Product Startup Podcast Episode 108: Hardware Lessons From Apple and Intel

00:00:00 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn from a past design lead at Apple and current head of innovation at Intel on how hardware startup should plan for product business success.

00:00:12 Narrator: You're listening to the Product Startup Podcast, the show that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors,

00:00:21 Narrator: product developers, and hardware industry professionals. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial

00:00:29 Narrator: idea to getting your product on store shelves. taken you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business.

00:00:39 Narrator: Hosted by Kevin Mako, one of North America's leading experts on hardware development for small

00:00:44 Kevin Mako: product businesses. Now, onto the show. Welcome back, everyone. Today, I'm very excited to introduce Kapil Kane to the show.

00:00:52 Kevin Mako: Capil is the director of innovation at Intel and founded Intel's internal hardware invention incubator. Prior to that, he was the product design lead and manager at Apple.

00:01:00 Kevin Mako: He's also a fellow keynote speaker. He's on two TEDx talks.

00:01:06 Kevin Mako: Today, Capil is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can learn from how the biggest hardware companies in the world

00:01:13 Kevin Mako: prioritize and qualify new invention ideas. He's even going to walk through the step-by-step pillars that Intel Incubator Innovations go through

00:01:21 Kevin Mako: to prepare their idea for market success. Now on the episode.

00:01:26 Kevin Mako: Hey, Kapil, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks. Nice to be here. Well, we're excited to have you on today to talk about both your experience.

00:01:32 Kevin Mako: being in the product development sphere in Apple, and then as well now with Intel in their

00:01:38 Kevin Mako: hardware development for your internal startups, creating new and innovative products with Intel core technology. So it's an incredible experience that you've got working for both

00:01:46 Kevin Mako: those companies, totally different types of design in each. But fantastic experience to relay to our emerging startups who are looking to develop their products from the

00:01:55 Kevin Mako: idea through to production and then scaling it from there. First and foremost, you've done two TEDx talks. So those are very difficult. So kudos to you for those. Thanks, man.

00:02:05 Kevin Mako: Yeah, I know they've got like such a serious structure. It's like months to prepare and you've got to, you know, do it right.

00:02:10 Kapil Kane: Otherwise it doesn't make the cut and all this sort of stuff, right? Yeah, the Terek Shanghai, you know, it used to be run by, there used to be Tarek Shanghai women.

00:02:19 Kapil Kane: So it's like all women's team and they were like very serious. They had coaches. They have speech coach. We had lots of dry runs.

00:02:26 Kapil Kane: We had, I think, check-ins every two weeks for a period of three months. And so they really got us prepared very, very well.

00:02:35 Kapil Kane: But, you know, at that time, I was almost like thinking whether, you know, I should like drop out.

00:02:40 Kevin Mako: It's like too much time commitment. But I think it helped me in the long run. Yeah, that's amazing. Well, congrats for pulling that off. That's quite cool.

00:02:48 Kevin Mako: Can you give us your background before that? I gave a bit of a brief one earlier.

00:02:51 Kapil Kane: How did you get started in this world? And how did you end up at such an amazing position that you're in today? I grew up in India in a very small province called Goa.

00:03:00 Kapil Kane: It's like a beach town, very laid back. I happen to do my undergrad in engineering in India itself.

00:03:08 Kapil Kane: And I always like to design cars.

00:03:11 Kapil Kane: And I've got a job in Detroit. I worked at Johnson Controls doing interior designs, like seating systems and dashboards and stuff like that.

00:03:20 Kapil Kane: And in a couple of years, I found that to be a bit slow, that whole industry, automotive industry. And I got into a master's and PhD program at Stanford.

00:03:30 Kapil Kane: in design. So I quit that job and came to the West Coast. I did two internships at Apple during the summers.

00:03:39 Kapil Kane: And on my third, actually my second internship, we were working on this really amazing technology, which was the very first multi-task

00:03:47 Kapil Kane: screen. And it was so exciting that I dropped out of my PhD program and, you know, carried on working at Apple. Sadly, you know, we had to kill that product in a couple of years.

