Building a Premium Product Brand: Colton Forth on Juke Audio, Customer Trust, and Copycats
- Stanley Igboanugo
- Jun 1
- 27 min read
In this episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, Jon LaClare sits down with Colton Forth, President of Juke Audio, to discuss how a personal home audio problem turned into a fast-growing consumer electronics brand.
Colton shares how he and his father originally developed Juke Audio for their own family home after receiving expensive five-figure quotes for an in-ceiling speaker system. What started as a practical solution for their own needs eventually became a commercial product designed to make whole-home audio more affordable, elegant, and reliable.
The conversation explores the advantages of built-in audio systems over bulky “wireless” speakers, especially for new construction, remodels, and retrofits. Colton explains why hardwired, centralized audio systems can offer better aesthetics, stronger reliability, and higher sound quality than many plug-in alternatives.
Colton also walks through the early days of launching Juke Audio, including the unforgettable first sale around Thanksgiving 2019, the simple website that helped validate demand, and the handwritten notes that helped create early customer loyalty. From there, he shares how the company built trust through industry trade shows, awards, customer support, Crutchfield, Amazon, authentic founder-led social media content, and user-generated videos.
This episode also dives into one of the toughest challenges product brands face: copycats. Colton explains how Juke Audio dealt with a company that copied its product design, logo, listings, and marketing assets — and how patents, legal action, strong branding, and founder authenticity helped protect the business.
In today’s episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we’ll cover:
Why built-in home audio can outperform bulky wireless speaker systems
How Juke Audio started as a solution for Colton’s own family home
What Colton learned from the company’s very first sale
How handwritten notes and accessible customer support built early trust
Why industry awards and trade shows helped validate the brand
How Juke Audio earned a major retail partnership with Crutchfield
Why authentic founder-led video ads can outperform overproduced content
How user-generated content can fuel both marketing and product development
What product founders should know about copycats, patents, and brand protection
Why the best time to start building your business may be right now
You can listen to the full interview wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Or, click to watch the full video interview here!
If you’re building a premium product, launching a technical consumer brand, or trying to create trust in a competitive market, this episode offers practical insight into product validation, customer support, authentic marketing, and long-term brand protection.
To learn more about Juke Audio, visit JukeAudio.com. You can also find Juke Audio on Amazon and Crutchfield.
Do you have a brand you’d like to launch or scale?
Visit HarvestGrowth.com to book a free consultation and learn how our team has helped generate over $2 billion in product sales.
Prefer reading instead of listening? Read the full transcript here!
[00:00:00]
Jon LaClare
In this episode, we'll talk about how a company started with a problem in his own family, how authentic founder-led videos helped drive amazing growth, and how they landed their first major national retailer after a lot of persistence. We'll also get into one of the wildest copycat stories I've ever heard.
[00:00:16]
Jon LaClare
A company copied their product, their images, their keywords, and even used fake celebrity testimonials. But they fought back, they won, and they came out stronger. There are a lot of great lessons here for any founder building, marketing, and protecting a premium product.
[00:00:33]
Announcer
Harvest the growth potential of your product or service as we share stories and strategies that'll make your competitors nervous.
[00:00:41]
Announcer
Now, here's the host of the Harvest Growth podcast, Jon LaClare
[00:00:48]
Jon LaClare
Over the past 20 years, our team has helped launch and grow hundreds of consumer products, generating more than two billion dollars in revenue for our clients. On this show, we break down what actually works in product marketing, real strategies, real stories, and lessons you can put to work right away in your business.
[00:01:05]
Jon LaClare
Whether you're getting ready to launch or you're looking to scale what's already working, you're in the right place. So let's jump into the interview today. I wanna welcome Colton Forth. He's the co-founder and president of Juke Audio, J-U-K-E Audio. You can go to jukeaudio.com. They're on Amazon and all over the internet as well.
[00:01:22]
Jon LaClare
Crutchfield is a big distributor. We're gonna talk into that as well. Um, uh, Colton, I wanna welcome you to the show a- and if you could tell us a little bit about what is Juke Audio. So for the layman that might be listening and not the audiophile, uh, professional musician really that you are in many ways, what, what is it?
[00:01:40]
Jon LaClare
How does it help people?
[00:01:42]
Colton Forth
Sure thing. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on, Jon. A pleasure to be here. Juke Audio is a simple, all-in-one audio solution for residential and some commercial use. Rather than traditional systems that have required you to have an array of different pieces of equipment, we've distilled that all down into a singular product that is coined a multi-room streaming amplifier that essentially serves as the single solution for powering and wirelessly controlling built-in speakers across many different areas of a home or a commercial space with a lot of unique nuances to that, uh, that we've implemented for the modern age, for the modern consumer
[00:02:32]
Jon LaClare
And, you know, speaking from personal experience, I have one of these in my own home as well, and we've got a system.
[00:02:37]
Jon LaClare
We built our home 20-plus years ago, and it was great at the time, surround sound system in our room, and we've got speakers elsewhere, and the technology has just changed. I mean, our TV at the time was, I don't even know, probably a 27-inch or whatever it was back in the day, right? 20-odd years ago. Now it's very different, and these new, smarter, of course bigger, but smart TVs have different connections, different outputs, et cetera, and it's been difficult for me to, uh, get it to work with our old system.
[00:03:06]
Jon LaClare
And I think that's part of the reason this was created, this product, is to help at least some of the people like me with ol- older systems. And I love how simple Juke was to now, now I can connect my TV really easily in that room to our existing surround sound system, but also stream anything to it. So I can connect my Spotify, Apple Music, and videos I might wanna be playing over that same...
[00:03:29]
Jon LaClare
You know, it's a very good system, but we haven't used it. Before I got Juke, I haven't used it for years. It's just been kinda sitting dormant. Before it would connect to our DVD player, but I can't remember, I don't even know where it is. I have no idea. I, I don't know if we got rid of it. I, I can't find it.
[00:03:42]
Jon LaClare
So we don't use DVDs. There's no connection in before, but now it makes it easy to connect, uh, really everything, both to that main room as well as throughout the rest of the house. And even if, I don't have outdoor speakers, but if you did, it, it makes that real easy. Can you talk about, for the audience, those that might not realize it, 'cause I, I mentioned to you, I've got, uh, you know, I just haven't used mine.
[00:04:00]
Jon LaClare
I haven't really looked into it, but we have a neighbor who has a system that's even more robust than mine, but also about the same age, right, 20 years old, and he had someone come out, and they quoted him tens of thousands of dollars to be able to just get it working, right, with, with modern technology, and I really didn't understand that.
[00:04:17]
Jon LaClare
How did you make the jump from what was, and still is, an option that's so very expensive to something that's simple, uh, you know, a homeowner can do it themselves with existing systems at least, and much, much less expensive? You know, it starts at 1,000 bucks or 2,000 bucks, depending what model you get.
[00:04:36]
Colton Forth
Yeah. So your scenario is one that we hear day in and day out. A scenario in which you have existing wires, existing speakers in place from years previous. Either a system that you had installed 10 years ago during the time you lived in the house, or maybe even a scenario where you move into a new house and there's existing speakers and, and wiring in place.
[00:04:58]
Colton Forth
And too many times those speakers go underutilized because people just can't figure out how to turn them on. It's either too complicated or too expensive, so they resort to this solution in which they just basically go and buy a, you know, a Bluetooth speaker or one of these outlet smart speakers and just set it on the counter.
[00:05:15]
Colton Forth
And then you look up at the ceiling and there's perfectly good ceiling speakers that have a lifespan of 20 more years left in them that are just not getting utilized. And that really plays a big part into the market that Juke is serving. A simple solution to activate those speakers and bring them into the modern age without it being so darn expensive and, and so complicated.
[00:05:35]
Colton Forth
And the way we've been able to do that is really distilling a lot of different pieces of equipment down into a single solution that is Juke harnessing a lot of modern technology and wireless control. So- At its core, what we're selling is, is an amplifier. And to be clear, this is to power the speakers that are typically in-ceiling, in-wall, outside, and all that speaker wiring is run to a central location.
[00:05:59]
Colton Forth
And that was really the only way to do multi-room audio, um, prior to Wi-Fi communication, uh, audio devices. Um, but what we've uniquely done is provided a solution that can not only power all of these speakers, but you can then also control everything over the network from your phone. So what traditionally used to be in-wall keypads, in-wall volume knobs, speaker selector switches in the closet, multiple amps stacked on top of receivers and so on, all of that, you know, just sounds like a mouthful and it gets complicated and it's obviously more things to buy and it, it's more expensive.
