Product Startup

For nearly a decade, Tim Uys has spearheaded a diverse myriad of design initiatives as the Director of Design at MAKO Design + Invent. During his 25 years in the industrial design and mechanical engineering domains, he has made impactful contributions in senior design leadership and education roles, as well as to renowned companies such as Dell, Nike Golf, Qualcomm, and Ironman. Today, Tim draws from his abundant experience to enlighten modern inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on the disparities between mechanical and pre-production prototypes for plastic components. He will divulge the essential design for manufacturing prerequisites and offer insight into optimizing the plastic product design, engineering, and prototyping journey for maximum efficiency.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/223-mechanical-prototype-parts-vs-pre-production-parts-for-plastic-inventions/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• What are the key differences between a mechanical prototype and a pre-production prototype?
• Most hardware inventions are either entirely or mainly made of plastic or have some plastic components.
• The mechanical prototype helps validate the primary mechanism of the design and the overall invention idea.
• The pre-production prototype is the phase in which you put the product design into its intended final format, suitable for mass production, and work on shaping the components to optimize for that format.
• There is a wide variety of different types of plastic, and they all have different uses.
• Once you finalize the materials selection, the next step is to choose which processes you will use, such as injection moulding.
• A lot of hardware startups skip this entire step and choose to proceed to manufacturing with concept CAD. They are missing 3 key prototyping stages: the Rough Prototype, the Mechanical Prototype, and the Pre-Production Prototype.
• Skipping these stages could cost you money and time down the line if something is missed.
• The fewer features you have for your starter product as a startup, the easier it is to go through all these steps and the more refined each feature will be.
• Keep your feature creep to a minimum. You can add additional features later on!

Kevin Mako: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevmako

In addition to amassing 25 years of experience in the manufacturing industry, Micki Vandeloo has dedicated nearly 15 years to assisting manufacturers with securing government grants to propel the growth of their product ventures. Impressively, as the President of Lakeview Consulting, she has collectively secured over $250 million for clients. Today, Micki will offer invaluable guidance for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers by systematically breaking down the requisite steps and nuances of applying for and successfully securing government grants in the USA. She will delineate the various levels as well as categories of grants available for hardware startups and impart essential advice on preparing for and composing the application to maximize your chances of success.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/222-securing-grants-for-scaling-up-a-hardware-startup/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• What are government grants?
• You have to plan very far ahead before applying for a government grant.
• What is the difference between state grants and federal grants?
• Scaling-stage funding is when you are able to prove that you can scale. Most government grants require clear market proof to receive the funding.
• There are a wide variety of different grant purposes.
• Project design is key to successfully applying for a government grant.
• There are 3 core elements to a grant: What are the activities you have to do to make the product business grow? What do you need in order to make the scaling project work? How much money is your product going to cost?
• Identify the grant you think you can get, develop a compelling project plan in your application, and then ensure you follow the grant requirements after receiving funding.
• There are a variety of grant requirements you must meet after you get the funding, so be conservative with your estimates.

Kevin Mako: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevmako

With more than two decades of experience in manufacturing, Keenan Wyrobek stands as a highly knowledgeable figure in the industry. He is the Co-Founder and CTO of Zipline, an autonomous drone delivery enterprise boasting a workforce of 1,100 individuals that has secured funding in the hundreds of millions. Today, Keenan will divulge his extensive expertise salient to inventors, startups, and small-scale manufacturers. He will share how to best navigate the intricacies of the design for manufacturing phase, strategies for optimizing the product development and prototyping stages for seamless integration with manufacturing processes, and how to smoothly transition from finalizing your pre-production prototype to your first manufacturing run, thereby laying the groundwork for a triumphant launch.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/221-how-to-go-from-prototype-to-first-manufacturing-run/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• Ensure your product is well-designed and has been prototyped numerous times before going into the production stage.
• Design for manufacturing is all about hitting optimizations and maximizing manufacturability for each individual component.
• Don’t change aspects of the product design once you have begun DFM, the design is done at that point!
• Create at least more than 3 prototypes to make sure you have industriously iterated on everything that matters.
• You are not done prototyping until you are perfectly happy with your design, and it perfectly aligns with your vision for your product.
• Manufacturing design is the stage where you start working closely with your manufacturing vendors.
• Make sure you have a strong manufacturing design package to provide your vendors with.
• Product reliability is critical, so make sure you have a strong relationship with your manufacturing vendors!
• Include the customer in the DFM process, as they will identify reliability issues you may have never identified.