00:03:57 Kapil Kane: But that turned into iPhone. And

00:04:00 Kapil Kane: I moved on to various things, including, you know, designing the very, well,

00:04:05 Kapil Kane: smallest MP3 player, the iPod shuffle, and then soon moved to China to help design the MacBook Airs because, you know, we were

00:04:15 Kapil Kane: designing the product as well as the manufacturing process at the same time. If you guys remember, MacBook Air was, you know, carved out of blocks of aluminum.

00:04:23 Kapil Kane: It was completely new manufacturing technique for us. And we thought it's better to have some designers in China

00:04:32 Kapil Kane: making real-time decisions on design by looking at the capabilities of the manufacturing. So I volunteered to move there and I have been in China ever since.

00:04:42 Kapil Kane: And about nine, 10 years ago, I left Apple

00:04:46 Kapil Kane: to join Intel to design tablets.

00:04:52 Kapil Kane: after doing the iPad, you know, everyone wanted to make tablets and Intel also wanted to make

00:04:58 Kapil Kane: tablets. So I came in there to have a bigger responsibility because at Apple, I was more mechanical product design.

00:05:06 Kapil Kane: And at Intel, I could do like mechanical, electrical, software,

00:05:12 Kapil Kane: services, everything. So, and then about five years ago, I co-founded this

00:05:16 Kevin Mako: internal accelerator called Growth Acts, where we help our employees realize their ideas and find ways to turn them

00:05:26 Kevin Mako: into actual products and businesses.

00:05:29 Kapil Kane: Yeah, so that's my story.

00:05:32 Kapil Kane: That's amazing. So what are the differences that you see from designing great products that everybody knows today for Apple and the way

00:05:39 Kapil Kane: that you're designing internal innovations for Intel today? I think in a way, I would say it was

00:05:45 Kapil Kane: easier to design stuff at Apple because, let's say, John, Johnny and his team would come up with this industrial design, right, ID.

00:05:54 Kapil Kane: And we were, it was like, we had to figure out how to turn that into actual, like, you know, design product. And Sky was the limit.

00:06:04 Kapil Kane: So you could use any manufacturing processes. You could, you could come up with the very crazy designs.

00:06:09 Kapil Kane: So it was, you know, it was like, you know, it was the, and we never ever thought of like bomb cost.

00:06:17 Kapil Kane: You know, we never thought of that as engineers or as product designers. We simply figured out how to realize this idea.

00:06:26 Kapil Kane: And of course, there's always back and forth.

00:06:30 Kapil Kane: But those conversations, let's say with Johnny, right, you cannot just say, oh, I cannot do it because in the past I had done it, I don't think it's going to work.

00:06:38 Kapil Kane: You had to always, to say like a negative thing, you had to design multiple ways and show why it wouldn't work.

00:06:45 Kapil Kane: I have tried it now. These are the results. What do you think? You couldn't just say, oh, it's not going to work. So if you say that, it's a sure shot way to get your ass fired.

00:06:56 Kapil Kane: So not by Johnny, because Johnny was a super nice guy. He would, you know, he was very soft spoken.

00:07:03 Kapil Kane: But the guys, you know, if you could never get into this,

00:07:08 Kapil Kane: you should never be recognized as a guy who is not ready to, you know, jump when, you know, a chat. challenges in front of you, right?

00:07:18 Kapil Kane: So in a way, we could, all of our role was to figure out technically how to make something

00:07:25 Kapil Kane: possible, either through design, either through manufacturing, through assembly.

00:07:30 Kapil Kane: But in my current role at Intel, what we do is we build very basic technologies like

00:07:36 Kapil Kane: chips, AI algorithms, different kinds of chips, CPUs, GPUs, like, you know, CPUs, like,

00:07:47 Kapil Kane: FPGAs, neural computing. So these are very fundamental technologies, and there are infinite applications of these.

00:07:55 Kapil Kane: So, and there are business units where planning from top down, you know, when they say,

00:08:02 Kapil Kane: I'm going to build this chip, and our products need huge investment. Each fab cost $10 billion, right?

