Predictable Designs Podcast

There are many steps required to bring a product to market, but ultimately, it all starts with the product idea itself. If you have the wrong product idea, then all the other steps, no matter how well you perform them, won’t really matter.

Prefer to read? If so, here is the blog version of this same content: https://predictabledesigns.com/12-ways-to-select-the-best-product-idea-to-bring-to-market/

Finding investors and/or co-founders for your startup is never easy, but in this episode you will discover what it takes to get them interested in your project.

Be sure to download the Ultimate Guide - How to Develop and Sell Your New Electronic Hardware Product.

In this episode of the Predictable Designs Podcast I speak with electrical engineer Craig Rettew about how to build an audience for your product when you have no prior online marketing experience.

Craig is an amazing electronics engineer (and expert in the Hardware Academy) but he is relatively new to online marketing, but realizes the importance of building an audience for your product as early as possible.

In this episode I continue my conversation with Miguel Hernandez who is the creator of the Palocam which is a remote-control camera that can be driven up metal poles for filming sporting events from above.

We discuss how he has been able to drastically simplify his product design based on the feedback he's gotten in the Hardware Academy.  His design simplifications include reducing the number of custom injection molded plastic parts from 18 down to only a couple, and removing a complex, nice-to-have feature that wasn't truly necessary.

These simplifications not only will save Miguel tens of thousands of dollars on injection molds, but it also allowed him to reduce his product assembly time by over 500%! 

And, all of these simplifications significantly lowered his manufacturing cost without any negative impact on the product quality or functionality.

We also talk about marketing and crowdfunding in depth including the importance of estimating your costs so you can know how much money you need to raise.

In this episode of the Predictable Designs Podcast I speak with Hardware Academy member Miguel Hernandez. Miguel is the founder of Palocam which is a remote-controlled camera designed to be driven up metal poles for filming sporting events from above.

Miguel has made a lot of great progress and we discuss many topics related to product development, manufacturing, and marketing. The overall theme of this interview is how to get help, collect feedback, and execute quickly.

Miguel quickly implemented much of the advice he has gotten in the Academy and has already redesigned his prototype based on this feedback. This redesign drastically reduced his product complexity, manufacturing cost and assembly time. 

Because Miguel has proven that he can take advice and execute quickly he has also already gotten a very significant investment offer from another Academy member.

This is an interview you do not want to miss!

In this episode I answer the questions asked by Miguel Hernandez in a very detailed post from inside the Hardware Academy.  The questions focus on three areas including reducing manufacturing costs, increasing sales, and funding.

In this episode I speak with Fraser Vaage who is the founder of a hardware startup named Snik that is developing a new bicycle security device.

Fraser has a lot of marketing experience which is greatly benefiting his new startup. He is also fortunate enough to have as a mentor a mega-entrepreneur who sold his first company to Disney for $350 million.

Fraser is also a very active member of the Hardware Academy, and in fact he has recently  partnered up with another member who will handle most of the product development while Fraser focuses on the marketing.

In our conversation we discuss a variety of topics around hardware startups but we focus especially on the marketing side of the equation.

In this episode I speak again with Dave Millman of SalesDev.Global about the importance of defining milestones for your project. We approach the importance of milestones from the perspective of enticing investors, and for making your project more manageable by breaking it down into bite-size pieces.

Dave has decades of experience helping hardware startups and he specializes in helping them find their first customers. He is also one of the experts available to help you inside the Hardware Academy where he has also taught a couple of live workshops.

In this episode of the Predictable Designs Podcast I'm sharing another one of the lessons from a course in the Hardware Academy. The topic of today's lesson is how to properly define and specify your product.

This product definition is not only required for whoever eventually develops your product, but it is also needed in order to estimate your development cost and even your manufacturing cost as soon as possible.

In this episode of the Predictable Designs podcast I'm going to share with you various ways you can validate your product idea before you begin spending serious money to develop and prototype it. This is a critical early step that way too many entrepreneurs skip entirely or rush past.