Kevin Mako: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevmako

Akeem Shannon is the mastermind behind Flipstik, a consumer product startup that started with a crowdfunding campaign and has achieved resounding success leveraging the immense power of authentic storytelling. In addition to achieving over a million units sold and robust partnerships with over 3,000 resellers, Flipstik has garnered substantial attention from millions of consumers across various social media platforms, including the legendary Snoop Dogg. Today, Akeem will take listeners through his journey in the hardware startup space and impart valuable anecdotes for inventors, startups, and small-scale manufacturers. He will delve into the significance of storytelling in consumer product promotion, emphasizing its dual utility: leveraging personal narrative as a founder and harnessing customer experiences. Moreover, Akeem will elaborate on how to strategically implement these storytelling techniques to propel the growth of your product business.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/220-how-storytelling-drives-consumer-product-sales/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• It always helps to have a genuine love for sales as you are always selling something as a hardware founder.
• You can recover from failure if you don’t give up!
• Self-belief will take you further than anything!
• Most people don’t have big imaginations, so your biggest obstacle is convincing them to buy something they were previously content with living without.
• Show consumers how your customer's lives were changed by using your product.
• Sometimes, you are not the right messenger for a specific audience, so utilize the stories of others to get your message across.
• Find people who love your product and work with them to amplify your message!
• Authenticity is the most important thing when telling your own story.
• Your story will get you into rooms and meetings that you may think you are too small for.

Kevin Mako: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevmako

Kevin Lavelle, the Co-Founder and CEO of Mizzen + Main, a renowned men's apparel company that has its products distributed in hundreds of outlets and boasts 10 thriving retail stores, has embarked on a new venture: Harbor. Harbor is a pioneering pediatric device startup that recently secured $3.7 million in seed funding. Today, Kevin shares the insight he gained while successfully scaling his product business by imparting modern inventors, startups, and small-scale manufacturers with tips for hiring your very first team members and expounding upon the quintessential attributes to seek in inaugural hires in the hardware startup realm. He delves into discerning characteristics that hold significance, dispelling common misconceptions, and underscores the paramount importance of never sacrificing quality within the consumer product domain.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/219-hiring-your-first-team-members-at-a-hardware-startup/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• What foremost principles are the most important to prioritize when hiring?
• Can your potential hire survive in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment?
• People from large organizations are not typically great fits for very early-stage hardware startup businesses.
• Can this hire operate without a team and spearhead decision-making on their own?
• Get to know a potential hire beyond just one interview.
• Does your potential hire fundamentally understand what they are getting into in joining a hardware startup?
• Knowledge gained on the job is an intangible benefit of working for a startup that can also outweigh the compensation.
• Never sacrifice your quality when developing a hardware product!
• Avoid feature creep in early-stage startups!

Kevin Mako: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevmako

Wesleyne Whittaker is the CEO of Transformed Sales, an esteemed organization dedicated to architecting sales methodologies that foster rapid and maximal growth with an impressive track record of collaborations with over 150 distinguished manufacturers and product brands. Today, Wesleyne will share the extensive knowledge she has accumulated on developing and effectively employing uniquely tailored sales processes pivotal to inventors, startups, and small manufacturers. She will elucidate the three overarching phases of a sales process – outlining the role and salient components of each stage – and afford astute guidance on adeptly executing said process to proliferate sales, client trust and retention, and expansion opportunities for your hardware product business.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/218-best-sales-processes-for-selling-hardware-products/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• What is a sales process?
• There are three core stages: Prospect, Nurture, and Close.
• Prospect involves figuring out how to attract customers.
• Nurture is all about taking someone who is interested in your product and transforming them into a buyer.
• Close entails getting that pen to paper so you can then work on developing loyalty to turn that customer into a repeat customer.
• Educating potential customers is an incredibly important part of prospecting!
• The biggest challenge for hardware entrepreneurs is getting the abundance of knowledge they have acquired out of their heads to inform customers.
• Have a variety of information prepared for your customer and disseminate it using a variety of mediums.
• It’s okay to lose a sale, but not in the same way twice.
• Communicate the value of the product, how it solves a key problem, and the risk of not buying your product.