00:08:10 Kapil Kane: So we have a lot of things, you know, we have to plan way ahead, like,

00:08:16 Kapil Kane: imagine what where our chips and technologies are going to be used, like two, three years down the line.

00:08:24 Kapil Kane: And so what we are trying to do here is that we're looking at our core technologies like these chips and trying to figure out what could be in organic areas

00:08:34 Kapil Kane: of growth for Intel using our current, let's say, core technologies and do a little bit of work on top to

00:08:43 Kapil Kane: open up completely, you know, like new markets. For example, if we use like an ASIC in network

00:08:50 Kapil Kane: processing, can we repurpose that for, let's say, genome sequencing? And what could be the pain point it could solve? So it's a lot of experimentation.

00:08:59 Kapil Kane: And so here you're looking at more uncertainties in business because technology, we are more confident. But it's the business side.

00:09:09 Kapil Kane: Where should be the investment? What should be the market system? And we should go to what could be the product? who could make the best benefit.

00:09:15 Kapil Kane: So it requires a different way of, you know, your development.

00:09:21 Kapil Kane: And here we are mostly developing business, whereas at Apple, we're doing pure product development, you know, starting with, you know, your proto bills, then design verification,

00:09:30 Kapil Kane: engineering verification, production verification. And that part was like, you know, just like a clear process.

00:09:36 Kapil Kane: But it was very, very innovative ways to solve technical challenges. And in my current role, it's all about business uncertainties and how

00:09:45 Kapil Kane: do you look at your

00:09:47 Kevin Mako: business model, look at, you know, your key assumptions.

00:09:53 Kevin Mako: And from that, look at what are your, the most critical assumptions, which, if proven wrong, your whole business falls apart.

00:10:02 Kevin Mako: And how do you create tests to validate those businesses? So even before you start prototyping, you can run test.

00:10:11 Kevin Mako: really figure out if you're on the right track and then iterate based on your market feedback. So it's like a completely two different worlds.

00:10:19 Kevin Mako: Both are exciting and challenging, but just requires different skills. It sounds like your current role is very akin to what a lot of

00:10:27 Kevin Mako: hardware startups and even small established hardware manufacturers doing as they develop their

00:10:32 Kevin Mako: new product as they're thinking about their product because really any inventor or any business that's creating their next version of a product or whatever else is thinking about

00:10:41 Kevin Mako: How does it succeed in the market? How do I make money off this? Where is the market and can I fill it and does my design match it? And let's get into talking about that.

00:10:50 Kevin Mako: But before we get into kind of the tips and trips that you're seeing on the innovation side and how to apply that to understand the business of the product,

00:10:57 Kevin Mako: to make sure the product actually succeeds, I just want to talk a little bit about some of the value ad that you saw designing for Apple because one of the things I heard you say,

00:11:06 Kevin Mako: which I think is incredibly valuable for any design team or engineers out there is looking at finding a solution, not finding a problem.

00:11:15 Kevin Mako: And you really highlighted that, and I've heard this before from a number of different team members at Apple, that you weren't allowed to say no.

00:11:24 Kapil Kane: You could say no so long as you backed it up with how you think it could be solved and a solution. And that solution

00:11:31 Kapil Kane: oriented thinking can be very powerful, especially when you're in mechanical engineering, but really

00:11:35 Kapil Kane: at all levels of design, industrial design, mechanical engineering, electronic engineering,

00:11:40 Kapil Kane: prototyping, production, a lot of the time, it's easier for an engineer or designer or developer

00:11:46 Kapil Kane: to just say it can't be done, as opposed to saying, well, it can't be done and here's why, and here's how we think we can solve that problem.

00:11:53 Kapil Kane: And it really sounds like I've heard this many times over that that was a big part of the culture at Apple and probably a reason that

00:11:59 Kapil Kane: a lot of these things that people say couldn't be done ended up being done and ended up being very successful products for Apple. Exactly. You know, but you know, I think

00:12:09 Kapil Kane: I think that you need to have really good vision and conviction in the product you're building.

