Product Startup Podcast Episode 179: Get More From a Product Design Partner

00:00:00 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn from a hardware startup industrial designer on how to efficiently and effectively start a design project with a product design firm.

00:00:08 Narrator: You're listening to the Product Startup podcast, a show to learn from top leaders in product development, product development, product selling, and everything in between.

00:00:16 Narrator: Hosted by Kevin Mako, the leading expert on product development for physical product startups, sponsored

00:00:20 Narrator: by PTC's two best in class 3D CAD product development software solutions, Onshape

00:00:25 Narrator: , and Creo, and produced by Mako Design + Invent, the original firm providing world-class consumer,

00:00:30 Narrator: product development services tailored specifically to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors.

00:00:34 Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm very excited to introduce Nick Allen to the show. Nick is an industrial designer at our very own Mako Design.

00:00:42 Kevin Mako: Nick has been designing products for 15 years, working with over 100 products earning multiple design awards, including the coveted red dot award.

00:00:49 Kevin Mako: Today, Nick is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups and small manufacturers on how to start working on a project with your hardware

00:00:55 Kevin Mako: product development partners so that you can maximize the value of the relationship.

00:01:00 Kevin Mako: thus leading to creating a top-notch product and even more important, a successful hardware startup business. Now on to the episode.

00:01:08 Kevin Mako: Hey, Nick, welcome to the show. Hey, Kevin, thanks for having me. Well, we're excited today to talk to you about working with your design partner and how you can best

00:01:16 Kevin Mako: maximize that value as the hardware startup. There's a lot that goes into developing a product.

00:01:22 Kevin Mako: Obviously, one of the big parts is the design and engineer and prototyping and all of that.

00:01:25 Kevin Mako: And it makes a big difference as a hardware founder what you come to the table with. And it's actually kind of easy.

00:01:31 Kevin Mako: Once you learn the process or learn how to communicate with your design partner on what you can bring to the table with your expertise as the inventor, how you can actually

00:01:40 Kevin Mako: create an amazing process that at least for an efficient and effective development process with

00:01:45 Kevin Mako: your design and engineering house, you are the innovator and are a non-technical founder. Or even if

00:01:50 Kevin Mako: you're a technical founder and you're working with a professional design house to take the product properly

00:01:55 Kevin Mako: to production and so on, there's just a few things that you can do that we've learned over the years working with thousands of products.

00:02:02 Kevin Mako: Nick being out of the California office, works with clients that are all over North America. There's quite a few things that kind of allow for certain

00:02:09 Kevin Mako: clients to lead the pack in terms of what makes for a great foundational information that we can

00:02:13 Kevin Mako: use to really do our best in developing the product to lead to the most successful product at the end of the day, which is everybody's goal.

00:02:19 Kevin Mako: Before we get into all of that, Nick, just give us a background

00:02:22 Nick Allen: to how you got to where you are today. Yeah, thanks, Kevin. Before coming on here as an industrial designer at the Mako Design.

00:02:29 Nick Allen: I've been designing for a long time, pretty much all my life. In high school, it was a lot of clothe making, graphic design type stuff. But in college, I got more into

00:02:37 Nick Allen: industrial design. And after graduating from the University of Washington, I worked at in-house product manufacturing companies that we put out our own products, had our

00:02:46 Nick Allen: own brands with our own factories in China, et cetera. And then bounced around a few different agencies down here in the Bay Area. Have worked with a lot of startups and inventors.

00:02:56 Nick Allen: So, yeah, excited to talk about basically how to have me from the design side have as

00:03:01 Kevin Mako: much information and be able to work as smoothly as possible with them. That's amazing, Nick. And you know, you've been designing products for I guess almost 15 years now, worked

00:03:10 Kevin Mako: on dozens and dozens of dozens of different products across industries, primarily in the mass manufactured consumer segment.

00:03:16 Kevin Mako: You even landed yourself a red dot award, which is a beast. Congratulations, obviously on that.

00:03:22 Kevin Mako: I've worked with dozens of mackle clients, which is great because you've really got to see the

00:03:26 Kevin Mako: pro class when it comes to design for manufacturing for hardware startups and utilize your experience over the years to apply that to startups.

