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Featured Founders: seven inventors and small business owners sharing product-validation lessons.
Host: Kevin Mako, founder of Product Startup and the leading expert in hardware startup consulting. A hardware entrepreneur since 1999, Kevin has advised more than 1,500 founders and built and scaled MAKO Invent through its acquisition by TriMech in 2024.
Comparing Seven Real-World Product Validation Approaches
This compilation episode compares how seven founders tested product ideas and looked for evidence of a meaningful market. Their stories show that validation can take different forms, but useful tests always connect customer behavior, product performance, price, and a decision about what to do next.
Episode transcript
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Filip Valica: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Product Startup Podcast, podcast that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors, product designers, and other industry professionals. This podcast is run by Mako Design
Filip Valica: + Invent, and hosted by Filip Valica. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial idea to putting your product on the shelf. We're taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business. Now onto the show.
Filip Valica: The Product Startup Podcast, episode 12. Welcome to the Product Startup Podcast. Helping you turn ideas into successful products step by step with your host,
Filip Valica: Filip Valica. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the product startup podcast. In the last episode, we heard from Tony Devine with the Original Profender. I really like this episode because Tony does the prototyping, manufacturing, and selling of his product himself.
Filip Valica: We covered a lot of detail about how he took his basketball training product to market, including how appearing on Shark Tank didn't really live up to his expectations.
Filip Valica: We talked about the challenges of educating our customers about our products and the most difficult part about running his business, how he can be the most effective with his time.
Filip Valica: So if you haven't heard that episode yet, I would check it out at theproduct startup.com slash episode 11.
Filip Valica: And now on to the show. Today's episode will be a bit different. I wanted to compile a highlights reel for listeners who haven't had a chance to catch up to the early episodes. So let's get started.
Filip Valica: In episode 10, I talked about the most frequently asked question that I get, which is, I have an idea, now what do I do?
Filip Valica: I talked about my experiences working for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and large corporations, and how they test and validate their ideas and turn them into products.
Guests: Here are some clips on how the founders that we've had on this show have done the same. Brad Sumney with Savage Jerky. I enjoy cooking, and I can handle myself in a kitchen pretty well, but I had never made beef jerky. I've never done anything.
Guests: I've never brought a physical product to market. I've brought plenty of digital spaces to market.
Guests: So everybody laughed at me in the car, and we kind of shrugged it off. And so we got back home, and my family is notorious for getting me little trinkety things for Christmas, as I'm sure most families are.
Guests: And I finally just, I sent out a blast and when everybody asked me what we wanted for Christmas, and I said, if anybody's going to give me anything, everybody just put your money together and buy me.
Filip Valica: a dehydrator, a food dehydrator.
Guests: And so everybody was kind of really bewildered by that. But that's what they did. And at the Christmas of 2013, I got a semi-commercial dehydrator, a very nice, you know, residential version of a dehydrator.
Guests: And I just, I made some really awful beef jerky. I just, that's, I researched it and researched it. And I just went in and decided I was just going to start trying things. And we, we ate a lot of really terrible beef jerky.
Guests: but slowly but surely it eventually came around and you know we we kind of focused on what we call
Guests: our moho which is a Cuban marinade because my wife's family is largely Cuban and every year around the holidays they make these gigantic you know Cuban porks and it's just incredible it's garlic lime
Guests: cilantro it's just I mean it's one of the best marinerades I've ever had so we kind of decided we would focus on that and then make spicier versions of that. When we lived in D.C., we lived at this little community called National Harbor right on the
Guests: Potomac River. And there's a bar on the harbor that we were kind of regulars at. And we kind of just knew everybody that worked there and knew a lot of the people that came in and out of there.
Guests: And so literally every weekend, we were taking giant bags of jerky to the bar and just letting people try it and just seeing what people thought and getting people's reactions.
Guests: And that's really kind of how we tweaked everything. And that's the funny thing is that all the guys that were in the car with me when I said, hey, I'm just going to do this myself.
Guests: There were two guys in the car that are my really good friends.
Guests: And as soon as they tried, kind of one of the recipes I was really happy with, they were like, okay, how do we invest? I want to end. Here's the money. And now they're two of my partners. So it's a really funny world. And it just kind of went crazy from there.
Filip Valica: We launched a Kickstarter after we had some recipes we thought were hammered down pretty well.
Filip Valica: that was well received, and it's just been kind of crazy ever since. David Frankel with the perky collar. You know, at the moment, I started looking around at people in my office. I started looking at people I saw in the street.
Filip Valica: I started watching television, whether it would be news, whether it be movies, whether it be sportscast. And I saw other people have the same problem that weren't wearing ties. And it started coming to me that, you know what, maybe this is a really big problem, especially now that we've gone to more of a business casual environment.
Filip Valica: And then when I talked to Inventus and sat down with them for a half hour, 45 minutes with engineers and their marketing people and their website to designers, they were very excited. They said, I think you've really stumbled on something that can be huge.
Filip Valica: And at that moment, that's what I realized, well, okay, let's see how huge this can be. So they did their first amount of research they did was on, okay, who could really use open collar devices like this?
Filip Valica: and that's when they gave me a presentation that was, you know, 25 slides on the PowerPoint. And we talked about the military. We talked about hospitality. And we talked about, you know, business professionals. And the question became then, how big is it? Is it just for men? Is it for men and women?
Filip Valica: And who could really use this device? Because if it's not, it's not a big enough audience. It's a waste of time and money and energy. Absolutely. So after listening that presentation, I really felt there was enough people to go after in the high-collar market that we should really continue to pursue this.
Filip Valica: And I kept telling them, please tell them. me at any point, if you feel like this is garbage and this is a waste of time and money, please stop me because I don't want to get my hopes up. And they said, no, I really feel that the average business professional cares about how they look and there's enough people
Filip Valica: wearing open collar and not suits and ties anymore that you really have something special here. So let's take it to stage two and we just took one stage at a time. I'm glad to hear that you've asked people for that advice because a lot of times we're slaves to what we create
Filip Valica: or we're, you know, it's our baby and we don't want anyone to criticize it. But it's really important to get that feedback. Sometimes the people that are closest to you maybe feel like they need to support you more than give you the truth. So it's really good that you went out to some third party that they were able to do
Filip Valica: that market research for you and help you out with that. Yeah, it's very important because you're exactly correct. Our friends and family are exactly that friends and family. They'll tell you what you want to hear more times and not. So it was nice to go to my office and say, hey, what do you think of this? And I'm like, wow, that's pretty interesting. That's pretty cool. Let me try it on.
Filip Valica: Or that's a pretty interesting idea. Well, that's really special. And it was nice to hear people that, you know, are co-workers that don't have any skin in the game, don't care about my feelings, which is great. They could give me an honest truth. And it was inspiring to take it from one stage, the next stage.
Guests: But again, I kept saying, even after stage two was done in stage three, please stop me at any time if you think this is not going to work. Right. Don't let me keep pouring money into something or time into something if it's not going to have legs. Tony Devine with the Original Profender.
Guests: The funny about it was I wasn't even planning on. doing it in the sense of selling it. And then, you know, just being around a lot of basketball players, like the one of the,
Guests: one of the kids that my brother coach was actually the point guard now at Villanova, who just won the national title kid Ryan, R.C. Deaconah.
Guests: So he had a bunch of, you know, he had some,
Guests: a lot of people on attention coming in. So there was colleges all the time talking, you know, that, that were in, you know, at my brother's gym.
Guests: seeing Ryan and seeing him work out. So, you know, it was just an easy thing. I mean, my brother was using it. And now you have these coaches that are there that are interesting. What the heck is that thing? You know what I mean? They've never seen it before.
Guests: Like we had Tony Bennett from Virginia, another great dude. I mean, super, super good guy. And he saw it, you know, just when they were doing a workout for Ryan. And one thing, that's another exchange phone numbers went down to Virginia.
Guests: And they use it, I mean, they use it a tonne in their shooting, you know, and they're shooting drills and kind of their all-season training. So basically what I did is I just went to different,
Guests: you know, I just went to different universities, different people that were basketball people in my area that I could drive to. And I'm like 15 minutes outside of Philadelphia, so we have the big five schools. And in Philadelphia, for people who don't know, is, I mean,
Guests: it's huge for basketball. I mean, I mean, there's some great, great people associated with basketball in Philadelphia. So, I mean, I just connected with all these guys, you know what I mean, like former NBA players that were Doug Overton, who was a great,
Guests: a big five-all thing with LaSalle, played in the NBA for 13 years, was coaching. That's how I connected with him, and then he was with the Brooklyn Nets. So the connection I have with him, he brought me up to the Nets, you know, worked out some of those guys. They loved it.