00:12:16 Kapil Kane: And you need to really believe in that why you're building this, right?

00:12:22 Kapil Kane: And you need like a visionary leader like Steve Jobs and you need like, you know, guy like Johnny to to envision those products.

00:12:32 Kapil Kane: And then it becomes easier for, you know, actually, it was like a cult, right? at Apple. Now it's a huge company.

00:12:39 Kapil Kane: When I was there, it was like only 2,000 people. And Steve is our leader. Whatever he says is true. And we would all march, right? So I think that's

00:12:49 Kapil Kane: a reason we could. And also another thing was that, you know, now there is like so much

00:12:56 Kapil Kane: competition in the market. There's so much democratization of everything. You know, so everything.

00:13:01 Kapil Kane: So I think there are, so I think in this day and age, you need to, I think, be a little

00:13:07 Kapil Kane: more, like an iterative, be a little more when you're designing things, especially if you're

00:13:15 Kapil Kane: creating like a new devices, right?

00:13:19 Kapil Kane: Look at how many like completely new, I think, computing,

00:13:26 Kapil Kane: let's say devices or solutions that have gone very big, right? Because let's say at the time, like what was Apple doing?

00:13:34 Kapil Kane: Laptops, desktops. Then came iPod. then can iPhone, iPad.

00:13:41 Kapil Kane: And since then, there has been Apple Watch. And maybe the home part or something. But there's nothing new then since then, since I left Apple, let's say 10 years ago.

00:13:51 Kapil Kane: So what it says is that there is a explosion of technologies in the technology sphere, right?

00:14:00 Kapil Kane: Like people talk about AR, VR, VR,

00:14:04 Kapil Kane: autonomous driving, this and that. But these are all like, you know,

00:14:08 Kapil Kane: buzzwords. But why have you not seen all these things from Apple is because, you know, just having

00:14:16 Kapil Kane: technology doesn't actually make for a great product.

00:14:21 Kapil Kane: To have a great product, you need, you know, three things. You know, you of course need like solid technology. You need the right user experience

00:14:29 Kapil Kane: that solves a real problem for the user. And finally, you could make a business out of it. And so

00:14:35 Kapil Kane: a lot of these things are just promises, you know, like even if you look at the AR, like, you know,

00:14:44 Kevin Mako: headsets, VR headsets, they're not like flown off the shelves.

00:14:49 Kevin Mako: So, you know, I think we still need to find out what those killer applications are.

00:14:55 Kevin Mako: And when the time will come, it will come, you know.

00:14:58 Kevin Mako: So I think we still need, I think, that's why I think now you need to do more iterative design.

00:15:05 Kevin Mako: because when I, you know, I was advising a startup which is doing augmented reality glasses.

00:15:12 Kevin Mako: And at this point, like, you know, trying to go too much into detail of the design. And I was trying to tell them, just go out, test the market. It doesn't have to be perfect.

00:15:21 Kevin Mako: Don't try to, you know, figure all small details out. The key is go fast, learn, and iterate, right?

00:15:28 Kevin Mako: So I think that's, I would say, you know, is, you know, difference now. And I'm pretty sure Apple is iterating like crazy.

00:15:35 Kevin Mako: You know, just look at the project Apollo, the autonomous driving car. It's been on and off, on and off that talks about AR on and off. It's not easy, you know, yeah.

00:15:45 Kevin Mako: Yeah, I love the fact that you mentioned the iterative design. It's something I'm very passionate about and something that's really important to startups.

00:15:51 Kevin Mako: One of the things that we say, and you kind of mention it there, a design model we have at our design for Mako Design is brilliantly simple design.

00:15:59 Kevin Mako: And that is very important for a, especially a startup for their first product. to not go too feature crazy, to not go too deep into the details, or try and push the boundaries

00:16:08 Kevin Mako: of all these technologies too far, stick to your core one or two amazing features that you've done and do those really well and plan to iterate down the road.