00:03:34 Kevin Mako: But the big question that we're answering today is what can you as the founder do to best maximize that value with your design partner?

00:03:41 Kevin Mako: So to get into that, what's kind of one of the first things that you advise hardware founders to think about when they are bringing their designs to a

00:03:51 Nick Allen: design firm or design partner? I would say focus on your vision and have confidence in your vision. You've been in the trenches

00:03:59 Nick Allen: in whatever field your invention lies in and have confidence knowing that you are an expert in that field.

00:04:06 Nick Allen: And you know, you really are an expert of your vision. You have found some problem that needs solving and you need to have confidence steering that ship. Because when you

00:04:16 Nick Allen: start working with a design agency, freelancer, whoever you're going to end up working with, they're going to help you with a lot of the technical aspects of things and

00:04:25 Nick Allen: really help you bring your idea to fruition, but you really need to be the one steering the ship. So I would say,

00:04:32 Nick Allen: know what you know, know the exact problem you're solving and why you think it's going to be successful. And then know what you don't know.

00:04:40 Nick Allen: Don't worry about what you don't know. But just be aware of the things you don't know. And that's really why you're coming for help with design

00:04:46 Kevin Mako: agencies. So I would just say, come in clear eye and you'll have more success that way. I really like how you mentioned that coming with clear vision of what you know, but

00:04:54 Kevin Mako: understanding what you don't know. And that's okay. So many people come into the design world with their vision and their

00:05:02 Kevin Mako: idea. And then they try and focus on other things. Well, how are we going to build this thing? Or what's the way that we should design this?

00:05:08 Kevin Mako: Or I've tried to figure out how to make this bolt work for my product. Well, that's what you've hired the design team to figure out. What we don't have is your vision.

00:05:15 Kevin Mako: What do you want this project to achieve? How do you want this thing to look and feel and work with the customer? Who is your end customer?

00:05:21 Kevin Mako: What are all these different aspects that truly hit the vision that you saw was solving that pain point?

00:05:27 Nick Allen: And if you can articulate that, we can focus on the engineering of how to make that thing work. Yeah, exactly. I think the more that you just understand

00:05:35 Nick Allen: that you have an invention idea, you have thought of something that you want and doesn't exist and you know other people will want to.

00:05:43 Nick Allen: And so lean into that and leverage that experience, knowing that whatever design partner that you end up working with is not going to have that same experience,

00:05:52 Nick Allen: is not going to know the ins and outs of your target audience and be sort of look and feel that you're imagining. We can get you there,

00:06:00 Nick Allen: but it's important that you have the vision, and have confidence in the vision,

00:06:05 Kevin Mako: and try to explain it as best you can to the design partner. You mentioned something really key there, leverage your experience.

00:06:12 Kevin Mako: The reality is that most invention ideas come from people who identify something either that's a pain point for themselves or an opportunity

00:06:20 Kevin Mako: or a pain point within their respective career or something in their industry that they're very closely related to. It's almost always usually within some connection.

00:06:29 Kevin Mako: And if you can look at what your experience is and why you are the one to actually see that innovation, it empowers you to really double down on that experience matrix.

00:06:39 Kevin Mako: And I think that's what you're talking about here, Nick, is if you're a doctor and you've come up with a new type of medical device,

00:06:43 Kevin Mako: really lean into understanding why that medical device would make your job in the surgical room better. What is it that that really hones in on?

00:06:52 Kevin Mako: If you can figure out the avatar of the actual person who's going to use it, which when you come up with an idea for your own industry, it's easy.

00:06:59 Kevin Mako: You are your first customer, basically. Really dig deep into there to see, like, what is the pain point that you're solving or the opportunity?

00:07:05 Kevin Mako: And how does that actually fit in from you as an expert? Not necessarily how do you design thing or figure out how to build it or figure out a prototype or manufacture it.

00:07:13 Kevin Mako: that's what you've come to your design for it's how do you actually envision this thing

00:07:17 Kevin Mako: working within the industry that you've identified and it doesn't necessarily mean that you have

00:07:21 Kevin Mako: to be in the industry you may be somebody who is a patient and you recognize that a tool would

00:07:26 Kevin Mako: have helped the doctor do something more comfortable within the procedure there's many different

00:07:31 Kevin Mako: avenues that the observer will see but you have to recognize yourself in that position where you sit you are the expert and double down on that knowledge and really get

00:07:40 Kevin Mako: that understood so that you can provide that value and that understanding and that whole matrix of information

00:07:46 Kevin Mako: to your design team so that they can figure out how to engineer the product to maximize

00:07:51 Nick Allen: either that opportunity or minimize that pain point that you've discovered. Yeah, exactly right. I think the more information we can have, if we know exactly what

00:08:01 Nick Allen: the constraints are, what it needs to do and what it can't do, we will have a lot more of a straight line drive

00:08:07 Nick Allen: to prototyping and eventually manufacturing and get you exactly what you want.

00:08:11 Kevin Mako: If you can be very clear in the constraints of what you want and what you don't want.

00:08:17 Nick Allen: Nick, what's the easiest way that somebody can get this information to you once they've kind of distilled it? Just write it down. You can do it a number of ways.

00:08:25 Nick Allen: But I would say if you could make a very basic pitch deck in air quotes, that helps tremendously.

00:08:32 Nick Allen: If you could have a basic sketch of your idea or a basic target audience that you're going

00:08:38 Nick Allen: for bullet point list of must have this, can't have this, must retail for this, start writing

00:08:45 Nick Allen: it down, and I know that seems very simple, but once you start writing it down, you're going to refine it a little bit more.

00:08:52 Nick Allen: And then once we get all that information, we're going to have all of our input from the more design engineering side to help take the conversation to the next

00:08:59 Nick Allen: level. But you'd be surprised how much that helps on the back end to really give us a very clear idea of where you want to take this.

00:09:06 Nick Allen: Because remember, we're not the inventor. We haven't been with you when you had your aha moment.

00:09:12 Kevin Mako: So you've been thinking about this a lot longer than we have. And so the more info you can give us, the better. Yeah, that's great advice. Really simple

00:09:19 Kevin Mako: to do. And I love the fact that you mentioned the sketch.

00:09:23 Nick Allen: A lot of clients laugh when you ask them for the sketch, especially if they've never really drawn something. They're insecure about their art skills. It doesn't matter.

00:09:30 Kevin Mako: No, it doesn't matter. If you get us anything, like have your kid draw it, it will really help us. Absolutely. You'd be surprised at how much information comes out just

00:09:39 Kevin Mako: for yourself as you just sketch down this idea. And Nick, you mentioned a few things to think about the hand sketch of the product itself is great, right? What is this thing?

00:09:48 Kevin Mako: But then you took it a little bit further and said, well, what is the use case? How does this actually get used? Maybe walk us through just a very brief bullet point use case.

00:09:55 Kevin Mako: And then I also like how you mentioned the must have, but also must not have. And that's critical because what you're trying to do is really hone in on the

00:10:03 Kevin Mako: core innovation to the product using, again, we come back to this concept of expertise, using the expertise or the innovation or the vision or combination of all of those things

00:10:12 Kevin Mako: that you as the inventor have. Now, simply putting these few elements down on a piece of paper and adding information to them over time really allows you to vet out

00:10:21 Kevin Mako: those ideas, but it's also something where you don't need to go too far. You don't need to go crazy trying to figure out and perfect it.

00:10:28 Kevin Mako: You're simply trying to get that core offering, that core aha moment, the vision, the innovation, just down in relatively simple form that you're clear with, that also makes

00:10:37 Kevin Mako: it clear for the design team to understand what exactly that vision is.

00:10:41 Nick Allen: So they can then start addressing, well, how do we actually build you the product to satisfy that vision? Right, exactly.

00:10:47 Nick Allen: We need to be clear of your design intent for a very early stage so that we can make sure that we hold true to that throughout the process.

00:10:55 Nick Allen: Because throughout prototyping and into manufacturing, things will change.

00:10:59 Kevin Mako: But if we have a very clear vision up front, we can save. gave on some costly mistakes and expedite the process considerably. I like mentioning the clarity there.

00:11:06 Kevin Mako: It doesn't have to be clarity into how this thing gets made. Again, that's what we're for. It's clarity in terms of your vision.

00:11:12 Kevin Mako: Now, understand that your vision can change as well. Sometimes inventors, they sit on the idea for a long time because they're actually nervous about getting a product started.

00:11:20 Kevin Mako: And because they keep coming up with either new ideas or changes or even worse, feature

00:11:24 Kevin Mako: creep of all kinds of extra ideas that really aren't necessary yet to the core of the product.

00:11:29 Kevin Mako: and that inhibits your ability to actually get the ball rolling into building an actual real product and thus real product business.

00:11:35 Kevin Mako: So you don't have to go too crazy with this exercise, but it is helpful to kind of hone it down and simplify it to the point where you get a reasonable

00:11:43 Kevin Mako: starting point that then gets discussed, reviewed, analyzed, tweaked, tested, refined with your design team partner. You're trying to get the best of both worlds here.

00:11:53 Kevin Mako: You're trying to get the best of your inventor vision in combination with hardcore engineers. in the middle there is a great product, but too far on either side is

00:12:01 Kevin Mako: likely some deviation from the norm of what makes a great product. That's why if you can write that down clearly, you give it

00:12:07 Kevin Mako: a lot of ammunition for our team as the design side to be able to very clearly articulate the

00:12:11 Nick Allen: technologies around that so that we meet in the middle and figure out what that great product is. Yeah, for sure.

00:12:17 Nick Allen: Definitely expect potentially there could be some pushback from the design team and the engineers, you know, if you think that some part of your product is an absolute must have

00:12:26 Nick Allen: where it turns out that that could be a feature that is going to add six months to the timeline, make things a lot more expensive.

00:12:32 Nick Allen: And we actually think that the core of your idea is this one aspect of it. Maybe let's start there.

00:12:38 Nick Allen: And we can explain to you the pros and cons of adding a bunch of features at this early stage. So I think it's a team effort.

00:12:45 Nick Allen: It is important for you to initiate the vision statement as thoroughly as you can.

00:12:50 Kevin Mako: But once the design and engineers look it over, there will be some technical pushback for sure. That's all great advice, Nick.

00:12:56 Kevin Mako: Another thing to address here that's really helpful in this process is what you had identified there, must have versus want to have, needs versus

00:13:05 Kevin Mako: wants. This is one of those things that you can do as well if you're not sure.

00:13:08 Kevin Mako: So if you're looking at the core version of your product and if you've been listening to this podcast, you know we talk a lot about MVP.

00:13:14 Kevin Mako: It's a really important thing to a hardware startup specifically when you're getting a new product off the ground, not to go too crazy on features, but never to sacrifice quality.

00:13:23 Kevin Mako: And of course, to do that, that means you have to put a lot of effort into less features, which is really what your MVP is, starting with a really

00:13:29 Kevin Mako: good core offering, really that hits the original vision. The vision usually is off of one or maybe two very solid observations.

00:13:37 Kevin Mako: Everything else is extra and can come later as your product builds and grows and as more money comes in and all the rest. But if we look at it from the beginning,

00:13:44 Kevin Mako: one of the difficulties with the hardware startup is differentiating between the stuff that they absolutely

00:13:48 Kevin Mako: are certainly have to have, the core offering and these extra bells and whistles. That leads to

00:13:53 Kevin Mako: this thing called the must have might want to have list, which can also be a part of the process.

00:13:58 Nick Allen: Nick, talk a bit about that list and how hardware startups can at least put it into these two categories for us to review.

00:14:04 Nick Allen: Yeah, I mean, sometimes it can be confusing because you want it all on the first go around, but understanding how long and potentially complicated product

00:14:12 Nick Allen: development could be, I think that's where the engineers and designers come in handy. And that's why you're coming to us or anyone as a firm is to help make the product

00:14:21 Nick Allen: development process as smooth, as efficient, as hopefully as cheap as possible. And so before any product that we take on

00:14:28 Nick Allen: at Maca, we make sure to have a very clear list of our must-have features. And the designers and

00:14:34 Nick Allen: engineers just have to be very upfront about varying complexities of each feature and what the value add really is, because sometimes it's not really going to add much.

00:14:44 Nick Allen: And I think being upfront and honest to the client, they always end up appreciating that. That's what they're coming to us for. Sometimes it's

00:14:51 Nick Allen: tough love, but it's just honesty leveraging our experience.

00:14:54 Kevin Mako: So it's a team effort really in the end to get to the final list of features that are going to work for your MVP. I love how you mentioned

00:15:01 Kevin Mako: the team effort thing, because that's a big deal. And a piece of advice that you could derive out of that is work collaboratively with your design team.

00:15:08 Kevin Mako: Yes. If you come extremely rigid and boxed in and want all these bells and whistles and features, know that of course the team can do that. It's just there's

00:15:16 Kevin Mako: reasons, there's pros and cons as to what it takes to build a successful product business, which a lot of

00:15:22 Kevin Mako: the time is different from what might be the ultimate product that you see years down the road as it evolves.

00:15:30 Kevin Mako: If you look at most products, even some of the biggest product companies in the world, they're usually coming out with initial offering, running that with the market and

00:15:37 Kevin Mako: iterating and improving on top of that, as opposed to trying to get all of those bells and

00:15:41 Kevin Mako: whistles, even when they can afford to do so, even when they understand the process and they're

00:15:45 Kevin Mako: ready for those elements of engineering, they purposely will leave certain key pieces so that they can

00:15:50 Kevin Mako: learn from their customers, also learn from the development as it goes through. Most of the people listening to the show are developing a new and proprietary product.

00:15:56 Kevin Mako: You also have that layer mixed in, where you've got pieces of your product, even if it's almost

00:16:00 Kevin Mako: entirely existing technology, just reconfigured in a new way, the way that that's reconfigured and the intersection of those existing technologies is your new technology.

00:16:09 Kevin Mako: All of that stuff requires extra work and extra efforts to figure out how to get it done. So if you start overcomplicating it with feature creep and really pushing for this long

00:16:19 Kevin Mako: -term play five or 10 years down the road, while ignoring immediate needs that allow for a hardware startup to succeed, there could be problems.

00:16:27 Kevin Mako: And that's the sort of thing that especially if you're working with the design team that's very familiar with a startup process for developing new products,

00:16:33 Kevin Mako: never sacrifice quality, but don't go crazy with feature creep. and working together on that scale, you can eventually vet out

00:16:41 Kevin Mako: in the early phases a great design

00:16:44 Nick Allen: foundation, which then can get built upon much more efficiently, faster and at better quality and a whole bunch of other benefits to come along with it. Yeah, for sure.

00:16:52 Nick Allen: Ideally, your product is successful and you want to release a version 2.0 and you've learned so much in that time. Hopefully you've gotten some revenue by that point.

00:17:00 Nick Allen: Yeah, I think keeping it simple as possible, I know that's been preached on the show a bunch

00:17:05 Kevin Mako: times MVP, but we're going to continue to do so because it really is, especially for first time hardware inventor founders, just the most logical way to get a product to market.

00:17:14 Kevin Mako: Nick, much appreciated for your time and words of wisdom today on working with a design firm. We'll talk again soon.

00:17:20 Narrator: Thanks, Kevin. Thanks. Take care. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the product startup podcast.

00:17:26 Narrator: If you found some value in the show, please do us a huge favor and leave us a quick five-star

00:17:30 Narrator: review. If you have any questions, guest suggestions, or anything else, feel free to reach out to us anytime at her email podcast and MakoDesign.com.

00:17:37 Narrator: That's podcast at MakoDesign.com. This show is hosted by Kevin Mako. North America is a leading expert on product development for physical product startups.

00:17:46 Narrator: Huge thanks to our sponsors, PTC, and their two best-in-class 3D CAD product development software solutions Onshape and Creo. Mako Design + Invent. The original firm

00:17:55 Narrator: providing world-class consumer product development services tailored specifically to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Thanks for joining and see you next time.