Kevin Mako: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevmako

Yuri Dvoinos is the visionary behind an illustrious portfolio of 15 enterprises that have collectively amassed tens of millions of dollars in revenue. Among his ventures lies the portable Jammy Guitar, a resounding success story that garnered $250,000 in initial funding during its inaugural crowdfunding endeavor, swiftly followed by a staggering $500,000 in its subsequent campaign. Today, Yuri shares how he accomplished these commendable feats and his insight into crowdfunding to inform modern innovators, burgeoning startups, and niche manufacturers. He elucidates the profound significance of customer feedback and delves into how to optimally harness such feedback to drive subsequent product iteration and development.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/217-using-crowdfunding-for-real-customer-feedback-on-your-invention/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• Crowdfunding provides instant, high-quality feedback from real customers!
• A large factor in their success was that they identified a gap in a market with lackluster products and filled the gap with their product.
• The primary reason they wanted to do a crowdfunding campaign was not to secure funding, but rather to get real customer feedback from backers who had pre-purchased the product.
• Make sure you celebrate your campaign's successes once it has finished!
• After that, leverage your campaign to get interest from important people in the industry.
• Customer segmentation can be very valuable when striving to find your ideal target audience, as you can develop a product exactly for them.
• Version 2.0 comes after launching an MVP.
• Consider leveraging both Kickstarter and Indiegogo!
• As you evolve, you will figure out how to reduce costs associated with hardware development.

Kevin Mako: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevmako

Wade Harmidy, an esteemed project manager at MAKO Design + Invent, dedicates his meticulously cultivated expertise to guiding inventors and hardware startups through their product development journeys. Armed with an impressive academic background that includes an Honours Bachelor of Science degree and a Post Graduate Certificate in Quality Assurance, in addition to a prestigious Six Sigma Black Belt certification in Project Management, Wade is a beacon of knowledge in his field. Today, he graciously shares key tips for modern inventors, startups, and small-scale manufacturers. He expounds upon how to best navigate the beginning of your product development journey by revealing 5 indispensable strategies that will ensure you succeed in your product venture.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/216-5-key-tips-for-starting-your-product-development-journey/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• What are the core factors that dictate how your product journey will go?
• Having a definitive vision for what your invention will achieve or what problem it is solving is integral.
• The clearer your vision is in the initial stages, the more likely it is that an experienced team will be able to help you realize your vision.
• Write down your product vision! Shoot for fewer words than more words.
• Have something tangible to bring to the product engineering firm. You don’t need to be an artist! Just get the idea down.
• Make sure to consider the end user and what your product accomplishes for them.
• MVP design is a key tenet.
• Setting realistic deadlines is incredibly important!
• Cutting corners often leads to failure!
• Plan for the big picture and all of the key milestones you need to hit.

Kevin Mako: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevmako

Michael Lebhar is the visionary behind SellCord, one of the world's foremost Walmart Marketplace agencies that boasts a remarkable track record for facilitating sales exceeding a billion dollars for hardware startups and renowned brands on the esteemed Walmart.com platform. In this episode, Michael is poised to impart his vast insight into the power of Walmart Marketplace and its salience to modern inventors, burgeoning startups, and small-scale manufacturers. The guidance he affords encompasses a detailed exposé on the intricacies of Walmart Marketplace, essential tips for seamlessly launching debut products on the platform, irrespective of prior experience, and proven strategies for achieving sustained growth in product sales.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/215-launching-a-new-product-on-walmart-marketplace/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• What is Walmart Marketplace, and how does it differ from Walmart Retail Stores?
• It is more difficult to get your product onto Walmart.com than Amazon, but that presents an increased opportunity.
• Having a website already set up that sells or promotes your product is a huge asset when applying to Walmart.com.
• Walmart.com uses a listing quality score to judge the quality of your invention listing on their platform. This affects what page your product will be listed on.
• There are Walmart style guides you can access that tell you how to properly structure your product ad. Make sure to follow it!
• Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) is an important feature to subscribe to that is similar to Amazon Prime.

Kevin Mako: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevmako

Alex Back, the innovative force behind Couch.com and the previous founder of Apt2B, solidified both enterprises as influential figures in the domain of affiliate marketing for physical consumer product brands targeting end-consumers directly. In this episode, Alex will provide comprehensive guidance to inventors, startups, and small-scale manufacturers seeking to understand the fundamental principles of affiliate marketing and how it can impactfully boost the success of hardware products. He will elaborate on effective strategies for successfully introducing new products to the market and achieving early sales through this exceptionally useful and rapidly expanding sales channel.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/214-affiliate-marketing-for-d2c-sales-of-inventions/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• What is affiliate marketing?
• Social media influencers are the most common type of affiliate marketing; however, they represent only a small part of the affiliate marketing landscape.
• Sellers know how to sell, inventors know how to invent, and together they can form a mutually beneficial partnership.
• Influencers, bloggers, Youtubers, and online stores are affiliate marketing organizations.
• The differences between commission-based, traffic-based, display or impression-based, and pay-per-click affiliate marketing.
• Your affiliate marketer only sends traffic to your website! You still need to sell your product.
• Research the different affiliate platforms that are commonly used and see which ones resonate best with you.
• All product review sites are based on affiliate marketing!
• To start, be very generous with your commission payout amount.
• Affiliate marketing is the Wild West of opportunity.

Kevin Mako: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevmako