Product Startup

Brian Thompson is head of CREO CAD software for 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 3 main product development trends are in 2023 which include using design simulations, designing earlier for manufacturing, and using additive manufacturing for a first short or medium term production run.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/163-2023-trends-in-product-development-for-hardware-products/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Using simulation more in the design process
• Advances in technology to make digital simulation in CAD Design
• You no longer need to be an expert to do some tests in simulations
• The earlier you use CAD simulations, the quicker you discover problems.
• You can explore more design alternatives if you can apply simulation to your designs
• More investment in manufacturing in the design process
• CAD software can be used to evaluate design and prototyping, but now there are more tools to actually evaluate in CAD.
• Three key design steps are idea design, prototype and functional design, and design for manufacturing, in that order.
• Software is now making it easier to move to the next steps and improve the quality
• More additive manufacturing, especially in short run
• Feedback from those first parts is a huge opportunity.
• Focus on equity.
• As a startup, plan on leveraging additive manufacturing to do a first production run to reduce risk.
• Design for additive, but with a plan to migrate those additive designs into full scale manufacturing when you scale.

EPISODE LINKS:

Brian Thompson Links:

LinkedIn | LiveWorx 2023 | Try OnShape for Free | Creo | PTC

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

Will Ford is the Co-Founder of LaunchBoom, the world’s largest crowdfunding platform. He also runs the Crowdfunded Summit, a virtual crowdfunding event which I am also a keynote at again, and that’s coming up in May 2023, and as a quick heads up, Will is offering free tickets for limited time to listeners of this podcast. Today, Will is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can use small trial marketing and sales techniques to gauge how successful a crowdfunding campaign will be, other tips and tricks along the way to a successful launch, and the story of how crowdfunding has changed over the years.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/162-strongproduct-pre-launch-strategies-for-crowdfunding-success-strong/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Get the project funded on crowdfunding on the first day
• Sell the world from a prototype, and then validate that idea with real users, then use that money to fund the manufacturing
• Prelaunch is the single most important thing to think about when launching any product on crowdfunding.
• Offer a better deal to your early backers, before you even launch on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
• People who put a deposit down, even just a dollar, have a 30 times higher probability of converting to a paying customer on Day 1 of your crowdfunding campaign.
• Set a reasonable campaign goal that is much smaller, so that you hit the campaign goal quickly.
• Doing crowdfunding yourself, it’s far less expensive than hiring agencies for crowdfunding.
• Crowdfunding is just the launch, most people want to then scale the product business after that.
• Crowdfunding is stronger than ever.
• Learn from your crowdfunding sales to
• The LaunchBoom community.
• Messaging, positioning, pricing for planning a crowdfunding campaign
• Build lead funnels and reservation funnels
• A/B split testing for advertising messaging and lead offers
• Using data to analyze your offer options
• Figure out what is converting best on crowdfunding
• You can’t fool consumers these days, there is too much information online, so make sure you have a great product.
• Give the backers a discount on crowdfunding vs what your retail price will be.

EPISODE LINKS:

Will Ford Links:

LinkedIn | Website | CrowdFunded Summit

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

Noah is a Vice President at Graff Pinkert, an 80-year-old manufacturing machinery dealer that buys and sells used equipment all over the world, with a central warehouse in the USA. Noah is also the host of the Swarfcast Podcast, a show all about manufacturing machinery and tool machining. Today, Noah will share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can consider starting your own product facility locally to produce your product, and what to think about when buying used equipment for your production facility.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/161-build-a-manufacturing-facility-for-your-new-product/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Manufacturing equipment for products
• More hardware startups have called about buying machinery than ever before.
• You can use machinery to manufacture other products to help reduce the cost of buying the machinery yourself, so you can use it partly for your own product, but also for
• Use the machine to learn how to improve both your manufacturing and the quality of your product.
• It’s important to know the caliber of machine that you need based on the part that you need.
• Look for the best support on the machinery you are buying, that is the priority when it comes to machinery suppliers
• Re-shoring is happening, product startups are trying to bring more products at home than ever before
• You have a lot of control of your product when you manufacture it yourself.

