Product Startup – Details, episodes & analysis

Will Ford is one of the world's top crowdfunding experts. As President and Co-Founder of LaunchBoom, the leading crowdfunding agency for hardware startups, he has helped thousands of inventors and entrepreneurs leverage platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo to establish and scale their product empires. Today, he explains in great detail why a successful crowdfunding campaign can lead to significantly higher post-campaign investments and increased sales across multiple channels to enlighten inventors, startups, and small manufacturers. Will also details best practices for raising funds and optimizing crowdfunding efforts, emphasizing the importance of strategic planning, storytelling, and social proof.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://www.makodesign.com/podcast/233-raising-money-for-scaling-via-a-crowdfunding-campaign/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• Don’t give away too much equity too early in your entrepreneurial journey!

• Although it's great to have more money at the start, if you give away equity early, you will erode much of your future potential earnings.

• Convertible debt is a great pathway for raising money for your future valuation.

• You can take a prototype and pre-sell it to thousands of people worldwide through a crowdfunding platform.

• Raise growth capital after you complete your crowdfunding campaign.

• You will raise far more money if you bootstrap for as long as possible before crowdfunding, and you will give out far less equity.

• Buyers always want the coolest new products in the market as early as possible. This is why crowdfunding platforms are so powerful for inventors.

• You can turn backers who support your campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo into investors once the campaign is over.

• Dr. Squatch is an example of a hundred-thousand-dollar crowdfunding campaign.

• Prelaunch, test, and then validate the return on ad spend.

MAKO Design + Invent: www.makodesign.com

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

Producer: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, 

David Brown, one of our talented industrial designers at MAKO Design, is a true expert in hardware product video renderings. With a rich background in industrial design and design engineering, David has honed his product design skills to an exceptionally refined degree. Today, he's excited to share his expertise with inventors, startups, and small manufacturers. Imagine being able to visualize your product idea in stunning detail before it even exists – like a trailer for a new captivating horror movie. That's the magic of 3D CAD video renderings, and David is here to demystify the process. He'll take you through the creation process of video renderings and how they can be a game-changer at every stage of your product's journey. From the initial spark of inventing to the thrill of making your first sale, David will reveal how these renderings can bring your vision to life for investors or potential consumers and set you on the path to success.

Click this link for This Episode's Full Info Page: https://www.makodesign.com/podcast/232-video-product-renderings-for-your-invention/

Key Takeaways in This Episode:

• Using video renderings is like bringing Hollywood to your product design!

• Video rendering is essentially taking 3D CAD designs and making a video with that series of images and data.

• It is like setting up a virtual camera that provides a full-scope view of the product in the setting where you would naturally find it.

• You must also take into account the environment and lighting!

• You can create things with video renderings that cannot be done in real life; this is one of its primary advantages.

• Exploded view renderings show how the product comes apart and all of its pieces.

• You can use these tools to explain a lot about a product and inform potential consumers.

• Product demos and tutorials are other uses for video renderings.

• How can you direct your designers to build a great hardware product rendering video for what you need?

• The core requirement for making the video is creating a storyboard and ordering the elements to effectively tell the story.

• Video renderings are standard these days for a great product, but you also need to develop a prototype!

• There is post-processing of the video as well to refine the story being told and how it is presented.

MAKO Design + Invent: www.makodesign.com

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

Producer: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, 

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://www.makodesign.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!

MAKO Design + Invent: www.makodesign.com

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

Producer: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, 

Jacob Anson is the CoFounder of AgencyJR, a firm that has helped sell tens of millions of dollars worth of product for product companies. Today Jacob is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can understand email marketing, learn the different types within, and know how to use email marketing effectively.

Today you will hear us talk about:

• What is email marketing
• How does it fit into overall digital advertising
• Email lists from buyers, email lists from almost buyers, and email lists from cold lead generation
• How do you do email marketing well
• Cold leads need to be advertised harder and more aggressively
• Warm leads need to be nurtured as a community
• Paid ads are the key to generating leads and their emails
• For products that are repeat purchases, keep the profit low
• For one-time buy products, add more value
• Simplicity is key to promoting value
• Think of 3 tips to solve a problem, then promote the product
• There are a variety of offers you can provide
• The "Value-value-sale" system
• List segmentation
• Focus on paid ads to get those emails, then ensure to use automation.
• The two easiest automation programs are checkout abandonment and a popup on your online sales channel.

EPISODE LINKS

Jacob Anson / Agency JR Links:

• Website: https://www.agencyjr.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-r-anson-a92597186/
• Software: https://www.klaviyo.com/

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

• Website: https://www.ProductStartup.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ProductStartup/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProductStartup/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ProductStartup/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProductStartup
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent

Mako Design Links:

• Website: https://www.makodesign.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MakoInvent/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/MakoDesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MakoInvent/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/MakoInvent/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MakoInvent/
...

Todd Drouillard is the Science and Technology Business leader at HED, which is one of the world’s leading architecture firms for manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution center buildings. Todd has been in architecture for 25 years, has his Masters in Architecture, is an AIA director, and is on the Construction Code Commission Board of Directors in Michigan. Today Todd is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers are changing the way they move products to their end customers, and what inventors with construction-related inventions can do to succeed in getting their innovations to market.

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Warehousing innovation is becoming increasingly more important to the success of a scaling hardware product business
• Construction inventions and innovations are happening very quickly in new building design, fabrication, and maintenance.
• How do you get your construction product into the market to get into new or renovated buildings.
• Less labour, more product. This is prefabrication, and there is a lot of room for new construction inventions in this space.
• Product manufacturing and architecture are merging
• To pitch your construction innovation, show that it reduces risk, increases quality, is more reliable, is easy to install.
• A big advantage when designing your product, is to either make it easy to work with other products, or include what used to be multiple products into one
• There are lots of problems on a construction site, solve them with your construction inventions.

EPISODE LINKS

Todd Drouillard / HED Links:

• Website: https://www.hed.design/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-drouillard-aia-b9a7a629/

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

• Website: https://www.ProductStartup.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ProductStartup/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProductStartup/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ProductStartup/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProductStartup
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent

Mako Design Links:

• Website: https://www.makodesign.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MakoInvent/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/MakoDesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MakoInvent/
• Pinterest:

Jos Harrison is the Global Head of Design and Brand Experience at Reckitt, the firm which owns many big brands including Lysol, Veet, Finish, Durex, and more. He has been in the design industry for over 25 years. Today Jos is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can learn what ESG is, why doing good for the world is beneficial for an emerging hardware product, and how to start with implementing ESG in your emerging or scaling business.

Today you will hear us talk about:

• Defining ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance)
• Why ESG is important for a small hardware business
• Why ESG is important for the world.
• How hardware startups can do ESG well, and how to do it early on
• What can hardware startups and scaleups learn from big organizations that do this well.
• The idea of a consumer is old, that is changing.
• Manufacturing options, packaging, materials all can be done smart for sustainability and environmental reasons
• Think about iterative design to become more and more ESG friendly over time
• Educate your users
• Buyers are willing to pay more now, for a product that lasts longer; however, there is a caveat in selling
• Small business have a huge benefit over big corporate, as society believes that startups were there to solve a core problem.

EPISODE LINKS

Jos Harrison / Reckitt Links:

• Website: https://www.reckitt.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josharrison/

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

• Website: https://www.ProductStartup.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ProductStartup/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProductStartup/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ProductStartup/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProductStartup
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent

Mako Design Links:

• Website: https://www.makodesign.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MakoInvent/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/MakoDesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MakoInvent/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/MakoInvent/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MakoInvent/

Kevin Mako Links:

• Instagram:...

Tim Bucciarelli is a Director at IronPlane, an eCommerce agency that works with many large product brands. Tim has been a leader in the eCommerce space for almost 30 years. Today Tim is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can understand what eCommerce is, how to choose a great eCommerce platform for your current and future product needs, and how to do a good job of building out your platform, especially around business to business sales.

Today you will hear us talk about:

• What is eCommerce
• How do you choose the right platform to sell online
• Back end platforms explained, and how they connect to front end
• How do you do it well
• Understand your customer
• Understand investment
• Wordpress and WooCommerce is an easy way to get started online
• Shopify is a SaaS, a central piece of software
• BitCommerce is a SaaS that is a bit more opened up
• Adobe Commerce / Magento is larger and more customizable

EPISODE LINKS

Tim Bucciarelli / IronPlane Links:

• Website: https://www.ironplane.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-bucciarelli/

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

• Website: https://www.ProductStartup.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ProductStartup/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProductStartup/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ProductStartup/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProductStartup
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent

Mako Design Links:

• Website: https://www.makodesign.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MakoInvent/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/MakoDesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MakoInvent/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/MakoInvent/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MakoInvent/

Kevin Mako Links:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Entrepreneurs/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/KevMako/
• Quora:

John Carter was the Chief Engineer for Bose for over 12 years, most notably being the name behind noise-canceling headphones.  After that, he founded TCGen, and has spent 22 years working with some of the biggest hardware brands in the world on improving their product development processes.  He is also a fellow writer with me at Forbes. Today John is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can use best practices from the leading hardware development teams in the world to improve your product design, launch, and scaling journey by understanding what it takes to succeed in the long run, utilizing customer feedback, getting to market fast, and many other development secrets.

Today you will hear us talk about:

• To figure out how to make a great product, he worked all around the world to find out how the best in the world did hardware product development.
• How do you know what areas you should focus on for innovation
• Innovation is not free, it takes a tremendous amount of work, sustained effort, and a budget.
• Focus on one key innovation.
• Don’t share with customers too early, design through the concept first.
• How do you reduce risk that is out there.
• Don’t feature creep
• Get to market, then reiterate and improve.
• Principles of agile development and how it applies to hardware consumer products.
• Empower your team
• The importance of industrial design
• Try rotating feedback in hardware

EPISODE LINKS

John Carter / TCGen Links:

• Website: https://www.tcgen.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcartertcgen/

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

• Website: https://www.ProductStartup.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ProductStartup/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProductStartup/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ProductStartup/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProductStartup
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent

Mako Design Links:

• Website: https://www.makodesign.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MakoInvent/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/MakoDesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MakoInvent/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/MakoInvent/
• Twitter:

Piotr Zajac is the CEO of Untitled Kingdom, a 55-person mobile app development company that focuses on apps for physical hardware connected devices. They have built and launched over 75 full-scale apps for hardware products. Today Piotr is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can understand how to best manage the design and development of your hardware device’s app, and what are the best practices for making a connected device’s app great.

Today you will hear us talk about:

• IoT, MedTech, and FemTech
• Building an app for your hardware product
• Think about your end-users
• Onboarding new users with your application
• Intution takes time to develop to your user base
• Create a habit in your user
• Buy their hands, their hearts, and their brains
• Feedback is key
• Quality of apps, FDA Certification, ISO Certfication
• Quality is much more valuable, and far less expensive, in the long term
• Security
• Technology protocols
• Simplicity in your features
• You can change the world with your product ideas

EPISODE LINKS

Piotr Zajac / Untitled Kingdom Links:

• Website: https://www.untitledkingdom.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zajacp/

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

• Website: https://www.ProductStartup.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ProductStartup/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProductStartup/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ProductStartup/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProductStartup
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent

Mako Design Links:

• Website: https://www.makodesign.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MakoInvent/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/MakoDesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MakoInvent/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/MakoInvent/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MakoInvent/

Kevin Mako Links:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Entrepreneurs/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/KevMako/...

Tom Pupo is the founder and head of Moonlighter Fab Lab Miami, which Mako Design just partnered with on a new 8,000 square foot hardware makerspace right down Miami Beach. Tom has a Masters Degree in architecture, and been running makerspaces for many years. Today Tom is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on what a makerspace is, what makes one great, and how hardware startups can benefit from them in many ways beyond just space and machinery.

Today you will hear us talk about:

• What does a hardware makerspace do
• What makes a space great
• What are the benefits
• Space, tools, people
• Design, prototype, test, get feedback, and redo
• Co-working, fabrication lab, and STEAM learning center
• Learning design thinking in the design process
• A makerspace is such a pure experience to get to learn about the product development journey

EPISODE LINKS

Tom Pupo / Moonlighter Miami Links:

• Website: https://moonlighterfablab.org/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tpupo/

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

• Website: https://www.ProductStartup.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ProductStartup/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProductStartup/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ProductStartup/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProductStartup
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent

Mako Design Links:

• Website: https://www.makodesign.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MakoInvent/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/MakoDesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MakoInvent/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/MakoInvent/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MakoInvent/

Kevin Mako Links:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Entrepreneurs/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/KevMako/
• Quora: https://www.quora.com/profile/Kevin-Mako
• Facebook: