Product Startup

Yohan Jacob is the Founder and President of RetailBound, an agency that helps emerging hardware brands get into major retail stores and sales channels. RetailBound has been around for 14 years and has worked with over 4,000 product companies. Yohan himself has spent 30 years in the industry, including being a major buyer for Sears and Office Max. The last episode we talked about scaling up when in retail stores. Today Yohan is going to explain to inventors, startups, and small manufacturers why retail is a huge sales opportunity in 2023, how to overcome objections to going the retail store route, and how to smartly begin your relationship with a retail store chain.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/183-getting-a-new-hardware-product-into-retail-stores/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Retail stores are not dead
• Retail stores have got better at being omni-channel, where they also sell online and in collaboration with their physical stores
• There are many elements of value in selling an invention through retail stores.
• Leverage the presence of your product in retail stores to use that media to increase the value of your product online and with various stakeholders of your product and product business.
• Think about selling to distributors who then sell to retailers
• A basic marketing plan
• Start small when going into the retailers, then grow.
• Profitability
• Leveraging online sales to sell more product
• Don't overcomplicate things, and don’t have fear.

Yohan Jacob Links:

LinkedIn | RetailBound

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | https://www.youtube.com/@productstartup

Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Brian Thompson is the head of CREO CAD software at PTC. He spent the first 16 years of his career doing CAD design engineering for hundreds of products, many of which are still in production today, then the last 14 years building CAD software solutions to allow designers to make better hardware products. Today Brian is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on what the leading trends are right now for design for manufacturing so that products can be designed, engineered, prototyped, and manufactured faster, more efficiently, and at better quality.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/182-consumer-product-hardware-trends-in-mid-2023/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Customers are re-engaging in using new technologies in design.
• Simulation integrated into design tools.
• Additive manufacturing.
• The markets are more competitive than ever
• Hardware products can’t afford to have manufacturing issues, to have quality issues, to take long to get to market, etc.
• Design for manufacturing in additive tools in CREO.
• Significant increase in model-based product development.
• Design is an iterative process
• The standard definition of model-based.
• Simulation, NC toolpaths, tool design, manufacturing fixture assembly, marketing. brochure development, etc.
• Pushing manufacturers to utilize the 3D CAD data.

Brian Thompson Links:

LinkedIn | CREO | PTC | Onshape

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | https://www.youtube.com/@productstartup

Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Neha is Project Manager Lead at Meta for Ads Manager Reporting. Before this, she spent 5 years with Google in a number of roles including Google Analytics manager and Head of Merchant Growth. She also invests in a number of startups. Today Neha is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on what direct-to-consumer digital marketing is, best practices for leveraging organic content to prepare for paid ads, and how to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of paid digital advertising for amplifying your new hardware product’s growth.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/181-digital-advertising-for-selling-new-hardware-products/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• What is direct-to-consumer digital advertising
• Direct-to-customer allows you to preserve your margins
• Focus on organic content to start selling units, this helps you establish product market fit.
• Generative AI has made the cost of organic content much less, faster, and easier.
• Interview experts in your area that surround your product, and that will drive organic content.
• Blogs are helpful, but people have changed the way they interact with them. Use both audio, video, and written blogs.
• Find out which customers are your fan, and get them to tell your story, get lots of reviews.
• Think about experimentation when you start to run ads.
• Most people start with one type of ad. Instead, try multiple different ads, and try different types of advertising.
• You can again use AI to create a lot of options for testing your ads.
• Customer segmentation and target audience
• Customer needs, preferences, and pain points.
• Build personas based on the job to be done or the skill level of your customer, and target that audience
• Branding and positioning.
• You don’t need a lot of money to build a brand.
• Word of mouth is powerful for brand building
• Data driven decision making. Measure the effectiveness of your spend.
• Influencer marketing can be much cheaper than traditional marketing.
• Be creative on how to drive customers to your hardware product.
• Ensure you set up digital tracking early on. Every customer touch point needs to be monitored.
• Run A/B tests, then block time in your calendar to identify the insights.
• Three key things for hardware sales on digital platforms are campaign objectives, audience targeting, and ad performance analysis.

