Product Startup Podcast Episode 010: I Have a Product Idea. What Should I Do Next?

00:00:00 Filip Valica: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Product Startup Podcast, a 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

00:00:11 Filip Valica: and 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.

00:00:27 Filip Valica: The Product Startup Podcast, Episode 10.

00:00:30 Filip Valica: Welcome to the Product Startup Podcast. podcast, helping you turn ideas into successful products step by step with your host,

00:00:39 Filip Valica: Filip Valica. Hi,

00:00:45 Filip Valica: everyone, and welcome to the product startup podcast. In the last episode, we heard from Gordon Firemark, an attorney devoted to representing creative and business people in the media.

00:00:53 Filip Valica: We talked about the many legal issues faced by small business owners, including non-disclosure agreements, contracts, endorsements, fair use in advertising, patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

00:01:05 Filip Valica: so if you haven't seen that yet please check out episode nine of the product startup podcast

00:01:11 Filip Valica: before i get into today's episode i wanted to thank clever and funny who left the review in itunes he or she says no fluff one of the best podcasts out there for product-based startups

00:01:21 Filip Valica: so many startup entrepreneur podcasts take the hyped up entrepreneur-on-fire approach philip flips that

00:01:36 Filip Valica: spreading the word.

00:01:38 Filip Valica: Thanks, clever and funny. I really appreciate that. I think it's hard building anything without feedback, including this podcast.

00:01:45 Filip Valica: Sometimes I see other successful products or services, and it's hard to differentiate what brought them to that point.

00:01:50 Filip Valica: So I think we can all get caught up into this trap to emulate competitors, and it gets hard for the consumer to differentiate between what's really being offered or what the unique value proposition is.

00:02:02 Filip Valica: At the same time, I think it's also hard for the creators to tell what's essential and what just came along for the ride. So thanks again for that comment. That really means a lot to me. And now, on to the show.

00:02:13 Filip Valica: Today's episode will be a solo run, and I'll be addressing the number one question I get asked. I have an idea, now what do I do? The short answer is, make sure people will pay you money for it and then create a concept prototype yourself.

00:02:27 Filip Valica: So in today's episode, I'll show how anyone, even if they don't have any technical experience, can take the next step with their product idea. The opinion I'm about to share is just my perspective. I'm not an internet guru.

00:02:39 Filip Valica: I don't profess to know everything, but I have worked as an engineer for Fortune 50 companies for a serial entrepreneur and for companies sized in between. So I do see how different sized companies answer this question, and the advice that I'm

00:02:53 Filip Valica: going to give you today is practical based on this experience, bringing products to market. I also think anything is possible given enough money and time, so I'll try to reference some of these limiting factors along the way.

00:03:03 Filip Valica: So I think everyone knows the basic steps to bringing a product to market, design, make, and sell. But before I even start to determine how to make something, I try to look at the why. I've seen people and even companies take the, if you build it, they will come approach to building products.

00:03:18 Filip Valica: Sometimes this can work if you know your target market really well. I think many times it just burns a lot of time and money while you're trying to experiment and find that proper audience.

00:03:28 Filip Valica: So most of the companies that I've worked for, the sales or business development team usually handles validating the market. They talk to as many potential customers as possible. They know how a customer would even answer some of the questions that I'll ask them later on without even asking them.

00:03:43 Filip Valica: So the first point is to know your market really well. So if you're looking to save time, you can buy consumer data or run advertisement to your target market online, like using Facebook insights or AdWords, to see how they respond to particular offers.

00:03:57 Filip Valica: I've tried this route personally on the side, and it hasn't worked well for me for all products. I think I've spent a lot of money advertising to people who don't want to buy what I'm selling

00:04:07 Filip Valica: because I assumed that I knew who the audience was, and I didn't really refine the target market well enough. So the main point here is that we're speaking to customers that would not only want to buy our product

00:04:20 Filip Valica: because it fills the need that we're trying to meet or the problem that we're solving, but also that they have the ability to buy the product. And a lot of times I have worked for companies that will throw money at their existing

00:04:31 Filip Valica: customer base that may not necessarily be the target market for their newest product. And this is why I really like talking to people firsthand, at least for the first 20 or 30 customers, because that way you can see the direction that they're thinking.

00:04:45 Filip Valica: So I try to listen as much as I can, and they tell me what their problems are in their words. So usually the words that they use are, quote, I wish that or I hate that or, well, that's just the way this is.