Guests: They bought, you know, they bought like six of them. So all these things happening,
Filip Valica: you know, I knew I had something that was valuable,
Guests: especially for the upper echelon players and programs that are looking for just that edge, you know, any type of edge, you know, just to be better.
Guests: And, you know, at that level, just that small difference, you know, training and being able to, you know, a 3% increase in shooting is huge, you know, over the course of the season. Kelsey Duffy with Versakini.
Guests: If you've followed anything about the mixed bikini story, you'll see they're no longer in business. So once Mixed Bikini officially had died, so to say, it was, you know, it was actually a rather heartbreaking time for me where I didn't know how to pick up the pieces.
Guests: And for me, it was such a reaction to see these girls. And they love the product. They love the idea. They could see all the opportunity with it. And it just was never executed properly. And I lost a lot of sleep over that.
Guests: You know, I tossed in turn for a good year and I was like, how can I make this work?
Filip Valica: You know, we have these connections. We have people that love it. You know, there were just things that needed to change. So that's when Versakini was born.
Guests: I finally one day just said, enough. Let's go ahead and take all, you know, the necessary business operations and let's go for it. So that started officially in the summer of 2014.
Guests: And then in January, we filmed Beyond the Tank and went on there and then really launched the brand then. that's pretty awesome you went on the show you filmed beyond the tank with maybe an idea did you have
Guests: a prototype at that point we had some samples and there's a lot of product development especially in fashion things change so fast and i mean you know we're talking is this brawl cup thick enough
Guests: should we even have braw cups do you like this color do you want this fabric uh the length the texture it's quite the process and then you get to the fit and that's probably one of the most important parts of it uh so we did have a product at that time and from
Guests: there, the first collection we launched was called the Islands Collection, and it was just a series of basic geometric, like, colors that were bright and tropical, and we were really trying to sell the idea of it, you know, without overwhelming or, you know, throwing a bunch
Guests: of prints and crazy colors together. Doug Marshall with the Game Face Company.
Guests: This product just came to me in a dream. I had a dream. We
Guests: had a football game, and the guys next to me had painted their faces, and it was a mess. It was coming off. It was a hot day. And in my dream, I just said, why don't I do a full face?
Guests: transfer you could print anything put it on and feel it all that's crazy well yeah so that's where it started all right so then i started measuring faces and i made uh templates out of fabric and you know
Filip Valica: and decided okay am i going to go forward with this or not you don't tell anybody about it
Guests: until you get at least a patent pinning over right and so you're going to at about 25 the 30 thousand dollar investment there just getting your patent.
Guests: So we just kind of hit the bullet and went forward with it. You've got to look into that, you know, where do you want to take it? Where do you see the product? And also look at your own abilities. I mean, there are a lot of inventors out there,
Guests: but they're not marketers. Right. They're not sales people. Yeah, and they might not even be small business owners. No.
Guests: And I get, I mean, I couldn't tell you how many products I have on the shelves that people have sent me saying, can you take on my product and bring it under your company wheel house, so to speak. Wow.
Guests: So, yeah, but, you know, I knew that, you know, I'd been in sales, I'd been in management. I was a sales manager for years for a company, and I lived in Taiwan for a year when I was 25.
Guests: I moved off and got into import, export, just, you know, did it. So I knew I could do it. It's just I needed the capital. And that's what a lot of people run into. It's like, oh, I got this great idea.
Guests: I know I can manufacture it, but I need some capital to get it started. And so the best place to go, if you're starting a business,
Guests: the bank's not going to lend you anything. And an investor, a big investor is going to want most of your item, most of your product, most of your company.
Guests: And so I just went to friends and family. That's where you really get started.
Filip Valica: And I said, listen,
Filip Valica: I got this idea.
Guests: I think it's a million-dollar idea.
Guests: So I'm going to sell you a percentage of it for $10,000.
Filip Valica: Because I said it's a million-dollar idea. I'll tell you 1% of the company for $10,000. And I was able to raise $80,000. And that got us started. So you gave away 8% of your company. when you first started.
Guests: We started the Game Face Company in October of 2007 and introduced the product in January of 2008, and it's just been kind of developing the product ever since, growing the company.
Guests: Fabien Serrier with Knit Yak. It was really a side project and a labor of love on the side with all my other weird side projects until it became more than that. That sounds really fun, though. I wouldn't have thought to combine the two, you know, hacking and knitting machine. That's awesome. That's really fun.
Guests: You said people approached you for the final product for these algorithmically generated patterned scarfs. And you said that you couldn't produce it because of the last row. And then you thought, okay, maybe I should start a Kickstarter or? Well, it didn't happen that quickly.
Guests: But I knew that there was nothing really in between the consumer knitting machines that are around $800 on eBay and the industrial knitting machines that started about $100,000.
Guests: So they start. Yeah. So there's a huge gap there. So there's a huge gap in there. I was a little bit concerned that there would not be enough of a market to really sustain that. And so my way to test the market was, in essence, to run,
Guests: in hindsight, a crazy Kickstarter campaign. $100,000 minimum for someone who was by herself and didn't have any experience running a crowdfunding campaign.
Filip Valica: I had a lot of other experience online, but that was not one of them.
Guests: So I had a lot of mentors, a lot of people helped me out. And really, up until week three, it really didn't look like it was going to tip. It didn't look like the Kickstarter was going to make it.
Guests: So it was a real nail-biter. I didn't really sleep in those 30 days. And it took me two months full time before the Kickstarter to prepare everything.
Guests: So to plan out my break-even and my spreadsheets and have my CPA tell me that these numbers were real
Filip Valica: and that, you know, my break-even was really my break-even and that I wasn't forgetting anything crucial and tax situations in Seattle and Washington State and federally and everything.
Filip Valica: Matt and Eric with mini materials. I saw these miniature center blocks out there, and I love it.
Guests: I was like, I don't know why I like it, but I like it. So I went to buy him and the guy was sold out and the price was ridiculous, like $50 for a little 24 pack. But I was like, you know what? I can do this myself. And so I learned how to 3D design.
Guests: I made a 3D print. I poured some molds. And then I put concrete in the molds and made the bricks. And from there, I just kept trying to make new things and make little palettes and miniature construction stuff.
Filip Valica: And it's really just taken off from there. So let's back up a little bit. You saw something that was already selling and you basically made your own prototype to see if you could do it yourself and what that would cost you. Did you have any reservations about anybody else wanting to buy that product?
Filip Valica: Or was that basically validation because you already saw it for sale so you knew that there was a market?
Filip Valica: It was a really small validation. And honestly, I did take a risk because I did know if it would sell. I knew a few people would buy it.
Filip Valica: And it justified my, it's such a big learning opportunity that I knew I could sell enough to make up the cost at least. And if I could learn how to do all this stuff for free and with a chance of making money, that it would be worth it at the end.
Filip Valica: And that's what actually happened.
Filip Valica: So one of my favorite questions comes near the end of the show when I ask everyone for their one tip to help people bring their own product to market. I think the answers that we get, while maybe some of them have a common theme, are interesting
Filip Valica: because it shows to me what maybe the founders have struggled with themselves, as well as what they think is most valuable. So even though we spent maybe the last 45 minutes talking about their journey to bring their own products to market, these are the two or three things that they feel.
Filip Valica: is most valuable and produces the most impact for your time and money. David Frankel with the perky caller. I'd say find a product that you're passionate about. If you're not passionate,
Filip Valica: it won't get you through the tough days. And if you're passionate and you wear your product or you use your product personally, you have 100% faith in your business and your product. And that passion comes through when you talk to people. When you do demonstrations, they'll fill your energy. People
Filip Valica: buy you just as much they do the product. So if you're not passionate about your product, you have the wrong product. So if you have five ideas or ten ideas or considering to be an inventor or considering to bring a product to market, pick the one you're most excited about. And that's the one that's going to have the best chance for success.
Filip Valica: But also go to the marketplace and see what else is out there that's like your product to see if you're just another product that's amongst several hundreds of other ones just like it. So try and find something that's really unique, solves a problem because that's something I had to convey in front of Amazon. What problem is your product solved?
Filip Valica: And do how many people have that problem? So make sure the solution you have solves a problem for as many people as possible.
Guests: Keep your market as general and as big as possible and be passionate because that passion gets you through all the tough days. You have a couple good days a week. My grandfather used to tell me if you can have one great day a week, you're doing pretty well. That sounds pretty morbid. He was like, yeah, that's the way life is.
Guests: So he said, you know what, don't complain about your one bad day. You know, be happy if you have one good day per week. And that's something you really have always kept them back in my mind all these years that, you know, it's not easy.
Guests: to bring a product to market it's easy to fail it's easy to criticize it's easy to uh to let somebody else do it but for you to to grab that product that you're passionate about that you feel solves a problem and take it to market there's going to be a lot of people that are naysayers a lot of people
Guests: that aren't going to uh believe in you or uh puku your idea just because it wasn't theirs but keep pushing forward if you believe enough in it uh you can bring it to market brad summy with savage jerky
Guests: One tip. Gosh, that is such an open question. Yeah, it's,
Guests: I think my biggest piece of advice would be to maintain your confidence because self-destruction is probably the biggest thing that faces entrepreneurs
Guests: and people that build things like this. And you just have to keep that confidence. There's like this really cliche saying that an entrepreneur is somebody that will live like nobody else will. So one day they can live like,
Guests: Nobody else can. You have to have that mindset that's like, okay, not everybody's out here doing this. A lot of people go to work and that's the life they lead. And they do very well. I mean, a lot of people make a lot more
Guests: money than I do for sure and have a lot more time off and a lot more time to spend with their family. Don't let yourself get in the way of your own success.
Guests: And in that same vein, don't let perfect be the thing that hampers you. Like I said, we used to sit around tables and just beat a product to death and it would never
Filip Valica: go anywhere just because we,
Guests: we let perfect become evil and it was always the stumbling block at some point you have to start that's my biggest piece of advice for anybody is at some level you just have to jump in and and get your feet wet and hope for the best
Guests: you'll learn how to swim but you have to jump in first so that would be my biggest piece of advice i see it all the time on reddit where you know people are bouncing ideas off of these forums and
Guests: these social media things oh this is my idea guys tear it apart everybody goes and tears it down and then the guy comes back a couple months later and he's like here's my idea you guys this is where we were two months ago you know man why haven't you just got out there and put a prototype together or put a
Guests: you know working MVP whatever it is why haven't you made some beef jerky why haven't you done something you know we can sit here and talk about it all day and it's until it looks perfect on paper at the end of the day once you launch it it might still be trash so you're never going to know
Guests: until you just dive in and that would be probably my biggest piece of advice Matt and Eric with mini materials. You can create lots of things in your life, but you can't create time.
Guests: So if we had more time to do other things and really put it into the business, it would be probably bigger than what it is today. But that's probably the biggest hardship, both of us.
Guests: We talk about it every day, basically, is that we don't have enough time to really do all the things that we want to do with mini materials.
Guests: As far as what has helped for us is the communication. When Matt brought me on, I could tell that he kind of was in a lull. He didn't know if he wanted to get much bigger because it was a lot of work on his part.
Guests: And, you know, when I came in, now we're both very, very eager. So having a partner, I think,
Guests: has worked for both of us. Yeah. That's one thing. I started listening to the startup podcast, which it was so interesting to me. but he talked about getting a partner.
Guests: And it's not so much to just have somebody to share the workload. It's having somebody that can, you know,
Filip Valica: feel the exact same way you feel that you could actually balance ideas off of.
Guests: And it's hard to bounce ideas off other people who are not in your situation
Filip Valica: because anything they say, it's like, well, you're not living what I'm living through right now.
Guests: So I can't really trust anything you say, but we can both trust everything with each other, we tell each other, because we are living through doing this right now.
Guests: so that I'd say that's probably my the best part is having a partner now to do that with and then as far as some of the struggles I would say
Guests: dealing with all the numbers stuff I hate numbers I just got done doing all of my tax stuff and that's what I would recommend recommend for anyone these starting business please keep track
Guests: of every single thing you do from the very beginning because I did not do that and I just spent 14 hours last Saturday straight really through all. all my credit cards, all the PayPal,
Guests: calculating all the numbers of costs of everything, and it was like the worst day of my life.
Filip Valica: So please keep track of it from the very beginning. Yesterday, do you use a service for that or anything? No, not yet, but I am going to now because it was terrible.
Filip Valica: Kelsey Duffy with Versakini. Actually, I just finished reading The Power of Broke,
Guests: which is Damon John's book, and it is a must read. I mean, you know, the quotes in there, I literally, I read this book, and I got out my highlighter, and just, you know, went kind of crazy on all these things that I love that he says in there.
Guests: So if you think, oh, I can't do it, you really can. And it seems so hard, but it's so rewarding once you kind of see the process fall along of it. So the power broke definitely.
Guests: And the lean startup by Eric Rees, that's another great one that just kind of gets you the basics. And I think that most importantly, sometimes when you're in these beginning phases, is you need to see what other people have done and read their stories and hear their successes
Guests: and their failures and take that all into account to really be able to be the best that you can be. Well, that's excellent advice. Do you have any other tips or someone's going through this process? They have their own product idea. They're going to market.
Guests: It might be a fashion product and they just, they get stuck and they don't know if they can move forward. What would you say to that person? One of the most important lessons as a startup is do not give up your equity.
Guests: Don't do it. Try. Hold on to it. Do the sweat labor. Do everything you can. Get a cheap deal. But try to hold off. It's tough. You know, I've been going at this
Filip Valica: for four years and I think anybody else probably would have quit by now. But you really need to look at your obstacles like an opportunity and realize that, okay, you know, this is really hard. I don't know if I can survive this.
Filip Valica: You really have to kind of persevere and keep your head up and don't even think about it. You know, just be so focused that there.
Guests: there is no question. You will not stop. You will not fail.
Guests: And your attitude is a huge part of that. You know, you can see that in a person's body language. You can hear it in their voice. If they have passion for something, you know, as an investor, I think that you will stand so much taller if you're passionate about your product.
Filip Valica: Fabien Serrier with knit yak. Yeah, I think the most inspirational
Guests: book is Tony Hessey's book on the running shoe company. Zappos. I'm familiar with that. I think His last name is spelled H-S-I-E-H or something, Tony. Anyway, he founded Zappos, and his book is great.
Guests: I think it's got enough anecdotal evidence, but also enough just plucky entrepreneur, just go forward kind of thinking that I think it's great. Great. And do you have any tips for people that are in that hard point now,
Guests: whether they're just starting or they're about to launch and they just keep hitting these road bumps? How do you know when to quit? How do you know when to push forward? what keeps you going? Yeah, how to know when to hold them, how to know when to fold them.
Guests: I think I didn't really listen to some of that advice of when people tell me, okay, no, this is a side project. Like, you shouldn't do this as a business. And a lot of people said, oh, I want that product.
Guests: And so I listen to the people who said, I want that product. So I guess that's my advice is to listen to your customers and figure out what they want. Doug Marshall with the Gameface Company. So many companies go out of business.
Guests: the third year, and a lot go after the first year. So it's a matter of
Guests: having enough capital to sustain and then try to make your money with the product you feel like you can get the biggest hit out of right away to get you started. I mean, I wish I had someone to talk to
Filip Valica: before I went on Shark Tank. It's, you know, I started a business and I love to talk to people
Guests: that are just getting started because hopefully I can save them, you know, some time and some money
Filip Valica: just from the experiences that I've had and my family's had. You know, I can't say that it's not a sacrifice. And if anyone's interested and if they're going to be, if they're an entrepreneur and they're going to start a business out of scratch especially
Guests: and go out, it's going to be a sacrifice. And really, your whole family is going to be in it. It's like Mark said the other day in an interview, you know, you've got to go out on the end of the limb to get the fruit. Right.
Guests: You've got to just analyze your life and determine whether you're, not only capable, willing to sacrifice to do it. And it's, and it isn't a one time, oh, now we've
Guests: done it. It's a daily sacrifice. Yeah, you're continually grinding. Yeah. I mean, I think about Donald Trump. I mean, how many marriages have he been doing? Well,
Guests: really, he's a businessman. And I probably, and that's probably it's a sacrifice that he made. And it cost him a family life in a sense.
Guests: I'm not sure that Trump took as many wives as he did because he was making sacrifices is for his business, but I think that's very debatable.
Filip Valica: Well, I'm just using him as an example. I'm sure they're a better example. I can absolutely understand with what you're saying, though.
Guests: You know, while we're on the topic, you said that, you know, if you can help some people out from making the same mistakes, did you make any that you feel that other people can learn from? Yeah, I mean, I'm sure.
Guests: Oh, I'll tell you one mistake that I would never do is pay a royalty on your sales to an investor.
Filip Valica: And investors will agree with you on that. Because when you're starting a company
Guests: and starting a new product and then developing new product, you're cash strapped. So the last thing you want to do is be having to pay out a percentage of your sales. Now, if it's gaining sales,
Guests: you know, that's another thing. I've got sales reps. And for example, oh, that's another bit of advice. If you're going to get sales reps, don't get reps that just want to carry your line. and then go sell it.
Guests: Get reps that specialize in certain accounts.
Guests: So if you've got a product and you want to try to get into Walmart, find a rep that only calls on Walmart. And they're out there. That's their only account. They're Walmart reps. That makes complete sense because they're basically a specialist
Guests: and they know how to get around the roadblocks that normal reps wouldn't. Right. And they've been calling on Walmart for, you know, 10, 20, 30 years, and they've got the relationships and they know how to do it.
Guests: Same way with Myers, CVS, Walgreens, Target, Rite Aid.
Guests: So there are, and that's just from me, you know, making mistakes and then getting the advice of other business owners.
Guests: Tony Devine with the Original Profender. Yeah,
Guests: the one man owners, it's very tough, right?
Filip Valica: you get so much, you know, you get stress from, you know, your wife.
Filip Valica: You get stress from, you know, the people who aren't like you, right? They're not doers. They're not go out and get it done type of people. They are the people that rather just sit on accounts and watch TV and just have everything, you know.
Filip Valica: But people who are true entrepreneurs, true,
Filip Valica: you know, go-getters,
Filip Valica: that's not anything that they look forward to doing. So if you have something that you believe in, right, that you believe in that you have seen that there is, you know, there is a need and there is, you know, there is a,
Filip Valica: what's the word I'm looking for?
Filip Valica: There's a light at the end of the tunnel. You always stay with it.
Guests: If you feel it's something that you, you know, that your heart's not in and you're giving up and you feel like it's a loss cause, and that's when you put your law and you move on to something else.
Guests: But when you feel the way that I do and you're able to continue to pay your bills and you might not be making a ton of money, but it's still there. And the passion's there, you've got to go for it. You continue to go for it.
Guests: And the only way that you do fail is when you quit. And, I mean, that's a simple that I think about that every time, you know, something negative happens. I can always quit. It's not in me. and
Guests: that's it for today's episode thanks for tuning in if you wanted to check out the show notes please go to the product startup dot com slash episode 12 and there i will have links to all the other episodes that we've covered if you wanted to get some more detail if i didn't cover something
Guests: and you want me to cover a specific topic please go to the product startup dot com and hit the ask philip button and shoot me an email from there lastly i would really love a review if you could
Guests: go to the iTunes page or go to the product startup.com slash review and leave me a review. I would really appreciate it. A lot of times I'm creating content and I can't tell if people
Guests: are enjoying it or what the feedback is from it because it's kind of one way. I'm just broadcasting it out. And so I really enjoy getting the emails and the notes and whatever your comments are. I'm happy to receive them. So thanks again. And I'll see you guys in two weeks.
Guests: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Product Startup podcast with your host. Philip Felicea. For more great content and to stay up to date, visit theproductstartup.com. Your guide to getting there.
Filip Valica: Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Product Startup Podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market and turn it into a big success. This podcast series is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent, the first firm in North America
Filip Valica: to provide global caliber end-to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors, and small product businesses. If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to macawdesign.com.
Filip Valica: That's m-a-k-o-design.com for a free consultation from one of Mako-Design for design studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening and see you next time.
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