EPISODE LINKS:

Neha Bansal Links:

LinkedIn

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | https://www.youtube.com/@productstartup

Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Greame Whitehead is a client of our very own Mako Design who invented the CNCT Cooler, an ultra high-end cooler that has won 3 international product awards including Indigogo, CreativePool and the NY Product Design Awards. He is a corporate Vice President that invented, designed, manufactured, and sold his product as a side-gig, still to today. Today Graeme is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on how to design a quality consumer product, tips for getting to manufacturing and working with manufacturers, and how to leverage influencers to gain early product exposure and traction in the marketplace for your invention idea.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/180-hardware-startup-tips-for-non-technical-founders/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Identify what you don’t know.
• Focus on quality
• Know that you are a customer yourself
• Ask the right questions from your design team
• Manufacturing is a key stakeholder as we get into production
• Manufacturers push back because they don’t want to do things.
• Talk to multiple different manufacturers
• Focus on getting to production
• Multiple awards
• Manufacturing in the USA
• Leveraging influencers
• Shipped product for free to influencers and got free coverage

EPISODE LINKS:

Graeme Whitehead Links:

LinkedIn | CNCT Coolers

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | https://www.youtube.com/@productstartup

Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Nick Allen is an industrial design at MAKO Design. Nick has been designing products for 15 years, working with over 100 products and earning multiple design awards including the coveted Red Dot award. Today Nick is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on how to start working on a project with your hardware product development partner so that you can maximize the value of the relationship, thus leading to creating a top notch product and even more important, a successful hardware startup business

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/179-maximize-the-value-of-your-design-agency-partner/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Focus on your vision. Know what you know, don’t worry about what you don’t know.
• Leverage your experience.
• What the product needs to do and what it needs to do.
• Write it down.
• Have a basic sketch of your idea
• Bullet point notes on your customer
• Must have, must not have.
• Design intent
• Accept pushback from the design engineers.
• Must have vs want to have features / MVP
• Work with your design team to reign in the feature creep.
• Team effort in original features
• You can always release version 2.0

EPISODE LINKS:

Nick Allen Links:

LinkedIn | MAKO Design

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | https://www.youtube.com/@productstartup

Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Toph Day is the CEO of Elevate Ventures, a Venture Capital firm that has many hardware companies in its portfolio of over $220 million of investments under management. He has founded 8 companies with over $600 million in transactions over the past 30 years. Today Toph is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on what venture capital funding is, if VC funding is right for you, and some advice on how to plan for and pitch your hardware startup to VC firms.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/178-venture-capital-funding-for-hardware-startups/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Venture capital is later stage, more sophisticated, and usually beyond
• Make your pitch and plan to be very tight.
• It is important understand what your venture capital firm invests.
• Make sure the venture capital firm invests in hardware technology.
• Relationship build with your investors about a year in advance.
• Keep your pitch to the pitch, don’t embellish
• Structure of Venture Capital funding
• When you start your company, start with a very clean legal structure.
• Use a convertible note for your investors
• When raising capital, check out all the programs and grants available
• Don’t include grants as revenue
• Hardware startups can grow to be successful slowly
• You can also grow hardware companies much quicker
• Surround yourself with partners, rely more on partners than hiring.
• Prototypes require multiple iterations
• Narrow and deep plays into hard tech, keep the product’s first version simple

EPISODE LINKS:

Toph Day Links:

LinkedIn | Elevate Ventures | Rally Conference

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | https://www.youtube.com/@productstartup

Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Justin Chen is the Co-Founder of PickFu, a platform that helps businesses survey real people about their key visual decisions. They have administered over 5 million queries over the last 12 years. Today Justin is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on why hardware product packaging is so important, how to design great packaging, and how to use real feedback to iteratively improve and perfect your package design.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/177-package-design-tips-for-new-hardware-products/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Friends and family feedback is okay, but
• Look at the competition to understand what the standards are for packaging
• Packaging as an afterthought is a mistake, as packaging is a big part of your
• Eye catching. Make sure you stand out from the competition
• Put badges on the packaging to attract customer
• Informative packaging is about what the important selling points are of a product
• Have people rank selling points.
• What are the questions that a buyer may have?
• Hardware packaging is essentially a digital billboard.
• Include your physical packaging in your digital marketing materials
• The more attention to detail you put on your product packaging, the more confident you are on the product.
• Make a few variations of your packaging design, then start with big picture creative options, then show them to people for them to pick their favorite.
• Then keep iterating and narrowing down the packaging over and over.
• Then test that package design on competitors.
• This method de-risks packaging.
• A big question to ask customers is to say, what does your new hardware product do?
• Hardware startups should factor in high quality packaging and more informative packaging.

EPISODE LINKS:

Justin Chen Links:

LinkedIn | PickFu

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | https://www.youtube.com/@productstartup

Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Mike Fata has done over $500M in physical product sales, launching over 25 products to over 16,000 retail stores, which thus lead to three different 9-figure exits. He is also the author of the book Grow:12 Unconventional Lessons for Becoming an Unstoppable Entrepreneur. Today Mike is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on the importance of showcasing your passion in your invention idea to be able to best maximize success.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/176-how-hardware-founders-should-represent-their-product/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• How important the founder product market fit is.
• People want to know why the founder behind a hardware product made this hardware product
• You can compete
• Other people like you is one of the easiest ways to sell product
• Be authentic, that is the foundation, everything grows from there.
• Tell the story of the challenges you faced along the development path
• Trade shows are a great way to get in front of like-minded people in a community.
• Non-profit organizations are a place to build communities around the problems. Don’t forget to give back.
• Reach out to other hardware founders on LinkedIn
• Be loud and proud of your story.

EPISODE LINKS:

Mike Fata Links:

LinkedIn | Book: Grow

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | https://www.youtube.com/@productstartup

Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Larry Richenstein has been in the hardware sales, development, and investment world for over 40 years. He is an angel investor in the New York Angels network and is currently the CEO of WePower Technologies, his latest hardware venture. Today Larry is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on what angel investing is, what stages of development you need to get your product to in order to pitch to a professional angel investor, and how to do a good pitch once you are in the door.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/175-raising-hardware-funding-via-an-angel-investor/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• An angel investor is usually an independent investor or a group of investors that invest in startup businesses.
• Angel investing are considers
• Angel investment is the first round, then venture capital.
• When it comes to products, there is a lot more that goes into them from a product development standpoint.
• Measure twice, cut once.
• You have to have all the development
• People that have ideas, get no funding.
• People that come up with a rough prototype or a rough prototype, it’s interesting but generally still too early.
• What investors really want to see, is a working prototype.
• De-risking the investment occurs the further you push the product down the road.
• First, find angels that invest in hardware.
• Angel investors for hardware are out there.
• Come in with a pitch that proves that you have a strong likelihood of success
• Hardware and software are starting to come together.
• Crowdfunding is a powerful way to prove market validity.
• You no longer have to build for the masses, you can build for niche industries.
• Avoid feature creep, especially for your first version.
• Crowdfunding is a way to avoid outside investors.

EPISODE LINKS:

Larry Richenstein Links:

LinkedIn | WePower Technologies

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | https://www.youtube.com/@productstartup

Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Jon Hirschtick is the co-founder of both Solidworks and OnShape. In his 42 years of building these platforms, his software has been used to design more physical consumer products than anything else on earth. OnShape alone has over 3 million designers on the CAD software platform. Today Jon is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on why agile product development is so important for hardware startups, what additive manufacturing can do to facilitate agile development, and how modern tools are making it easier than ever to get to market faster, at higher quality, and iteratively.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/174-agile-product-development-additive-manufacturing/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• The Story of Solidworks and Onshape
• Learned at an early age on how to treat customers right
• Agile design
• Build hardware the way you build software a little bit, using an agile process for produce development.
• Work in a series of design sprints, with the end of each sprint developing a product.
• Daily stand up meetings.
• Agile Manifesto online.
• Jon is publishing a whitepaper on Agile development
• May 15-18 is the liveworks conference.
• Why agile now, 4 reasons. Software is joining with hardware. The upcoming workforce is naturally agile thinkers. The world is changing constantly. The tools are now here for agile.
• The great products are now being made by startups, or big companies want to work like startups.
• Real time collaboration.
• Additive manufacturing is changing rapidly every year
• 3d Printing conventions are powerful for seeing what is possible.
• Software now is innovative, fast, reliable.
• The issue of version history and files.
• Cloud native is the key to modern CAD design tools.
• Collaboration can now happen in real time, with edit history, on any device, anywhere.
• Software can now have clear traceable rigor and feature logging which is very important when you are going from prototyping, to short run manufacturing, to full scale manufacturing.

EPISODE LINKS:

Jon Hirschtick Links:

LinkedIn | LiveWorx 2023 | Onshape

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | https://www.youtube.com/@productstartup

Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter