers explain the MOQ pressure. Tier one manufacturers offer the best quality and delivery, and holding a slot on that line means giving them enough volume to justify it.

Why Alibaba products fail in retail

Victor’s first attempt was reselling a product sourced from Alibaba, and no store would take it.

The origin was a trail run in Santa Monica. He saw a runner using a stick roller, learned it retailed for $34 at a running store, and recognized it as a plastic version of the bamboo rollers common in Asia.

He sourced a comparable product, learned to work with a freight forwarder to clear customs, and started pitching stores.

Every store said the same thing. The product looked like what they already stocked, and better pricing and margin did not overcome the absence of a brand.

That rejection is what redirected the business. He had assumed the category was price-driven and learned that brand recognition is what separates products on a retail shelf.

How to design a product retailers actually want

Ask the buyers who rejected you what they would carry, then build exactly that.

Victor’s follow-up question to each store was how he could earn their business. Many responded with design concepts and specific ideas for the recovery tool they wanted.

He collected input from roughly 30 stores across California. That feedback became the product specification.

He created the mold, built the product, and brought it back in person. The stores were happy because the product reflected what they had described.

How consignment terms get you onto retail shelves

Offering stores product with no payment until it sells removes every reason to say no.

Victor’s pitch was exactly that: sell it first, pay me after. Stores had zero risk, which is what launched the brand.

Terms change once the product proves itself. After stores know it moves, the relationship shifts to net 30 or net 60 depending on the store.

He started at the small end deliberately. Fleet Feet was around 70 stores at the time and is roughly 180 today, and he simply walked in and asked to speak to the owner or buyer.

How Addaday got into REI and Target

Both major retailers approached Addaday rather than the other way around.

The mechanism is that big retailers shop specialty stores for inspiration. Specialty is where new products surface first, so buyers browse those shelves looking for trends.

REI found the product that way and invited Addaday to pitch as a vendor at a show.

Target followed the same pattern later, and told him they had been following the brand for several years before reaching out.

The lesson Victor draws is that doing the job properly in the marketplace gets you noticed without chasing the large accounts directly.

What trade shows are worth for a product brand

Trade shows are hit and miss, and the variable is the people you staff the booth with.

Addaday attended The Running Event annually, then added Outdoor Retailer and health and fitness shows, capping it at roughly three a year.

The return depends entirely on willingness to work the floor. If your staff will not approach people who do not want to be approached, Victor’s view is that you should not bother going.

Why visiting retail accounts in person matters

Seeing an owner face to face once measurably changes how much of your product that store sells.

His reasoning is about commodity categories. Candles and recovery tools are both commodities, so the relationship is what differentiates you on the shelf.

The standard he holds himself to is high. Across more than a thousand specialty retailers carrying Addaday, he has visited essentially all of them at least once, and some five to ten times.

Store-level marketing helps but does not obey you. He educated stores on presenting the brand, and they still did whatever they thought was best.

What it takes to move from a static product to a connected device

Adding electronics and connectivity took roughly 10 times the resources and 18 months.

The staffing came first. Six people on an app development team split between the US and overseas, plus at least four on product design.

Percussive products are harder to engineer than static ones. As the device percusses it vibrates its own ancillary components, and those have to stay in place for years.

The design ownership shifts too. With a static product the supplier’s team contributes heavily, and with electronics you carry your own design team and make that investment yourself.

Capital changed as well. Victor put in more of his own money and then brought in outside investors to fund the broader product suite.

Why you cannot source electronics from Alibaba

Buying a white-label electronic device and putting your brand on it means inheriting a quality control problem you cannot see.

The specific risk is the battery. Without controlled sourcing there is real likelihood of a battery failing dangerously in a customer’s home.

Addaday sources its own battery and motor, with every component qualified from a quality-approved factory.

The stakes scale with the product. A static stick will not explode and needs no charging, so the tolerance for supplier shortcuts is completely different.

Victor’s summary is that sourcing electronics blind is playing Russian roulette with your business, and liability insurance does not solve it.

Why Addaday keeps its electronics off Amazon

Addaday sells non-electronic products on Amazon and deliberately keeps the connected devices off it.

The reason is knockoffs. Victor does not want the brand displayed next to cheap copies, and he views Amazon itself as the main competitor because it advertises those copies in search.

Curation is the underlying difference. Target and REI run buying processes that qualify products, and anything can list on Amazon without passing through one.

The strategic choice is to pick a lane. Addaday supports its retail partners and maximizes target.com, REI, and Fleet Feet rather than splitting focus.

I pushed back on this, since a large share of shoppers who research a brand still buy on Amazon for convenience. Victor’s answer is that he would want real A/B data before concluding either way.

Why he would build the ecommerce side first today

Given the choice again, Victor would start with ecommerce rather than retail.

His reasoning is competitive. He knows what his competitors’ online businesses look like, and starting online a decade earlier would have produced a substantially larger one.

The specific regret is search. Bidding on a term like foam roller cost around 10 cents in 2010 and can run $5 to $6 today.

Early investment compounds through the algorithm. Building page authority for a category term early means ranking higher later and paying less to stay there.

Ecommerce is the harder channel to run well. Retail is B2B with a handful of professional partners who know how to merchandise, and ecommerce is one-to-one with every customer.

Where Addaday’s online traffic comes from

Direct branded search from running and triathlon clubs is the largest source.

Club members are incentivized with modest group discounts, capped at about 10%, in exchange for buying in bulk rather than one at a time.

That cap is what keeps retailers comfortable. The discount is narrow, targeted at specific clubs, and never a broad public coupon.

Paid media carries the rest, weighted heavily toward Q4. Facebook and Instagram both perform, and YouTube is reasonable.

His view on channels is that no funnel stays fixed. What works shifts week to week depending on the message, product, and price, so repeating last year’s plan does not work.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an injection mold cost?

A good mold that produces clean seamless parts runs into five figures. Four-figure molds exist but wear out after roughly 5,000 runs. Any product involving electronics starts at six figures because of the component count.

How long does it take to make a mold?

About three months for a good mold. You settle the tooling first, bring your target unit price to that conversation, and the factory specifies an injection approach that hits it.

Do you need to visit the factory to design a product?

No. Victor sketched his first product on pencil and paper, the factory converted it to CAD, and they iterated on the drawings before producing a CNC sample he approved.

Should you keep a backup set of molds?

Yes, if you can afford it. Molds live at your factory and you can lose access to them. One of Victor’s factory owners fled, workers struck, and getting the tooling out required paying them cash to release it.

Can you sell an Alibaba product to retailers?

Usually not. Every store Victor pitched said the product looked like what they already carried, and better pricing and margin did not compensate for having no brand behind it.

How do you get into REI or Target?

Build presence in specialty retail first. Large retailers shop specialty stores for new trends, and both REI and Target approached Addaday after seeing the products on running store shelves.

Can you source an electronic product from Alibaba?

It is risky enough that Victor advises against it entirely. Without controlled component sourcing you inherit an unverified battery, and Addaday sources its own battery and motor from quality-qualified factories.

Should you start in retail or ecommerce?

Victor would start online today. Search terms in his category cost around 10 cents a decade ago and now run $5 to $6, and building that authority early compounds into lower costs and better rankings.