EPISODE LINKS:

Noah Graff Links:

LinkedIn | Website | Swarfcast Podcast

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

Daniel Bischoff to the show. Daniel Bischoff is the former Head of Growth at Purple Mattresses. He took Purple from startup to over two hundred million dollars in sales in just its first two years on the market. He then spun out as co-founder of his own direct-to-consumer marketing agency called StoicYeti which works with both hardware startups and Fortune500 product brands. Today Daniel is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on what direct-to-consumer advertising is, what you can learn from the Purple Mattress story about scaling a hardware brand, and how to create inexpensive yet powerful video ads to sell your new invention to the market.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/160-growing-your-hardware-product-through-paid-ads/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Direct-to-consumer selling for a new hardware product in paid advertising
• Telling a story is key in digital marketing
• The Purple Story, inventors that wanted to create a mattress
• Copied another company’s model, just with a better product
• Sometimes all you need to sell a product is to be different, let alone better.
• Demonstrate, in video form, the value of your product, so that you can sell it online.
• Kickstarter was used to validate sales of Purple, and the way they wanted to sell it.
• You want to hook people in the first 3 seconds of the video.
• Try a number of hooks to see which one attracted the most people.
• Then make people problem-aware and then solution-aware.
• After someone saw their ad, they also reinforced those ads by having good reviews on Google.
• Get as many users as possible, in the beginning, talk to all of your customers to find out who are raving fans, and get those fans to review your product.
• Ask customers to send in reviews from their own cell phones using the product.
• List down all of the objections to buying your product, and have those responses on your website.
• Problem, solution, reasons to believe in the product, reduction of objections
• You can get videos done for cheap, but use those to test your messaging. Sometimes those videos go further.
• User-generated content is the most powerful advertising right now.
• It is cheaper today to advertise a new product, and that is contradictory to what a lot of people think.

EPISODE LINKS:

Daniel Bischoff 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

Ashley Black is the founder of FasciaBlaster and many other related products. Her company sells millions of dollars of products per month directly to her customers all over the world, and has built a community of over 8 million followers on social media. She is also a two-time best-selling author. Her most recent book is titled From Passion and Purpose to Product and Prosperity. Today Ashley is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can build customer communities around your new hardware product, how to be the personal brand behind your product, and how to ensure successful brand growth so that you can be the next hardware startup unicorn.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/159-build-a-community-to-sell-your-new-product-invention/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Building a brand for a hardware product startup
• Focused on ads that sold the products, but also getting them engaged in the actual community.
• Get to that point in ads where you are breakeven.
• Get out there and give deals to people for them to go out there and promote your product.
• Advocate for yourself
• There is magic as an inventor, the inventor themselves.
• Let the audience know who you are as a person, not just the product
• You don’t need to be pretty, you don’t need to be polished, you just need to be yourself.
• You don’t need to do a ton of research when you re just promoting yourself
• Be authentic
• Sell to yourself
• Self-funding
• You have to be all-in
• Lowering your CTA (customer acquisition cost). The bigger the community, the lower the cost per acquisition.
• What is Plan B, there is no Plan B.
• If you’re an inventor out there, and you know your product can help, then it’s only up to you and your commitment.
• If you want it to be a hobby, it’s just that, but if you want a legacy business.
• People have a lot of societal safety nets
• The world is huge, find the others out there that resonate with you and your product

EPISODE LINKS:

Ashley Black Links:

LinkedIn | Website | Facebook | Instagram

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

Dave Duncan is the Vice President Sustainability at PTC Corp, the company behind multiple product design software solutions including OnShape and CREO. He has spent over 20 years in the product design software world, and has his Bachelor of Engineering from Princeton University. Today Dave is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on what it means to develop a sustainable product, what the 3 different types of product sustainability are, and how to use modern best practices in ensuring your product is most marketable by including sustainability as one of your key product development priorities.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/158-thinking-sustainability-in-hardware-product-design/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Designing for sustainability
• Manufacturing for sustainability
• Servicing and Lifecycle management of the product
• Design for sustainability early
• The main impacts are around carbon emissions
• Products can be designed for sustainability
• What do you have to do to adhere to sustainability, and what can you do to improve sustainability beyond what the regulations are.
• Don’t wait too late in the product design lifecycle to start building sustainability into the product design.
• Software can help analyze the options.
• Build in sustainability to your early design.
• Even in B2B product sales, now there are metrics to promote the purchasing of sustainable products. It gives your product an edge.
• This is an advantage as a startup
• 80% of a product’s carbon and waste footprint is determined at design time.
• 20% can be done in the factory to reduce that further.
• Bottleneck analysis
• Energy management
• The circular economy / circular product
• In design, simply put, think about how your product will end, and how it can be re-used, recycled, or re-configured.
• Think about your commercial relationships with your customers regarding end of useful life.
• Generative design in OnShape can actually remove materials through AI. This is called lightweighting.
• With Arena, you can manage the bill of materials, and analyze

EPISODE LINKS:

Dave Duncan Links:

