Mark Pecota is the author of Crowdfunded, the leading book on crowdfunding. He is also the Co-Founder of LaunchBoom, one of the first and leading crowdfunding agencies, an agency which has raised hundreds of millions for hardware startup clients. He also founded and runs LaunchBoom Academy, an educational platform for going from start to finish of a campaign, and runs the Crowdfunded Summit. Today Mark is going to share some valuable knowledge about what Crowdfunding is, how to best prepare and test for a campaign, how campaign marketing works, how to scale your funding round, and best practices in campaign messaging.

EPISODE LINKS

Mark Pecota / LaunchBoom Links:

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

Mako Design Links:

Kevin Mako Links:

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Chrystal Clifton is the Founder of Chrystalize, a company that helps luxury consumer product brands grow and monetize their marketing and brand authority.  She also led the charge on growing a wine brand from nothing to the number eight wine in the world, which is just one accomplishment among 20 years in the premium and luxury product industries.  Today Chrystal is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers should think about their new product as a premium product, even if it is not in a typical luxury industry.  She explains why this is so important to a new and growing brand, then explains best practices on how to pull it off the right way to ensure your product leads your industry in both reputation and success.

EPISODE LINKS

Chrystal Clifton / Chrystalize Links:

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

Mako Design Links:

Kevin Mako Links:

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Jamie Libregts is the Director of Product Marketing for Reliable Corporation, a 65-year-old manufacturing company that produces high-quality consumer and commercial garment care products all over the world. Today, Jamie is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can leverage marketing to stand out in a competitive environment - both with a new product and when updating an existing one. Simply put, he unravels how to think about the market and scaling your product, right from the product development phase all the way through to multiple manufacturing runs, as well as how to continuously innovate to always be leading the industry.

EPISODE LINKS

Jamie Libregts / Reliable Corp Links:

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

Mako Design Links:

Kevin Mako Links:

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Joe is both a CPA and a lawyer from the manufacturing sector.  He has worked with many emerging and established manufacturing operations, including a major turnaround of Jefferson Electric, which went on to go public.  Since then, Joe has spent the past 10 years research how to financially scale hardware companies and is now working to launch Dream Exchange, a way for small companies to go public.   Today Joe is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers think ahead to how they will finance and scale their product, but also what an acquisition or go-to-public exit looks like, and why it’s always good to think about that soon in the product startup journey.

EPISODE LINKS

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

Joe Cecala / Dream Exchange Links:

Mako Design Links:

Kevin Mako’s Links:

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James is the author of the book Ramping Your Brand, which helps high-growth consumer product companies accelerate their growth.  He also has his Ph.D. in Anthropology aka Human Behaviour from the University of Wisconsin, and was a Harvard Grad before that.  Today James is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can use best practices in marketing to rapidly scale their product business - Specifically, we are going through the four Ps of marketing for hardware startups.

EPISODE LINKS

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

James Richardson:

Mako Design Links:

Kevin Mako’s Links:

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Brett is the President of Goodlawyer, a law firm tailored specifically to startups.  Today Brett is going to share some valuable knowledge on business law considerations for when starting and scaling a hardware startup.  There’s two main fields of law for a hardware startup, one, is the intellectual property protection, aka patent law, and the second is business legal issues, things such as partner agreements, Non-disclosures, financing agreements - Today, we’re talking about the latter, legal considerations of your product business itself.  What legal considerations should you be making, but almost more importantly, what legal things should you not be spending big bucks on.

EPISODE LINKS

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

Brett Colvin / Goodlawyer Links:

Mako Design Links:

Kevin Mako’s Links:

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Peter-Paul is the Founder of FrontFundr, one of North America’s top platforms for equity crowdfunding for startups and small scaling businesses.  He is a TedX speaker on Investment Crowdfunding, is a member of the Securities Commission, and is an advisor to both the Private Capital Markets Association and the National Crowdfunding and Fintech Association.  Simply put, Peter-Paul is the person to talk to when it comes to crowdfunding capital for a hardware startup.  Today, he is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can raise funding to scale their product businesses, especially in modern times as there are a lot more funding opportunities than ever before.

Today you will hear us talk about:

EPISODE LINKS

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

Peter-Paul Van Hoeken / FrontFundr Links:

Mako Design Links:

Kevin Mako’s Links:

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Deirdre is the President of Growth Boss, an e-commerce strategy agency.  Her team helps product startups scale to 6 and 7 figure online product businesses.  Today Deirdre is going to describe which online digital sales platforms are the best for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers that are looking to sell their product directly to end-customers, along with some best practices on those sales platforms.

Today you will hear us talk about:

Episode Links

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

Deirdre Tshien / Growth Boss Links:

Mako Design Links:

Kevin Mako’s Links:

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Jefferey is the Founder and President of The Open People Network, an organization that invests in early stage companies, including many hardware startups. OPN simultaneously runs pitch nights, entrepreneurship communities, and expert panels for startup funding education. Jeffery also has been an Angel Investor for many years. Today he is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can fund the growth of their product business - From invention development all the way to raising millions of dollars of growth capital, and all the funding stages in between.

Today you will hear us talk about:

Episode Links

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

Jeffery Potvin / Open People Network Links:

Mako Design Links:

Kevin Mako’s Links:

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Mike ran a design firm in Hong Kong back in the 90s, then was a Senior Industrial Design Lead at Sunbeam, before contributing as a Design Manager at Hewlett Packard and, subsequently, spending 10 years with Dell running their entire business desktops design division. He has made over 50 trips to China for manufacturing sourcing and has consulted dozens of hardware startups on overseas production. He is also a mentor at Techstars and Capital Factory. Today, Mike is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can best plan for and optimally execute their first overseas manufacturing run. 

Today you will hear us talk about:

Episode Links

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

Mike Morton Links:

Mako Design Links:

Kevin Mako’s Links:

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