Product Startup Podcast Episode 206: How to Build and Sell a Valuable Hardware Business

00:00:00 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn how to prepare to sell your hardware product business

00:00:04 Kevin Mako: from a 30-year investment banker in the manufacturing industry. This is the Product Startup Podcast, a show to learn

00:00:11 Kevin Mako: from top leaders in hardware product development, prototyping, manufacturing, product selling, and everything in

00:00:16 Kevin Mako: between. Hosted by Kevin Mako, the leading expert on product development for hardware startups.

00:00:23 Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. I'm very excited to introduce Dan Shea to the show.

00:00:26 Kevin Mako: Dan is the managing director of Objective, Investment Banking and Valuation.

00:00:30 Kevin Mako: He's been doing mergers and acquisitions deals as an investment banker in the manufacturing sector for over 30 years.

00:00:36 Kevin Mako: Today, Dan will share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups as well-manufactures on thinking about the value of your product and product business well before a sale,

00:00:44 Kevin Mako: focusing on quality product and customer needs and adding innovation to increase the valuation of your product for an eventual exit sale.

00:00:51 Kevin Mako: Now, on to the episode.

00:00:54 Kevin Mako: This show is produced by Mako Design, the original firm providing end-to-end consumer product development services,

00:01:00 Kevin Mako: tailored specifically to hardware startups, small manufacturers, and inventors.

00:01:05 Kevin Mako: Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. Now on to the episode.

00:01:13 Kevin Mako: Hey, Dan, welcome to the show.

00:01:14 Dan Shea: Glad to be here.

00:01:15 Kevin Mako: Well, excited today to talk to you about building value for a potential exit for a

00:01:20 Kevin Mako: hardware startup. How does a hardware startup, even in the early days, and as they're developing the product,

00:01:25 Kevin Mako: getting to market, and more importantly, as they're starting to scale the business,

00:01:29 Kevin Mako: what do they start thinking about in terms of the value that they're providing to the world that a

00:01:33 Kevin Mako: potential buyer of their actual product business might be looking for at the end of the tunnel?

00:01:38 Kevin Mako: Before we get into all of that, exciting stuff, just give us a bit of a history of how you got to be

00:01:43 Kevin Mako: the success story that you are today.

00:01:45 Dan Shea: Yeah, thank you so much. So I've been an investment banker for over 30 years, and what that means for me

00:01:51 Dan Shea: is helping entrepreneurs sell their businesses. And these businesses can range in value from 10 million

00:01:58 Dan Shea: into over 300 million is kind of like the two endposts of my experience over 30 some years.

00:02:06 Dan Shea: Primarily work with manufacturers, and oftentimes those manufacturers have a branded product,

00:02:12 Dan Shea: a highly designed engineered product, oftentimes a consumer product, like a lot of the folks

00:02:18 Dan Shea: you work with Kevin. And also I work with engineering services companies that help companies

00:02:24 Dan Shea: design those products, a very valuable piece of the puzzle there.

00:02:27 Dan Shea: And so I'm really excited to talk about with you how those folks can build value for the customer.

00:02:34 Dan Shea: And that translates into value for themselves as they scale their business and ultimately as they think

00:02:39 Dan Shea: to exit. You know, you've heard the saying start with the end in mind.

00:02:43 Dan Shea: Not every entrepreneur starts with the idea that I'm going to build something that I'm going to sell.

00:02:47 Dan Shea: But over time and probably early on, that does enter their thinking.

00:02:53 Dan Shea: And so we like to help people start to really focus on how they're going to.

00:02:57 Dan Shea: they can build value that's conveyable to a buyer at a high valuation.

00:03:02 Kevin Mako: That's great. And this is a really powerful subject because a big trend that I've noticing

00:03:06 Kevin Mako: and talking with a lot of the big corporate folks as well is that big companies are investing

00:03:12 Kevin Mako: less in R&D and more in the acquisition of the next hot thing typically that's coming to market

00:03:18 Kevin Mako: from startups. They're looking to see, okay, what can we grab out there?

00:03:23 Kevin Mako: Somebody who's seeing the innovation that our R&D team didn't see. They've released something

00:03:27 Kevin Mako: quickly, typically because they're nimble, they're fast, or they're just more creative, or a whole number of

00:03:32 Kevin Mako: reasons that hardware entrepreneurs have an advantage over big corporate in many ways,

00:03:37 Kevin Mako: and then leveraging their existing networks to make massive scale. So it's a good deal for both

00:03:41 Kevin Mako: parties. And it's something that we see a lot of, especially like many of the customers at Mako,

00:03:45 Kevin Mako: even as they're starting to get early traction, it's interesting to see those companies start knocking

00:03:49 Kevin Mako: at the door earlier and earlier than ever before historically. So it's at a really good time now,

00:03:54 Kevin Mako: as we're looking forward to say, as a hardware startup, know that.

00:03:57 Kevin Mako: that it's not just about cash flow. As you build cash flow, you're building equity and equity is

00:04:02 Kevin Mako: translatable into value for a probably much larger entity that can really leverage the amazing product

00:04:08 Kevin Mako: innovation group of products or whatever else that you've created, let alone additional value like

00:04:12 Kevin Mako: brand IP, et cetera. So I love the fact that so much of this is happening in the industry, and that's

00:04:16 Kevin Mako: why I really wanted to get you on to talk about this today, just even at a minimum to start planting

00:04:20 Kevin Mako: the seeds into hardware entrepreneurs as to how they can truly build that value and then obviously

00:04:25 Kevin Mako: translate that into a bigger, better sale.

00:04:27 Kevin Mako: down the road. So let's start, you know, early on and big picture here. Let's just look at what do you mean

00:04:32 Dan Shea: by building value in a hardware startup? So large companies, mid-sized companies, any company,

00:04:39 Dan Shea: they don't have a lock on all the insights. They really don't. And oftentimes, it sizes their enemy,

00:04:46 Dan Shea: frankly, because, you know, they have big organizations and it's hard to turn a big

00:04:50 Dan Shea: organization on a dime when a great idea comes up. So oftentimes in the corporate development,

00:04:57 Dan Shea: departments, which are my counterparts in a transaction. They're the finance-oriented people

00:05:03 Dan Shea: that look for opportunities to buy, whether it's a product line or an actual company,

00:05:08 Dan Shea: they're constantly doing this calculation, make versus buy. Can we make it or should we

00:05:13 Dan Shea: buy it? And oftentimes, they can't even make something that looks great in the marketplace because

00:05:18 Dan Shea: smart entrepreneurs have protected their technology. You can't even reverse engineer it because

00:05:23 Dan Shea: you violate patent or a patent pending. It's a little easier if it's a little easier if it's

00:05:27 Dan Shea: just know-how, but proprietary know-how is proprietary. So these large corporations

00:05:32 Dan Shea: got on our door all the time and say, what have you got in this particular area of the economy?

00:05:40 Dan Shea: So I would say to you that in the majority of the businesses in this country are small companies,

00:05:46 Dan Shea: that's where all the innovation happens, despite the fact that large companies get all the press.

00:05:51 Dan Shea: So, you know, I would say to you that keep coming up with those great ideas, but be calculating about

00:05:57 Dan Shea: it. When you have a great idea, make sure as you develop it, make sure you're checking

00:06:02 Dan Shea: yourself and make sure that there's a large addressable market. And make sure it's something

00:06:07 Dan Shea: customers want, need and value. Take a look at the competition, see who the competition is out

00:06:12 Dan Shea: there. And is your product truly an innovation? Kevin, you probably are familiar with the Blue

00:06:18 Dan Shea: Ocean strategy. Have you heard of that? Harvard business would do. I had a client, and this is kind of

00:06:24 Dan Shea: jumping ahead, so forgive me, and we can always go back.

00:06:27 Dan Shea: But I saw this in many of my clients, and one in particular that worked so well.

00:06:33 Dan Shea: They consulted with folks like yourself, but they also had an in-house team, and their whole

00:06:38 Dan Shea: job was to try and come up with innovations in a really mundane industry where the consumer might

00:06:44 Dan Shea: sit back and say, there's no innovation happening in this. It's a building products company, right?

00:06:49 Dan Shea: What else can you do with building products? They innovated every year and came up with these great

00:06:55 Dan Shea: products based on what the installers needed to build houses, build buildings and what

00:07:00 Dan Shea: have you. And they would come up with these great products, test it with the consumer, which was the

00:07:06 Dan Shea: worker at the construction site. And if it was a great idea that saved the worker time or money

00:07:13 Dan Shea: and the install of this particular family of products, they would finalize the product and they would

00:07:19 Dan Shea: put a living fence patent around it. And they built their business on chunks of products.

00:07:25 Dan Shea: And because of that, they had a portfolio of highly engineered, highly designed products for the building products industry that buyers were salivating over.

00:07:34 Dan Shea: Buyers, meaning not the customer, but buyers of the business, were salivating over because this business was rock solid.

00:07:41 Dan Shea: It was built based on product design, protected product design, and it was based on a family of products.

00:07:48 Dan Shea: So the breadth of this company was, and the foundation of this company was rock solid.

00:07:54 Dan Shea: So something that's a product.

00:07:55 Dan Shea: think about, I know a lot of your listeners are earlier stage, you know, but it starts

00:08:00 Dan Shea: with one product. But be mindful of the fact that that product probably can become part of a family

00:08:06 Dan Shea: of products. And you build a family of products and you continue to innovate. Innovation doesn't stop

00:08:11 Dan Shea: once that initial product is built. That's where it starts. And then you build on that. And I can assure

00:08:18 Dan Shea: you that when you do that properly, you're creating institutional value that's conveyable to

00:08:25 Dan Shea: a buyer when your great entrepreneurs decide that they need to take some chips off the table.

00:08:30 Kevin Mako: That's powerful advice. And something that's really special in there that you mentioned is the fact that

00:08:35 Kevin Mako: this company was innovating based on their customer feedback. And that's something that as a hardware

00:08:41 Kevin Mako: startup, if you're looking to build this portfolio of products or evolve your product or have multiple

00:08:45 Kevin Mako: lines of a similar one or accessories or whatever it might be, it's called some related family suite of

00:08:50 Kevin Mako: products. First of all, as an inventor and an innovator, you've already come up with the first idea. So

00:08:54 Kevin Mako: the probability that you're going to continue to come up with ideas only accelerates as you get more

00:08:59 Kevin Mako: customers and more feedback and more stakeholders and engagement, whether it's investors or

00:09:03 Kevin Mako: designers or whatever else, the ideas are going to become more frequent. And the value of those ideas

00:09:09 Kevin Mako: are going to be more and more known to you as you evolve the business. So you can start as a hardware

00:09:13 Kevin Mako: startup. The second thing I find, which is amazing, which ties to the first that you mentioned

00:09:17 Kevin Mako: is you can start with the first product. And then over time, you're going to evolve that into either

00:09:24 Kevin Mako: or a family product or additional markets or whatever else, but you can grow from your customers

00:09:29 Kevin Mako: and from better information as you scale up, as you get more money to scale up, whether it's

00:09:33 Kevin Mako: on revenue and investors or whatever else. And as you're doing that, you're creating a tremendous

00:09:38 Kevin Mako: amount of equity. In fact, you use the word kind of like institutional interest. This is where you've

00:09:43 Kevin Mako: got the bigger, more serious buyers looking at these new hardware innovations to see what makes

00:09:48 Kevin Mako: sense for either their clients or if they're a company themselves for their own portfolio of product

00:09:52 Kevin Mako: to see how they can leverage it.

00:09:54 Dan Shea: Yeah. So fast forward to the time when you're thinking of selling. Buyers will look at the business and

00:09:59 Dan Shea: say, let's take a look at the history and what the company has done. That is some evidence of what

00:10:05 Dan Shea: it's capable of doing. But make no mistake, a buyer doesn't buy a business based on what it's done

00:10:09 Dan Shea: in the past. If they buy it based on what they can do with it post-close. So when you're building

00:10:15 Dan Shea: your organization, think about building a culture of innovation. It's not just one product

00:10:21 Dan Shea: or a family of products like we say. Is there a team of people that are

00:10:24 Dan Shea: thinking about innovating? Are they consulting with firms like yours, Kevin, in such a way that

00:10:28 Dan Shea: they're partnering to constantly think about ways to innovate in ways that the customer will

00:10:34 Dan Shea: appreciate and pay for and pay for at a price that allows you to be profitable. Profitable, and I would

00:10:41 Dan Shea: submit to you if you're constantly thinking about the blue ocean strategy, you're innovating in the blue

00:10:47 Dan Shea: ocean, not the red ocean, where there's a lot of competition. It's the blue ocean that's the head of everybody

00:10:52 Dan Shea: and you can charge more for that product, charge relative your cost. And in those cases,

00:10:58 Dan Shea: you build a business that is not only durable in terms of innovation in products, but margin.

00:11:05 Dan Shea: You know, many industries have typical or average margin. So buyers look at that. They look at the

00:11:10 Dan Shea: margin of your business and compare it to the industry and say, these people are either doing something special

00:11:15 Dan Shea: or they're not doing something special enough based on where you sit within your field of focus. So there's a lot

00:11:22 Dan Shea: to it, but the good news is nothing happens overnight. You know, you've probably heard

00:11:27 Dan Shea: the saying, overnight success, 10 years in the making. So entrepreneurs out there,

00:11:32 Dan Shea: you're going to make a billion decisions between startup to when you exit. Just have these broad

00:11:38 Dan Shea: themes in mind, these themes of innovation, constant innovation, building a culture around

00:11:44 Dan Shea: innovation, looking to what the customer really wants. And as I was preparing to speak with you

00:11:50 Dan Shea: today, Kevin. I was thinking about what buyers get excited about, buyers of businesses,

00:11:54 Dan Shea: and they get excited about the people who work there, they get excited about the customer list.

00:12:00 Dan Shea: That's why some websites, ours does, yours does, have your customers on there.

00:12:05 Dan Shea: Buyers get excited about who you're able to serve. They get excited about your geography,

00:12:10 Dan Shea: your brand, your name, all these things. But I would submit to you that perhaps the most important

00:12:15 Dan Shea: things is your products, because those are really tangible. You can convey those to buyers,

00:12:20 Dan Shea: They now own the products. They own your designs. They own the markets you serve. And what can

00:12:24 Dan Shea: they do with those to go forward? So think about leaving some ups for the buyer by building a foundation

00:12:31 Dan Shea: of growth through product innovation. And as a hardware startup, that's something inevitably you're going

00:12:36 Kevin Mako: to do because you're limited on budget, time, scope, history, etc. There's a lot of things

00:12:41 Kevin Mako: that even if you do a really good job of a product launch, you're only capturing a certain piece of the market.

00:12:46 Kevin Mako: So a company that's been in the space for 2050, 100 years.

00:12:50 Kevin Mako: is going to look at that and say, wow, look at what you've achieved as a startup in a

00:12:54 Kevin Mako: relatively short period of time, even if it's a few years. It's still small in the grand

00:12:58 Kevin Mako: scheme of big corporations especially. So look at what you've done there. Imagine if you had

00:13:03 Kevin Mako: the scale and breadth of a large corporate buyer behind executing on increasing iterations and versions

00:13:10 Kevin Mako: of that, which I guess is why it's so important. You mentioned looking at the company's history

00:13:14 Kevin Mako: and seeing, okay, you went to market, then what did you do? How did you improve your product?

00:13:18 Kevin Mako: How did you listen to your customer? How did you come up with?

00:13:20 Kevin Mako: with an accessory or the next version of the product. They're looking for the way that the company actually

00:13:25 Kevin Mako: operates and, of course, a great product at the end of the day. So if you have an amazing product,

00:13:29 Kevin Mako: but you're also a firm that's continuing to innovate, that gets a buyer really excited. Like,

00:13:33 Kevin Mako: you're adding compounding value on top of the product itself. But of course, the product is the

00:13:38 Dan Shea: foundation of most hardware product businesses. It's interesting. Maybe the term to be used is

00:13:43 Dan Shea: institutionalize innovation. If you can institutionalize that in your organization, and most people

00:13:49 Dan Shea: have more than one employee. And you've got a small team when you're starting out. The other thing

00:13:54 Dan Shea: that I've seen in my client base, when I speak to them, you know, granted, it's at the tail end of it,

00:13:59 Dan Shea: but, you know, I've spoken with my clients and say, how did you start 30 some years ago? And they figured

00:14:04 Dan Shea: out a way to get the word out about their product through very modest means, but effective means. There's

00:14:12 Dan Shea: trade shows out there. There's the old cold calling and just getting in front of decision makers with your

00:14:18 Dan Shea: product innovation. And that's the way you start. But I think that, you know, in this day and age,

00:14:25 Dan Shea: to actually get the reach you want, it costs money. So I think, I remember back to MBA school,

00:14:31 Dan Shea: actually BBA school, when the professor said, you can go broke by growing. I'm like,

00:14:36 Dan Shea: what do you mean? You're growing. Well, you know, it costs money to kind of get the word out there

00:14:41 Dan Shea: through marketing and building proud of prototypes and all of that stuff. So I think that that should be a

00:14:46 Dan Shea: part of the puzzle, too. How do you finance your innovation?

00:14:48 Dan Shea: So that could be a topic for another day, but I really think that that's an important element

00:14:53 Dan Shea: because there are many great ideas out there. You just want to make sure the market knows about.

00:14:58 Kevin Mako: Absolutely. Getting to market is key. And the nice thing about today is that you have a global

00:15:02 Kevin Mako: market. So especially if you have a hyper-specific niche product, it's really never been easier than now

00:15:09 Kevin Mako: to get a very, very specific product out to that market. And if you've done a really good job with

00:15:14 Kevin Mako: product, as you said, build a great product, then word will spread easier. And you look for those.

00:15:18 Kevin Mako: modest methods forward to spread. So how can you stretch the marketing dollar further to allow your

00:15:25 Kevin Mako: customers to start being brand advocates for you and get your product to more eyeballs that is very

00:15:30 Kevin Mako: specific to a certain pain point or opportunity that you've created with product? Most little companies

00:15:35 Dan Shea: are global companies in the hardware products space. Yep, absolutely. The need is not germane

00:15:41 Dan Shea: to just one geography. It's a big world out there. Now, the last company I sold was last month,

00:15:46 Dan Shea: then they had operations in Hong Kong, the Netherlands, in the U.S. And they sold their products

00:15:52 Dan Shea: globally. They're an engineered component company in the flow meter space. And it's a big market out there

00:15:58 Kevin Mako: and you might as well attack it. Well, that's the blue ocean, right? So get out there, go to that blue ocean,

00:16:04 Kevin Mako: which is the relatively untapped market because you're creating an innovation. You're somewhat

00:16:08 Kevin Mako: creating an industry or vertical. Even if it's an existing market, you have a new version or a new

00:16:14 Kevin Mako: solution to that market. And therefore, that is the blue ocean theory, right? And continuing to

00:16:19 Kevin Mako: innovate is a big part of that theory. So don't just plant your stake in the ground. Plant the

00:16:23 Kevin Mako: stake in the ground to grow. Do something great with it. Dan, before I let you go, I just want to talk a bit

00:16:27 Kevin Mako: about what you do for helping these companies as they get to that size. How do you help them actually

00:16:34 Kevin Mako: go through that exit processes? They've made the decision at least to start looking into the potential

00:16:38 Kevin Mako: of selling the equity that they have built over these years. Boy, it's a very involved

00:16:43 Dan Shea: process. And, you know, rare is the case that we're introduced to a company when all the ducks are

00:16:49 Dan Shea: lined up and it's time to just hit go and start a sale process. So we find ourselves investing a lot

00:16:55 Dan Shea: of time, sharing a lot of time, helping businesses think about the things we're talking about today.

00:17:01 Dan Shea: Maybe they're further on, but some of the issues are very evident in diversification of customers.

00:17:07 Dan Shea: The diversification of product. If you have a product that's bound to launch, it doesn't make sense to wait until

00:17:12 Dan Shea: gets traction so you can get paid for that product. There's a lot of stuff that goes on. And then there's

00:17:17 Dan Shea: stuff unrelated to products. It's really more, do you have your corporate books and records in order?

00:17:23 Dan Shea: Do you have your accounting? Do you have your legal structure all sewn up? Do you have your people

00:17:28 Dan Shea: in the right seats on the bus? A lot of that stuff. So that happens before the transaction. And we just

00:17:35 Dan Shea: consult people on that. We don't ask for any money. You just try to help them get ready. When it's time to actually

00:17:41 Dan Shea: sell, we make a market for the business. That's our job. And this is a very specialized

00:17:47 Dan Shea: process because it's done in a confidential and quick manner. It's not like selling your shares in

00:17:53 Dan Shea: Apple or Microsoft. You can't call up your broker and sell them. You have to make a market. So we work

00:18:00 Dan Shea: to prepare offering materials that describe the business and enough specificity that a buyer can

00:18:07 Dan Shea: start to assign a price to it without even visiting the facility.

00:18:11 Dan Shea: or talking to the owners. We spent a lot of time working to identify who we think the likely

00:18:18 Dan Shea: buyers will be on a global basis. Like we talked a few minutes again, most businesses, even little

00:18:24 Dan Shea: businesses have some global element to them. And oftentimes that translates into buyers that might be

00:18:30 Dan Shea: overseas that would be interested in a U.S. business or vice versa. So we spent a lot of time doing

00:18:36 Dan Shea: that. And then once we're ready to go, you've got your offering materials together. You've got your

00:18:40 Dan Shea: buyers list together, we reach out to those buyers in a confidential way, get them to sign

00:18:46 Dan Shea: NDA, share the materials, and then create an auction environment. And that is a really tricky thing.

00:18:52 Dan Shea: As you think about it, all your listeners are thinking, boy, my business is complicated. We might get an

00:18:56 Dan Shea: offer, but they're not going to close until they understand our business in its entirety.

00:19:00 Kevin Mako: Well,

00:19:01 Dan Shea: very true. It's called due diligence. So we facilitate that due diligence, educating a group of buyers to the point

00:19:08 Dan Shea: where they get to the end where they're like, yeah, we know enough that you can rely on our

00:19:13 Dan Shea: purchase price, and here it is. And then we help our buyer, our client pick the buyer that not only

00:19:18 Dan Shea: presents the best economics, but other things that are important to entrepreneurs. Fit, legacy,

00:19:25 Dan Shea: what's going to happen with the people. Do I as the entrepreneur stay on or do I leave? Can I keep

00:19:30 Dan Shea: some money in the business to enjoy the proverbial second bite at the apple when some big private

00:19:37 Dan Shea: equity firm buys it and you know they're going to triple the value of the equity in a short

00:19:41 Dan Shea: period of time. Why wouldn't I want to participate in that? I can help in that as the selling

00:19:46 Dan Shea: entrepreneur. So we create this confidential market and it takes six, seven months to fully execute

00:19:52 Dan Shea: from start to cash in the bank. And we work with, you know, the other advisors to the company,

00:20:01 Dan Shea: the accountants, the lawyers, the insurance providers, and all banner of consultant that may be

00:20:07 Dan Shea: necessary at and around a transaction. And what's the name and the website of that just for the

00:20:11 Dan Shea: listeners? Oh, well, my partners are going to be mad at me. I haven't even mentioned that.

00:20:15 Dan Shea: Our firm is objective capital partners. We're based in California. And our website is objective

00:20:23 Dan Shea: IBV, investment banking and valuation, ibv.com, objective ibv.com. And we've been in business

00:20:31 Dan Shea: for 17 years. And almost all that we do is sell companies for entrepreneurs like you're

00:20:36 Dan Shea: listeners are like they're going to be as they develop their business to the point where it's

00:20:41 Dan Shea: time to think about, if not just a financial exit and an entire exit. Can I say one more thing?

00:20:47 Dan Shea: Yeah, go for it.

00:20:48 Dan Shea: Faster than your entrepreneurs think. The average age of our client is shifting younger and younger.

00:20:54 Dan Shea: It's really surprising to me, but, you know, they can build incredible value early on and then they

00:21:00 Dan Shea: become serial entrepreneurs. They do a deal and then they build another business and then another. And

00:21:06 Dan Shea: And so it's an exciting time to be in the entrepreneurial orbit here in the United States.

00:21:12 Kevin Mako: Yeah, definitely an exciting time. Dan, thanks again for your words of wisdom. And as always,

00:21:15 Kevin Mako: I'll put the links below to anyone else to click through. They can click on the web links there.

00:21:20 Kevin Mako: Dan, appreciate you being on the show. Look forward to talking to you again soon.

00:21:23 Kevin Mako: Thank you, sir. Thanks, Dan. Take care.

00:21:25 Kevin Mako: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast.

00:21:29 Kevin Mako: If you found some value in the show, please do us a huge favor and hit the like button and subscribe.

00:21:34 Kevin Mako: If you have any questions,

00:21:36 Kevin Mako: guest suggestions or anything else, feel free to reach out to us anytime at our email,

00:21:41 Kevin Mako: podcast at MakoDesign.com. This show is hosted by Kevin Mako, North America's leading expert on product

00:21:48 Kevin Mako: development for hardware startups. And the podcast is produced by Mako Design, the original firm

00:21:53 Kevin Mako: providing end-to-end consumer product development services tailored specifically to hardware startups,

00:21:59 Kevin Mako: small manufacturers, and inventors. Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. That's

00:22:06 Kevin Mako: m-a-o-design.com.

00:22:08 Kevin Mako: Thanks for joining and see you again soon.