LinkedIn | Try OnShape for Free | Creo | PTC

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 Stemple is the Author of Innovating Innovation, a #1 Bestseller. He has also founded multiple consumer product startups, including Skinit wraps, and since then, Original Wraps which sold to 3M. In addition to his own hardware ventures, he also consults a number of Fortune 500 product companies on how to be more entrepreneurial. Today Mike is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can beat the big corporations when developing a new product by being faster, more nimble, listening to customer feedback, and much more.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/157-how-hardware-startups-compete-with-big-business/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• There is so much democratization of tools and techniques
• There are more firms, especially in product design, helping reduce risk and increase success for a new physical product startup.
• Innovation is being cut, doubling down on existing things that work.
• Time, talent, and treasure to succeed in a new hardware product.
• It’s faster than ever to develop a product and get to market than ever before.
• The next billion-dollar idea is created in a recession
• Smart big corporate people are leaving to create startups
• Focus on the primary goal of the acquisition
• Move from fear-based to opportunity based.
• Scarcity bring innovation, and recessions fuel that.
• Get big ideas developed well. Professionally build the idea.
• Licensing or white labeling can allow you to scale, once you have a product in production that at least a few customers love.
• Don’t be paralyzed on pitching your product to a big company.
• Minimum viable product is so important, and the only way of ensuring quality on your first run.
• The product should evolve over time, and via feedback.
• Don’t rob your customer of your relationship over time with your brand and product.
• Intellectual property creation is the only proven investment strategy that an entrepreneur can be successful at, it is within your control. Now is the time.

EPISODE LINKS:

Mike Stemple Links:

LinkedIn | Book

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

Ben Drury is the Founder of Yoto, a connected hardware toy product for kids. Yoto has sold almost 500,000 units worldwide in just a few years of explosive growth. Today Ben is going to share some valuable knowledge to inventors, hardware startups, small manufacturers, and e-commerce brands on the 5 different sales channels, and how a hardware startup evolves through those channels to maximize their sales growth just like Ben did with Yoto.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/156-the-evolution-of-sales-channels-for-hardware-products/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Crowdfunding. It takes you down a great path of figuring out all the elements needed to build a successful product business.
• Direct via Website.
• The website gives you a lot more information that you can sell
• Amazon sales
• It’s easy to set up sales with Amazon.
• Wholesale / Retailers, Micro retailers, independent retailers, mass retailers
• If you go to a retailer with a buggy product, you will get hurt at retail badly
• There are lots of regulations with retailers, and a lot of requirements.
• Retailers want to see success before they bring on a new product
• Retailers operate on long cycles, they are looking years ahead
• You have to be very well prepared for dealing with big retailers.
• Specialty Channels
• Demand fuels specialty channels which are unique partnerships that want to buy your product
• The feedback loop from customers is very active.

EPISODE LINKS:

Ben Drury Links:

LinkedIn | Yoto | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok

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

Forde Aley is the Co-Founder of Shining Way Sourcing, an agency that has sourced manufacturing for over 1,000 products, with both founders having over 25 years of experience in the space. Today Forde is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can source their first manufacturer for their new hardware invention idea overseas, how to ensure quality control for that production, and why it is important to consider how that factory can scale as you grow into larger sales over time.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/155-identifying-a-sourcing-partner-for-overseas-manufacturing/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Choosing a factory. How to find the right factory.
• 3 key things for sourcing: Choosing a factory, quality control, and retail ready-to-scale.
• Find out how the factory is managed, who the players are, and how it operates as a management team. This is overlooked but very important to know.
• Ensure you or your factory sourcing agent has visited the factory and the factory management team.
• Quality control processes must ensure the output product matches all required criteria.
• Standard operating procedures manual of a factory.
• Retail logistics. Packaging, UPCs, pallets, import, export. Factory selection.
• The sourcing company’s in-house team. Both local and offshore.
• Experience. Make sure 10 years or more, the more experience, the more factories the team will have worked with and knowledge of.
• Why sourcing agents/sourcing companies are important to new consumer product startups and inventors.

EPISODE LINKS:

Forde Aley Links:

LinkedIn | Shining Way Sourcing

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

Jonas Rinde is the founder of his latest product Nomono, a portable podcasting device. Prior to that, he had 3 major product exits totaling billions of dollars in acquisitions, in addition to working on over 50 hardware products over the last 20 years. Today Jonas is going to share valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on the three key elements to building a great new physical consumer product device, and how each of those has led him to achieve billion-dollar success with many hardware products.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://productstartup.com/podcast/154-3-key-parts-to-developing-a-great-new-product/

Today you will hear us talk about:

• 1st wow: How you get to know the product as a new potential customer
• Approachable design
• 2nd wow: What happens when you use the product
• 3rd wow: After you use the product, have you developed a fan
• Listen to your customers, but also find focus.
• Focus and MVP are key, limit feature creep.
• Don’t throw the feature creep ideas away, just store them, structure them, and prioritize them for possible future versions in the future.
• Nail the first product, then start building more versions of your product to make a portfolio of related products
• Take your product to the street.
• Simple design means also easy to sell, but also easy for the customers to use.

EPISODE LINKS:

Jonas Rinde Links:

LinkedIn | Nomono

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