00:05:00 Filip Valica: And if you continue to pull up those threads and ask them, what ifs, what if you did this or that or looked at it differently or if there was a product or service that didn't behave this way, that it can help you find some of the answers that you're looking for without posing a leading question.

00:05:15 Filip Valica: So I try to get as specific as I can as quickly as possible because otherwise people will feel like. they're answering a phone survey.

00:05:22 Filip Valica: So this is the more time less money approach. Obviously there's ways of spending some money upfront on targeted marketing analysis. But I do really think it's important to handle this yourself because if you don't understand who your customer is,

00:05:36 Filip Valica: it's going to be much more difficult to answer some questions later on.

00:05:40 Filip Valica: So when I first started my career, I was working for a serial entrepreneur. And among his employees, they called him King Midas. And that's because everything he touched would turn to gold. He worked in industries

00:05:54 Filip Valica: that were unrelated and he would just spot a deal and say, okay, I'm going to go ahead and buy this because I feel that I'm getting a good deal in this and not really have any background knowledge or experience in the field that he was getting into. But he did have a knack for growing

00:06:09 Filip Valica: and building companies and he was absolutely amazing at reading people. So I was working for this company building a widget and customers also bought complimentary products along with ours that we

00:06:21 Filip Valica: didn't sell so the owner gets the idea to combine three of these most common products together to come out with an all in one type product so we created a design and did a rough feasibility

00:06:34 Filip Valica: study and usually this follows the same track does the technology exist independently in other words has the problem been solved in discrete components and are we just just kind of packaging it together.

00:06:47 Filip Valica: That definitely decreases the amount of time that you have to market because you're not having to do pretty strenuous R&D. Is there a way to reduce the cost or footprint? In other words, what is the value that we're providing for the customer?

00:07:00 Filip Valica: And then we contacted the companies to get a rough cost of it. So these three points were done in the span of, let's say, two weeks or so. So we created the outside container that this three-in-one widget would house.

00:07:14 Filip Valica: and it was a vehicle-mounted product, so it was relatively large.

00:07:19 Filip Valica: And then the owner and sales team took the unit to a trade show.

00:07:25 Filip Valica: And it was a very professional product. It had a control panel. Everything was kind of the outside was presented as if it would appear in the final product. So by all accounts, looking at it, you would expect that the product would be complete.

00:07:39 Filip Valica: But in reality, we had never done any of the engineering on the inside. we were basically pre-selling an empty box.

00:07:46 Filip Valica: And I remember this really scared me as a younger engineer because I thought of all these technical issues that might come up. Here's all these components that we're trying to shove in this finite-sized container. And maybe we can't get them to work together.

00:08:01 Filip Valica: Maybe the supplier didn't send us the proper samples and we got something that worked better than it should. There are all these questions that we haven't tested yet. And here we were pre-selling it.

00:08:10 Filip Valica: so i thought it was a bit crazy but what that was essentially doing was pre-selling a product before we spent all this money on the design and testing and prototyping and so after the owner sold a few

00:08:25 Filip Valica: products on the trade show we designed prototyped and manufactured it

00:08:30 Filip Valica: so why don't we usually validate to this level i think people skip the step and start building straight away and there's many reasons for that i think a lot of the people people that I work with just plain enjoy building.

00:08:45 Filip Valica: These are tinkers or people who like to do things with their hands. They're very action-oriented. And so it's just, you know, rubber meets the road. Let's just start going. And I think that along with people who think that they already know the

00:08:59 Filip Valica: answer or they think they know the target market, they may not want to hear otherwise. It's really difficult to hear that this idea that you've been dreaming about that you haven't been able to

00:09:11 Filip Valica: fall asleep for the last few weeks or months about doesn't have any legs. You really want to continue. You want to see it be produced. You want to create it. So we're in love with this

00:09:23 Filip Valica: idea. And it feels great to have something in your hand that you made. So why not? I think it's really rough to go down this path because you can spend a lot of time tweaking this prototype and you don't

00:09:35 Filip Valica: really have a goalpost that you're chasing. You're just creating something that you have in your mind and it hasn't been vetted by the market. And I've been surprised many times even working for some of these small companies that we've already built products for the same target market and the

00:09:49 Filip Valica: market doesn't respond to it the way that we would expect it to because there's all these other variables that are really hard to account for. So in short, I think it can be tough, but it's better

00:09:59 Filip Valica: to find out that it doesn't work early on than later after you've invested so much effort. So the other reason that I see people fail to validate is because they assume that they will lose

00:10:09 Filip Valica: their idea or that someone else will run with it maybe they're worried of invalidating future patent claims I find that it helps to focus on the benefits to the consumer so instead of

00:10:20 Filip Valica: telling people what your idea is you say would you not buy a widget that would save you 20 minutes every time that you did blank if you don't talk about the how specifically then there's no real idea to steal there's just a concept this

00:10:35 Filip Valica: this idea that you're presenting them pretty much. There's no need to give away your secret sauce. Just let them taste the burger, so to speak.

00:10:44 Filip Valica: I also think there's a very small group of people that have the problem that we're solving and the means to execute it better than us. So in terms of Venn diagrams, there's one circle that represents all the people that

00:10:57 Filip Valica: respond to the problem that you're solving and another circle that kind of overlaps that have the capability to bring products to market. and there's this tiny sliver in between that maybe could come up with a product.

00:11:09 Filip Valica: But chances are they're busy working on other things. They might not have the gusto, the perseverance, the mindset, the particular angle that you're approaching. So again, I don't let those people bother me.

00:11:22 Filip Valica: I also think that if all you have is an idea, then you're really limited in what else you're bringing to the table. So a lot of people think that the value of ideas,

00:11:33 Filip Valica: is pretty high but I think that in fact it's the other way around because the idea is the beginning of the journey that has very little value and it just has a whole lot of risk and the way that

00:11:45 Filip Valica: you eliminate this risk is you go through this step by step product development process where you validate the market and create the prototype and go through the whole design and filing any patents

00:11:56 Filip Valica: and design for manufacturing and funding and marketing and selling it all those individual steps slowly lower your risk because you confirm that the market is there and that people are willing to pay for your product and you do some upfront design and make sure that the product

00:12:10 Filip Valica: will work all of that has value and by definition you're adding value to this idea so at the very beginning your idea in my opinion doesn't have any any value to start with

00:12:24 Filip Valica: so how can we do this right now most recently i've had pretty good experience using targeted forums online whether

00:12:33 Filip Valica: it's Facebook groups or specific forums dedicated to people who have are in this hobby or this particular niche and just asking them that question just saying hey I'm thinking about creating

00:12:45 Filip Valica: this obviously has to be an informed question where you understand the material well enough because otherwise people will blow you off but I've had a really good experience with just saying this is what I'm thinking about creating for a friend does anybody have any input to this

00:12:59 Filip Valica: would you like something like that and a lot of times people will tell you what they want and you just have to be open to receiving that.

00:13:07 Filip Valica: While we're talking about speaking to other people about our ideas, I wanted to talk about NDAs really quick. So, in my opinion, NDAs aren't really worth anything. They're really hard to prove in court. How could you say that this person talked about your idea to somebody else when you weren't there?

00:13:22 Filip Valica: So it's very difficult to prove. You can use them if you want to feel better. I know people that use them because they want to appear serious and professional. Be aware that NDAs are specific to, each state if you live in the states.

00:13:36 Filip Valica: So there are state laws that govern NDAs and also that investors may not want to sign them. So that's a really quick blur about NDAs. So after you validate your market and you've talked to 20 or 30 people and you've gotten a

00:13:51 Filip Valica: pretty good idea of what you should build, I think it's time to go ahead and build a concept prototype. So usually the way that we use concept prototypes and work are to show how the product will

00:14:03 Filip Valica: look and that's a lot faster than having to go through the same explanation with your target market over and over again. So this is something that you can use to help validate your idea further

00:14:14 Filip Valica: if you need to talk about specifics. The next step would be to flesh out some of the design and then build the functional prototype to test how it will work. And at the very end,

00:14:26 Filip Valica: you'll create a production prototype along with your manufacturer to prove how the high volume manufacturing techniques and materials fit in with your design. So the main purpose of building a

00:14:39 Filip Valica: prototype for us is to get feedback and reduce risk. And the way we do that is that we continue testing and we just remove what doesn't work and then iterate again and you show it to a different

00:14:52 Filip Valica: group and then see how they think about the product and repeat over and over again. This is a really quick way also when you're working on the functional prototype to verify how different

00:15:03 Filip Valica: materials or mechanisms and features work by just building one particular part of it without having to build the entire product over and over again, you're just testing this one item or this one component. This is also the good time to experiment with colors, textures, and

00:15:17 Filip Valica: coatings. And again, customers really like to give you feedback when there's a physical model for them to comment on. So if you're designing a product with somebody, The prototype can also help you work together on the same product.

00:15:32 Filip Valica: Another reason that people use prototypes is to help them get funding. So if you're at the point now where you're still building your own prototypes and you're looking to solicit funding from an investor, it can help lower risk by proving to somebody that this product can be manufactured.

00:15:47 Filip Valica: And most importantly, they want to see that it performs as advertised. So make sure that the prototype shows the benefit of your product and it solves their problem.

00:15:57 Filip Valica: Lastly, some people like to develop a prototype because it helps them to get a patent. You technically don't need a prototype to solicit a patent, but sometimes inventors will file

00:16:07 Filip Valica: claims that don't match how the product will actually function, and the prototype will help you prove that the idea works before you're spending money, patenting claims that cannot be reproduced.

00:16:19 Filip Valica: So in general, there's multiple ways of creating prototypes, whether you're going to build them at home or you go to specific workshops to build them together in classes or you hire a manufacturer to do it

00:16:32 Filip Valica: or ultimately you can even hire a company to both design and build the prototype and final product. So that's an increasing scale of spending more money but putting less time into the process.

00:16:45 Filip Valica: So in general, we try to use familiar tools, especially in the beginning to focus on creating a prototype as quickly as possible. So the goal was to find what works and what doesn't really fast.

00:16:57 Filip Valica: And that means we don't turn to the fancy buzzwords of the day, like 3D printers and other things if we don't have to because we pick up older products or we go and disassemble some other parts from other things or use cardboard mockups,

00:17:12 Filip Valica: whatever makes the process go by really quick. Otherwise, you're spending a lot of time creating something on the computer and printing it and it may not function as you expect. So the main takeaway here is to don't focus on the details, is don't let them distract you from the main idea,

00:17:27 Filip Valica: which is focus on how something will work, break it up into individual pieces, if it's something that's complicated, you don't need to build the whole complete product as a single prototype to test your idea. Don't worry about making it perfect.

00:17:41 Filip Valica: You're just testing out discrete components to see if individually everything will work, and then you can assemble it all together. That's definitely a lot easier than trying to make it look and function properly.

00:17:54 Filip Valica: in the first step. Once you prove that your idea works and you have tested that with your target market, then try to combine the two and eventually work on the design and then work with a manufacturer to mass produce your product. And they're going

00:18:08 Filip Valica: to help to confirm that you can create this in scale below a price that customers are willing to pay. So don't try to tackle the function aesthetics and manufactureability all at once because that's one of the reasons it takes some people so long to build a prototype is that they're

00:18:22 Filip Valica: trying to meet all three things in the very beginning. beginning. So practically speaking, how can we build prototypes as efficiently as possible? Again, this is going to depend on your risk tolerance, how much time versus money you have,

00:18:36 Filip Valica: and what your skill set is. But in general, it can be lumped into at least four categories, and that's doing it yourself at home or in your garage, doing it in some sort of a class that

00:18:47 Filip Valica: you take, contacting a manufacturer and creating the design in conjunction with them. And then And lastly, hiring a invention promotion company that will essentially do the beginning to end for you.

00:19:00 Filip Valica: They'll do the complete design of prototyping manufacturer. So starting at the beginning, I love DIY. I love working with my hands. And so we always develop product types ourselves at any company that I've worked for.

00:19:13 Filip Valica: And mainly that's because you get to keep their proprietary information to yourself. So you lower the risk of publicizing the idea before you're ready. and you get to iterate really quickly. You're making revisions to prototypes sometimes several times a day as many times as you want on your schedule.

00:19:28 Filip Valica: And you're saving a whole lot of money because instead of paying someone to build an expensive prototype before you think it can work, you're making some mistakes up front. So of course the cons are that you're going to delay your schedule a little bit and if you have a really tight schedule,

00:19:43 Filip Valica: this may not be suitable for you. And there's also a risk that you won't produce anything usable. The easiest ways that I find of creating prototypes by hand are using paper, cardboard, or foam board models. You can buy construction kits like erector sets.

00:19:57 Filip Valica: There's obviously wood, hardware, plastic at the home goods stores and the home improvement stores. Art supply stores are really great because they have some modeling clays that can harden in the oven and plastics that air dry.

00:20:10 Filip Valica: And then you can also get some casting and molding kits. If your product is electronic, I love the Lego Mindstorms kit. It's basically a Lego kit with a brain that you can program. And it's really easy to program because it's designed for children age 10 to 15.

00:20:24 Filip Valica: So everything is kind of drag and drop. So it's a visual-based programming language. You can also, if you're more inclined, learn analog circuits through something like Bright Hub engineering,

00:20:36 Filip Valica: where they have kits that you can order that have all the components that you need. My favorite is browsing my local dollar or clearance store for different products that have similar functions that I want, and I'll kind of Frankenstein them together.

00:20:48 Filip Valica: The advantage with all of these products is that they're already manufactured. They only will cost you typically a dollar or two each, and it's a lot cheaper than buying some of these components directly.

00:21:00 Filip Valica: So even if you need a particular light bulb or a certain handle, buying at the dollar store is way cheaper than buying it online and shipping it.

00:21:07 Filip Valica: Another great benefit to using products from dollar stores is that you can take them apart and see how they work and repurpose some of the mechanisms that are inside for your product. So the next stage of prototyping is to use computer modeling, prototyping platforms,

00:21:23 Filip Valica: and you could even take classes local to your city. So computer modeling, I mean creating a 3D model using a tool such as SketchUp, which is free out of desk 1,23D is also free, and so is TinkerCad.

00:21:36 Filip Valica: And then you can export these models to a 3D printer. Personally, I wouldn't buy a 3D printer if you're only going to make a couple models, but you can use a service like Shapeways or Pinocco to create. create and upload this model and they can ship it to you after they print it. If you've got

00:21:51 Filip Valica: electronic product, the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi are awesome prototyping kits. They're really powerful credit card size computers and you will have to learn some programming,

00:22:04 Filip Valica: but it can basically do anything almost a normal PC can do. And they also have a lot of sensors and displays and

00:22:14 Filip Valica: keypads and all sorts of things to kind of prototype your project really quickly if you're developing a mobile app or software they also have some interface templates out there you go on

00:22:26 Filip Valica: sites like freebies bug and dribble you can find some of them and then there's also other programs that will show how your application will look on various platforms like iOS x and android and

00:22:38 Filip Valica: you don't need to use Photoshop for that and then there's prototyping platforms that even simulate how this will interact and how people will use your app. The most popular ones are UX app, Envision, and Marvel.

00:22:52 Filip Valica: So personally, I've taken a couple classes at my local community college, and I think they were really helpful, and it was definitely worth my time. Continuing education classes can be $2 to $300 per semester,

00:23:05 Filip Valica: and it's really great for people who want to learn additional skills and to take their ideas further. Again, this will still take some time. It's going to take you a semester to learn some. something, but you will get pretty in-depth into that particular topic.

00:23:18 Filip Valica: Something that's often overlooked is a lot of vendors, retailers, and tool manufacturers will put on workshops and classes to help sell their equipment. So they'll have a free class that's skills-based that trains you how to use their equipment

00:23:33 Filip Valica: to do a particular function. I think those are really great because it gets you building instantly. Lastly, don't overlook community workspaces like hackerspaces.

00:23:43 Filip Valica: and makerspaces for $60 to $120 a month, you get access to similar equipment that high-tech manufacturers use to make their own products. The staff can be really helpful and give you tips and training needed to use the tools and equipment.

00:23:58 Filip Valica: So there's a hackerspace Wiki Online that you can find or a tech shop where you can go and take some of these classes, so they're a huge benefit. So if you don't have as much time and you don't really want to learn the skills, you can

00:24:11 Filip Valica: certainly outsource building a prototype.

00:24:15 Filip Valica: The advantage of all this is that you're going to finish building the prototype faster than making it yourself, and you can focus on other parts of the product development process. So the cons are that you're definitely going to spend

00:24:27 Filip Valica: much more money, consider maybe a 10x, 15x multiple, depending on your product. For example, if you have a mechanical product, I know a lot of machine shops charge an average of $80 to $120 an hour

00:24:40 Filip Valica: with parts taking 5, 10, 20 hours easily to machine and make, depending on how complex it is. You'll also deal with certainly more paperwork, and you may want to file a provisional application

00:24:53 Filip Valica: if you want to seek patent protection, because at this point you are disclosing your idea to somebody else, so do seek a patent lawyer or intellectual property attorney for advice on that.

00:25:06 Filip Valica: So the process of finding manufacturer is a little bit involved, but I do have a link online where that you can follow. In general, what you'll want to do is focus on communicating your design.

00:25:17 Filip Valica: Many manufacturers deal with designers and engineers, and they're used to seeing drawing,

00:25:23 Filip Valica: specifications, 3D models, and that's the way that they're going to expect their design communicated. And you also want to evaluate all the costs. Sometimes they'll price the product based on order quantity, and there can sometimes be a

00:25:35 Filip Valica: 30 to 50 plus percent drop in price if you move up in orders of quantity from 1, 10, or 100 products. Also, don't forget the cost of shipping, and sometimes the cost of setting up a project

00:25:47 Filip Valica: may or may not be included in the unit cost that you get. So again, I'll leave some links on the episode notes. Lastly, if you have zero time and a whole lot of money, there are places where you can take your idea.

00:26:01 Filip Valica: They're basically one-stop invention shops, and they'll conduct the market research. for you, they'll design and build the prototype. They'll recommend that you get patent protection if you want it. They can create the engineering drawings and specifications. They'll even work

00:26:15 Filip Valica: with manufacturers to get quotes and sourcing and even secure distribution rights and stores that will sell your product. Some of them even will advertise and market your product to the

00:26:26 Filip Valica: proper audience. So keep in mind that an invention promotion company can sometimes cost five to $15,000 or more depending on the complexity of your product and how many legal

00:26:37 Filip Valica: services you will need. And I'll have a link at the bottom of the episode notes for that as well.

00:26:44 Filip Valica: So in general, there's a lot of options and ways of developing your prototype. Do you not stall out? Focus on making tiny incremental steps. I think that anybody can help take a product

00:26:55 Filip Valica: idea to market. I know if they're own out a lot of information, but I really think that it's all doable even if you don't have any experience and you don't even have to believe me i would listen

00:27:06 Filip Valica: to a couple previous podcast episodes if you haven't already so if you have a new idea and no experience i would look at episode two the perky collar with david brankle so he wore his daughter's

00:27:20 Filip Valica: headband under his collar to a meeting and that's how he proved that his idea works episode four Brad Sumney with Savage Jerky. He tested batches of beef jerky in his local community, perfecting it each time.

00:27:34 Filip Valica: So again, he was iterating it, bringing it to the bar, having people taste it and waited until there were enough people that wanted to buy it before he went to market. So if you already have an existing idea that you think that you can make an improvement

00:27:48 Filip Valica: on, there's also some episodes that I think are worth listening to episode five with Mat Hofma and Erik Polumbo with Mini Materials. Matt saw the product, knew that he could make it better and cheaper and just took off.

00:28:02 Filip Valica: And then episode six with Kelsey Duffy with Versakini, Kelsey was working with a partner who abandoned the idea and she just knew that she could make it work. So all of these are also great examples of products that approach problems differently

00:28:16 Filip Valica: than the existing products on the market. So the last thing that I'll leave you with is make sure that you're not just recycling existing ideas on the market, you do have to have a unique benefit that no one else has.

00:28:31 Filip Valica: And that concludes today's episode. Thanks for joining me today. I put all the links that we've covered on the show notes posted on the product startup.com slash episode 10. Have you brought a product

00:28:42 Filip Valica: to market or do you know someone who has? Drop me a note by going to the product startup.com and clicking on Ask Philip. I'd love to have you on the show. If you love the episode, please leave me a review on iTunes by going to

00:28:55 Filip Valica: Productstartup.com slash review. I really appreciate your support. I read all the comments, and I try to incorporate them into future episodes. See you guys in two weeks. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast with your

00:29:10 Filip Valica: host, Philip Felizza. For more great content and to stay up today, visit theproductstartup.com. Your guide to getting there.

00:29:23 Filip Valica: Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Product Startup podcast, the show that teaches you it really takes to bring your product to market and turn it into a big success. This podcast series

00:29:34 Filip Valica: is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent, the first firm in North America 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

00:29:47 Filip Valica: over to MakoDesign.com. That's M-A-K-O-design.com for a free consultation from one of Mako-Design four design studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening and see you next time.