[00:06:36]
Colton Forth
What we did is we distilled that all down into a single solution that really serves all of those purposes. And when we put it down into one box, it allows us to sell the solution at a much more cheap price point, and it's also only one thing that you as the consumer have to worry about. So we have people that have really no background in audio, visual or electrical or anything like that, that just say, "Hey, I have this nest of wires in my closet.
[00:07:00]
Colton Forth
I know all my speakers in my house run to this, and I can't figure out how to turn it on." They find Juke online, and we provide step-by-step instructions that make it easy to strip the speaker wire back if it's not already, connect it into the terminal blocks on the Juke, connect the Juke amplifier to your home network, and then voila, you're now moving freely across the house, controlling everything from your phone, streaming your Apple Music to one room, streaming your Spotify to another room, and there's no need for any other additional pieces of equipment.
[00:07:30]
Colton Forth
It's speakers and wire which are already in place if you're retrofitting an existing system, add the Juke amplifier, and then use the phone and tablet that you already have to control everything wirelessly over the network
[00:07:42]
Jon LaClare
Yeah, and I think you said too, if you're, if you are wiring a new home or a new build or a retrofit or whatever, it obviously works well with that too, and can be much less expensive than other options that your builder might know about or whatever.
[00:07:53]
Jon LaClare
So if they don't know, introduce them to, to Juke Audio. Again, jukeaudio.com to, to find these details. Uh, there are other options, as you mentioned, and this is what we did, right? We had the countertop speaker. We had the old-- We still do, right? Have it, just don't use it now, now that I have Juke. But the old Bose speaker that sits there, you connect your phone directly into it.
[00:08:10]
Jon LaClare
Um, and it's fine, right? But I miss having... You know, I paid all this money for these really good speakers that are high quality, that sit up in the ceiling. They sound so much better, and it's been years. It's so nice to be able to turn those back on again. Other options that people do are like the Sonos, right?
[00:08:23]
Jon LaClare
So they've got like the multi-room that they try to, uh, um, to set up and use, et cetera. But they're big, bulky. They're not generally as good quality, in my experience, as the ones that go in the, in the ceiling, depending on, you know, how you built it originally. But also very expensive, right? I think, I, I, I don't know what, what your experience is, but it can be several thousand dollars if you wanted to get a multi-room Sonos system set up.
[00:08:44]
Jon LaClare
Is that kind of the right ballpark?
[00:08:46]
Colton Forth
Yeah, it's certainly gonna depend on the equipment you're using, how many rooms you're doing, and, and so on. But it, it's certainly not cheap by any means, and it has a lot of drawbacks, um, from being able to actually embed it into the home. Now, obviously, after the drywall goes up and the house is fully constructed, it's not necessarily as simple to put a solution like ours in, but that's where the retrofits come in.
[00:09:07]
Colton Forth
But as big of a market for us, if not bigger, is the new construction and remodels, where when the house is going up, you can easily and discreetly run speaker wiring behind the walls, through the ceiling, back to a centralized spot. And the end benefit of that is you basically have a system that you really only hear, not see.
[00:09:28]
Colton Forth
Uh, what I find funny about the, you know, solutions out there on the market, they call them wireless speakers. What's wireless about them is the communication between the, the speakers. But the fact of the matter is every speaker needs power from somewhere, which means it's either plugged into an outlet and you see a dangling wire on your countertop, or You have to run speaker wiring behind the walls into an amp like ours.
[00:09:51]
Colton Forth
So the end benefit is, you know, aesthetically it's night and day. When you have this thing just built directly into the walls and in the ceiling with flush mount design, with no dangling wire visible, it really adds to the elegance of the home. And then to your point, the vast majority of systems that are embedded into the house, the sound quality is far superior.
[00:10:11]
Colton Forth
And then third, uh, there's a lot of reliability benefit that comes from it as well. When everything's hardwired to a centralized location, to a centralized amp, you're not worried about latency and different connectivity issues that can arise when you're banking on all these different wireless speakers, quote unquote, to be able to talk to each other over the network.
[00:10:30]
Colton Forth
Uh, so there's many, many reasons in which if you're in a new construction or a remodel state, it would still make sense to put a system that's integrated into the home. And when if you go to do that, you know, Juke is the cost-effective single solution that can provide
[00:10:46]
Jon LaClare
that. And, you know, uh, the one common way to do that in retrofits or like you're finishing your basement, right?
[00:10:51]
Jon LaClare
That's a very common thing that people do in their homes and, you know, often doing ceiling work anyway as it becomes very relatively easy and it's m- a much less expensive way to do it than, than other options out there. So I wanna rewind back and talk about your first sale. I think it was around Thanksgiving 2019.
[00:11:05]
Jon LaClare
It hasn't been that long ago, and you've grown like crazy since then. But what do you remember about that first sale that came across? 'Cause it's such a nerve-wracking thing, especially for more expensive, you know, more technical products like yours, that it's not a $10, you know, uh, uh, impulse buy that you purchase, et cetera.
[00:11:22]
Jon LaClare
Um, so getting that first person to be convinced to actually give you money and send product to them, what do you remember about that, and how did it change kind of like the-- Uh, you, you'd been in development for a long time, now it's real. You've got revenue coming in.
[00:11:36]
Colton Forth
Yeah, I'll never, ever forget that moment.
[00:11:38]
Colton Forth
It was really an incredible feeling. And I think to even get to that point, I'll back up a little further and, and just talk about how this sort of even came to be. And, and that was, you know, my father and I, uh, started working on the design, uh, this product for our own family home in Los Angeles, and there was really no intention of commercializing this product.
[00:12:00]
Colton Forth
It was just to fit our own need, because similar to what you said about your neighbor, we told, uh, local AV install companies in LA that, "Hey, we wanna put an in-ceiling speaker system in," and pretty much every quote we were met with was, you know, definitely five figures, and seemed just too much. It was just more than we wanted.
[00:12:19]
Colton Forth
You know, for sure for some people that's great, but that's ultimately not what we were looking for, and so we decided to make this product for our own house. And as people started to come and visit the house, they seemed to resonate with, "Hey, I've kind of been in a similar predicament, and I like, I like what you have here."
[00:12:34]
Colton Forth
So that was sort of a light bulb moment to go and try and commercialize this thing at least. But, you know, you never know how these things are really gonna go. I, I didn't come from the AV world, uh, per se, uh, nor did my father. So we basically just had this product, uh, that we thought maybe was gonna work, and we didn't even have, you know, a team really at that point.
[00:12:53]
Colton Forth
We had one other engineer, um, that, that we were working with as well, but, uh, we didn't have like a web developer or marketer or anything like that. So we basically just built a little website, and it was product right in the middle of the screen, four bullet points about this is what it does, this is why you're gonna like it, and buy.
[00:13:11]
Colton Forth
About as basic as a website as possible. Um, and we, we put it up at the very tail end of 2019 at right around Thanksgiving, like you said, and I remember just sitting there, I think it was quite literally like after Thanksgiving, uh, meal that evening, and, uh, you know, you get the email, uh, notification, "Juke, new order.
[00:13:31]
Colton Forth
Uh, you, you, you got a sale." And I, I will never, ever forget that moment, someone just clearly understanding the benefit that we were providing and those four, you know, key bullet points. And, you know, we wrote a, a handwritten note that went in the box for that customer and said, you know, "Thank you for taking a chance on, on this new product and, and new company.
[00:13:53]
Colton Forth
You know, we're, we're here to support you however you can." And, uh, still in contact with that person to this day, and, uh, they've actually gone and framed that note. And, you know, now here we are six and a half years later continuing to, you know, serve customers exactly like that all across the country and, and beyond.
[00:14:16]
Jon LaClare
I, I love that story, and I, I think it's great that you were open, like, "Hey, this is our first sale," or early sale, however you worded it. You know, sometimes we all wanna be f- make everybody feel like we're this big business that's been around forever. And in the very early days, there's a, there's a benefit in realizing, hey, they are in touch with me directly if I do have a problem.
[00:14:35]
Jon LaClare
So even though this is new, if I've got a problem, I know who to reach out to. And you guys have kept that going forward. I think, uh, you know, can you tell us a couple of ways that, that you do different things, uh, for customers to make it really easy for them to get ahold of you if they do have questions or problems during the setup process especially?
[00:14:53]
Colton Forth
Totally. Uh, you know, for someone like us, one benefit that we have in relation to the larger companies is definitely personalization. You know, you're speaking to the people that are actually designing the product. So if you have input on something you like to see, we can enact it right then and there.
[00:15:11]
Colton Forth
And we're not shy of being available. Um, we printed our phone number in the largest font that you possibly could on the side of our retail box. We had notes in the box, you know, again, handwritten past even the first one, thanking them and telling them our story and letting them know how to reach us. And I think that's paid a lot of dividends with our customer base in feeling that they can trust us and really feeling invested i- in our success, like that they're on the frontier of, uh, you know, a new solution here.
[00:15:45]
Colton Forth
And that's something that y- it's tough to, tough to continue to maintain as the company grows and scales, but that's something that we have kept core to our mission and something that we still hold true to this day. Um, like when you call in customer service, y- you have almost like a relationship, uh, with that person.
[00:16:03]
Colton Forth
You know who you're gonna be speaking with. It's not, "Hey, you know, you're in queue for the next 45 minutes, and then you're gonna get transferred off to some AI agent or, or call center or something like that." You know, everything that we do is personalized, in-house, and, and onshore, while a lot of the people we're competing against are, you know, trying to automate or, you know, abandon what it means to be really invested in customer support and, and care.
[00:16:33]
Jon LaClare
And that makes such a difference after the sale to keep them happy and drive word-of-mouth sales too, right? They're gonna tell friends and family about this when they have a positive experience themselves. And, you know, I contrast that to just yesterday, I did a phone call, uh, to-- I was kind of doing a test for a client of ours.
[00:16:50]
Jon LaClare
Uh, it's a less expensive product, so they can't necessarily have the same level, but it was a, a-- not a great experience. And in part because you, you dial the phone, they've got agents there to s- to answer questions. It's hard to understand them. You know they're overseas. But also you can kinda tell, like there's these pauses.
[00:17:06]
Jon LaClare
Like, "Hey, thanks for calling..." And then they say the name of the company, right? 'Cause you can tell it's like a script that pops up. They're dealing with a hundred different companies, and there's no real connection. And, you know, with, with more expensive, more technical products, you just can't afford to do that, right?
[00:17:18]
Jon LaClare
You've gotta have that, that connection to people. Otherwise, if they get a little bit frustrated, they're gonna send it back and, and move on to the next one. Before that happens, though, you've also gotta build trust, right? So you've got a product that, that starts around $1,000, and I know there's a less expensive version coming out soon that- People can look for on Juke Audio in the coming months that is for a single room.
[00:17:37]
Jon LaClare
But for now, the existing products start around thou- $1,000. So how do you build trust to get the sale in the first place? So we talked about kind of the post-sale trust and connection. All that is very valid. But what has helped you to make people comfortable to try this out? You know, they've never tried it before, but, you know, how do they know this is gonna work for their particular scenario enough to, to lay out the cash?
[00:18:01]
Colton Forth
Yeah. Um, many different ways. But first one I would mention is going into the industry trade show events and meeting with the people that are the mover and shakers in the industry, and showing them the product in person, and garnering awards and achievements, um, from reputable publications and people that other people look to for their decision-making.
[00:18:26]
Colton Forth
So, uh, right around the time we launched, uh, unfortunately was when COVID was starting, so these events were kind of few and far between. But we actually went out to one of the largest trade show events for the smart home and, you know, audiovisual world called CEDIA. Uh, we went to CEDIA 2021 in Indianapolis, and there wasn't full attendance by any means, but there were enough people there that had a lot of influence on the industry that they took note of our product, and we walked away from that trade show winning quite a lot of awards, uh, including CE Pro, probably the top, uh, publication in our industry.
[00:19:02]
Colton Forth
We won, you know, Multi-Room Audio Product of the Year. Uh, so that really was a, a, a good stamp of approval. And then from there, we used that badge to go and foment relationships with key industry retail partners and distributors and so on, where if a customer looks at that and they say, "Okay, this company is carrying it, there has to be a lot of legitimacy behind this."
[00:19:22]
Colton Forth
So most notably would be our partnership that we struck with Crutchfield in 2021. Uh, I can't tell you how many times I revised, rehearsed, and prepped my pitch deck to go meet with the head buying agent there, and he's, you know, finally, hate to say it, I kinda wore him down. And we-- he, he said, "You know what?
[00:19:42]
Colton Forth
I'll, I'll place a purchase order here, uh, more or less. If it doesn't sell though, uh, I, I can return these." So kind of a, a no risk, uh, opportunity for them. And sure enough, it sold. Customers there loved it and started to get reviewed well, and now, you know, five years later, you know, we're one of the top multi-room audio amps that they sell on Crutchfield.
[00:20:04]
Colton Forth
And, uh, it-- that really then snowballed into being able to start relationships with so many other partners and, and, and key people. So, um, it was just sort of one, one building block at a time that allowed us to show the world, show the internets, show the consumers that what we were putting out was something that was really what it was cracked up to be
[00:20:31]
Jon LaClare
I like that you shared the Crutchfield example.
[00:20:33]
Jon LaClare
For those of our listeners and viewers may, that may not be familiar with Crutchfield, they are the behemoth in the industry of the audio and video space, right? So if you look on, used to be catalogs, of course now it's website, but direct-to-consumer selling of various brands. They are really a trusted resource.
[00:20:49]
Jon LaClare
M- my first familiarity, and I think this is how they started, was car audio, right? So they had a lot of that back in the day, you know, 20, 30 years ago, et cetera. But they've grown into really the audio/video space and are probably the most trusted resource there. So when people go to their site, they know that things are vetted and trusted.
[00:21:06]
Jon LaClare
And I think, I like that you shared that example, 'cause I think we always hear about these successful businesses like yours. Like, well, sure, you know, you got, you got lucky and got Crutchfield, so everything took off from there, right? Which is partly true, right? That helped you to grow. But there's, as you said, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get in there in the first place, right?
[00:21:24]
Jon LaClare
Do what you can to get that flagship, whether it's a retailer, a, a website, or, or it could be an influencer, right? But finding that sort of flagship, um, uh, connection that can really help your brand take off, it usually takes a lot of work to get there, as you've exemplified. That's very normal. So it's n- it's not like, "Oh, you f- this...
[00:21:44]
Jon LaClare
They'll find us," right? Like, go through the steps that it takes, and it can take a lot of work, but if you can get it to turn that corner, then it turns a lot of other corners and, and really grows your business as well. I wanna talk about social media as well. So in the early days of your marketing, you did a lot of Google, right?
[00:21:59]
Jon LaClare
Paid search, eventually organic search, and people found you that were searching for it. And then later in the life cycle of your business, you added in social media marketing. So this is now-- the difference really obviously is on search, you're getting people that are already interested. They're searching.
[00:22:14]
Jon LaClare
On social media, you get people that are-- You know, you're convincing them, right? You're teaching them something new that they don't know, necessarily know about. How did, how have you found success in the social media world, having content now to visually show the product, right? So now seeing it in spaces, as opposed to search, that's just, you go there, I'm looking for something, I see words, I go to your website.
[00:22:34]
Jon LaClare
In social media, it's very different to see visual. How has that helped your business to grow at, to, to the next level?
[00:22:41]
Colton Forth
It's been huge. You know, it was something that I was kind of scared of venturing into 'cause it's a whole other realm. You have to have the creative element to it. Um, for about three and a half, four years, I was really just Google and Amazon advertising, where it's very much keyword-based and, you know, learning how to optimize those campaigns.
[00:22:58]
Colton Forth
But then stepping into the arena for Meta a- and other social media platforms where what you're leading with i- is a piece of content, that, that's a whole other animal. So it was something that I was grappling with for a while, and then, um, towards the tail end of 2024, so about a year and a half now, uh, we started leaning in on, on Meta ads and, and seen an incredible result there for, for our business.
[00:23:20]
Colton Forth
And sort of similarly to how we were talking about how we wanna come across, uh, from a support, a support perspective for our customers, I wanted that same type of organic and authentic feel to come across in the marketing that we were doing. So, you know, you come across our ads, a lot of them are, are, are me, and it's not overly produced.
[00:23:39]
Colton Forth
It's not feeling too commercialized. It's me standing on a ladder with a ceiling speaker in my hand and say, "Hey, are you looking to put ceiling speakers like this into your home? Well, I'm Colton Forth, I'm the president at Juke Audio, and we have a solution to make that happen for you." And, and really just not overthinking it and, and overproducing it more than that.
[00:23:58]
Colton Forth
Sure, we have nice high-quality product videos when you come and land on the website that'll actually convince you to put your credit card and buy. But in terms of just sparking that interest while you're scrolling through your feed to actually get you to jukeaudio.com, that's where we just come across with authentic videos that really don't come across almost even as sponsored or paid because it just seamlessly blends in with the rest of your feed of your friends and whatnot.
[00:24:24]
Colton Forth
It's, it's just me telling my story of, of who we are and, and what we do. And I think that in this era where so many brands are just overproducing things and commercializing everything, uh, that really is something that consumers are fond of and we've certainly seen the benefit from.
[00:24:45]
Jon LaClare
Yeah. The authentic video approach is, is so powerful for sure, and I think a lot of people may be listening and, "I've, I've never been on camera.
[00:24:52]
Jon LaClare
I don't know, you know, this isn't me. How do I do that?" But I like how you describe it. It could be a phone video, right? This doesn't have to be overly produced, but getting some sort of a connection to a member of your team, like one of the founders, one of the key people. People love to have that connection, especially today, and it does separate you from the, from the crowd.
[00:25:09]
Jon LaClare
And then, you know, the produced videos have a place absolutely as well, but that connection of- often comes through authenticity. Another way to do it is through user-generated content, so getting testimonial visor-- uh, uh, testimonial videos from real people, real reviewers of the product. And you guys have had some success there as well.
[00:25:27]
Jon LaClare
How do you find people to... Like, what's the process, I guess, to get these effective user-generated content or UGC videos?
[00:25:36]
Colton Forth
Yeah. So that's definitely been something that we've also added into the fold as well, and it can happen in a number of ways. But if I'm traveling on a, on a business trip to go meet with some local audio dealer or retailer, sometimes I'll go and I'll look through our, our shipment log and see, hey, which customers are in that area, and I'll just send them a note and I'll say, "Hey, um, wondering if you're, you know, open to maybe talking about your experience with the Juke Audio product?"
[00:26:06]
Colton Forth
And, you know, surprisingly, a lot of these people will say, "I would love nothing more. Like, please, please come by." So, you know, I've been out in, you know, Houston. I was there for something completely unrelated to Juke, actually, but I said, "You know what? I have a day, day in between, uh, that I have free here," and I did exactly what I just said, and I went to this customer's house, and we filmed like three different videos of talking about the scenario that he was in, exactly what you're talking about.
[00:26:33]
Colton Forth
How do I get these ceiling speakers working in my house? I, I just moved in. And how he found Juke online, and he bought it, and now how him and his family enjoy it. And, you know, obviously we were able to cut that up into multiple different, you know, 15-second video ads that we were able to run. But even more importantly, those interactions, and especially stuff that's not filmed on camera, are just so vital to me understanding what the consumer wants and what the consumer's looking for.
[00:27:00]
Colton Forth
It's-- there's not all these layers of management and bureaucracy that can be there in larger companies. It's just like, hey, I am quite literally in somebody's house that put their money down to buy this product, and he says that he's looking for, you know, feature XYZ on top of what this is. And you go through enough iterations, you meet with enough people, that that's pivotal feedback to actually help you format your product roadmap forward.
[00:27:28]
Jon LaClare
It, it's back to that point of being open with the size of your business, right? It's, it's okay to not be a billion-dollar company. In many ways, you know, the benefit of having the founder that's available, right, to answer questions, to help, and, and really be connected to the business is gonna increase a lot of that trust.
[00:27:44]
Jon LaClare
And I think especially in today's world, there's a lot of trend towards that. So I encourage our, you know, our audience that's listening too to, to think about it that way, where it's don't-- you know, we always try to make ourselves feel bigger than we are, but having that direct connection to our audience, to our customers is, is so important.
[00:27:59]
Jon LaClare
I, I wanna talk about copycats. So I know you've had a problem with that over the, over the years too, and, and most businesses do to some form or another. Yours, your story sounds a little bit more intense maybe, where they copied a lot. Can you talk about what did you experience with, with copycats in your business, and how'd you overcome it?
[00:28:17]
Colton Forth
Yes. Well, first I'll say if they're copying you, it probably means you're doing something right. So I'll take it as a badge of honor than, than anything else. But, uh, yes, we certainly have run into a few scenarios. Uh, one most notably would be a, uh, a company based in, uh, China that more or less took our exact product design, image, logo, and with really no regard for any type of ethics or frankly the law, went and listed their products on Amazon directly below ours, same keywords, same listing images, same titles, and undercut, you know, retail pricing by, you know, forty percent on, on most of the products.
[00:29:01]
Colton Forth
And it was just absolutely, you know, blatant. Uh, and they were, they were dirty. I mean, they were hiring or using bots on Reddit to post fake reviews and comments on our product and just, you know, malicious activities. But end of the day, uh, we were able to handle the situation. We, we brought, uh, a lawsuit against them, uh, that resulted in a, a permanent injunction, uh, where they were no longer able to sell in the United States.
[00:29:29]
Colton Forth
They were taken down off Amazon. We seized their website and took control of their websites. Um, if you go to their website now, it just auto di- redirects to jukeaudio.com. Uh, and we actually, you know, got all of their inventory and, uh, seized as well and then sent to our location. So that was a big win for us, and it allowed me to understand that we have something unique and valuable here that we were actually able to enforce our IP on.
[00:29:56]
Colton Forth
So throughout the course of the company's history, we have filed many, many patents on what we have brought to market, and that was able to actually hold up, uh, in the court system and allow us to knock this knock off out of, out of the market.
[00:30:12]
Jon LaClare
And patents and trademarks certainly help in that process, but there's always the marketing part of it as well, right?
[00:30:19]
Jon LaClare
Where we can-- you can sue somebody, you can stop them, but you've gotta make sure your story is-- stays strong with consumers. And I think that goes back again to the connection to you as a founder. You know, that content, that's something they can't copy, right? So in today's world, it's really easy. You could literally in a day copy somebody's website, copy all their reviews.
[00:30:38]
Jon LaClare
With AI tools, probably faster than that, right? So it's easy to copy, uh, and, and, and overseas it can be easy to copy the product as well. But what you can't copy is the genuine con- content and connection that you can build as your founder story, et cetera. And, you know, like it's-- it keeps that trust even when somebody else tarnishes it by sending an inferior product and, you know, knocking you off in ways like that.
[00:30:59]
Jon LaClare
Well, Colton, this has been a, a great interview. You shared a lot that I think is super helpful for our audience. Is there anything, uh, that you'd like to add? Anything we didn't talk about that you think could be helpful for our audience?
[00:31:11]
Colton Forth
Yeah. I just think a, a general comment would be If you're considering making the leap into entrepreneurship and starting something, the time to do it is right now.
[00:31:22]
Colton Forth
I had a lot of doubt about starting this. I didn't know where this was gonna lead, and obviously there's been hard times and a lot of difficult moments throughout the course of, of starting this company. But it's been the most rewarding experience, uh, of my life, really. And I feel that if you have an idea, go after it, chase it with every bit of passion and ambition you have.
[00:31:45]
Colton Forth
And if you do that, stay hardworking and diligent, uh, you ultimately will find success. So wishing everybody out there who's pursuing their goals the best.
[00:31:56]
Jon LaClare
Uh, thank you, and thanks for being positive in that. As you mentioned, there are hard steps along the way, but if this is your passion, whatever it might be in the entrepreneurial world, uh, the passion will help you get through it and find success at the other end as well.
[00:32:10]
Jon LaClare
So I really appreciate you sharing that. For our audience, I encourage you to please go check out Juke, J-U-K-E Audio, jukeaudio.com. You can find it on Amazon, uh, Crutchfield of course as well. But if you, even if you're not in the market, maybe just understand a little bit about the business and what he's, what he's done.
[00:32:28]
Jon LaClare
You can follow Colton on the bus- and the business on social media. Find all the links at the bottom of their website to see some of the content that they're, that they're doing, and learn from that at a minimum. Also, if you wanna take the next step in growing your own business, please visit harvestgrowth.com to connect directly with our team.
[00:32:43]
Jon LaClare
There you can book a one-on-one conversation focused on your business. But today, thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode
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