00:16:18 Kevin Mako: You're going to go to market with that. That's going to be your launch product. Make sure it's, of course, of a good quality. That's why,

00:16:24 Kevin Mako: as well, you want to shrink the amount of features. So you can spend more money ensuring that the quality of the features that you are putting to market are top notch.

00:16:30 Kevin Mako: And then be expected to get feedback from your customers and your prospective customers. Your customers that bought it are going to

00:16:36 Kevin Mako: tell you things about it that you didn't really think about or didn't understand fully. And then the

00:16:41 Kevin Mako: customers who didn't buy, those are your prospective customers, are also going to tell you some

00:16:44 Kevin Mako: things. And that is where your opportunity is going to come to think about iterating. And Apple's doing it. Every year they come out with a new iPhone.

00:16:53 Kevin Mako: If the biggest product company in the world with the biggest budgets is iterating, then a hardware startup should think about iteration too, knowing that

00:17:01 Kevin Mako: you can't perfect it on your first version, but you want to come out with a great quality product because hardware you can't do a bug fix for.

00:17:08 Kevin Mako: There's no patch for hardware. So you really want to make sure your reviews are solid on your first launch. So keep it simple.

00:17:15 Kevin Mako: And the other thing that I wanted to highlight that you mentioned that I think is very powerful to any product startup. It's a little on the fluffier side.

00:17:20 Kevin Mako: But we've seen it work time and time again. It's the owners or the inventor's passion for their product.

00:17:26 Kevin Mako: And you mentioned that in Steve Jobs, Johnny Ives, folks that you worked for, you saw how dedicated they were, how much they believed in the product that they're building.

00:17:36 Kevin Mako: If you're a small inventor, you can have the exact same passion that they did.

00:17:40 Kevin Mako: You can have the belief in your product. And most, from what I see, especially at our design, when you finally come up with that

00:17:46 Kevin Mako: brilliant idea, you know, that once in a lifetime light bulb that goes off and you've actually

00:17:53 Kevin Mako: seen something that can solve a real pain point in some piece of the world and some part

00:17:58 Kapil Kane: of humanity, you generally become very passionate about it. it fairly quickly. But that passion is what really pushes it forward. And that's what gets you over those hurdles.

00:18:07 Kapil Kane: And I think that's a lot of what drove that culture at Apple to overcome obstacles as opposed to dwell on them because everybody was following the shining

00:18:14 Kapil Kane: star that they all believed in unanimously as a team together. Now, let's carry this forward. I think it's a good segue into what you're doing now, working kind of

00:18:24 Kapil Kane: on the opposite side where you're taking technologies and figuring out how to innovate. And that's very akin to what people are doing with their invention ideas.

00:18:32 Kapil Kane: They've come up with some idea. Now they're trying to figure out how to actually execute on that, to create value to make a product. What is the

00:18:38 Kapil Kane: process? And you kind of highlighted it at a high level. Let's go into the details of the process that you're using at Intel through your accelerator to vet the

00:18:47 Kapil Kane: quality, not only of the product, but of the market success of that product, because you're doing both things at the same time,

00:18:53 Kapil Kane: which is absolutely what every inventor should be thinking about on their product, too. It's not just about the idea that you've come up with. The passion also needs to be in.

00:19:00 Kapil Kane: How are you going to create a business or how are you going to monetize that? Or how is an eventual acquire of your product going to monetize your product down the road?

00:19:08 Kapil Kane: Because that's for the values. Yeah. So what we do, you know, we run like a startup accelerator, like, you know, like let's say

00:19:16 Kapil Kane: Y Combinator or, you know, like, you know, 500 startups.

00:19:20 Kapil Kane: And so we build, we, we do two cohorts in a year. And each cohort will have like, you know, five to six projects.

00:19:28 Kapil Kane: And to get into this cohort, we have like a shark tank kind of a thing, you know, where the internal

00:19:38 Kapil Kane: teams, employees would come with ideas. And in some cases, even external startups, if they have a very aligned kind of a strategy or a vision.

00:19:51 Kapil Kane: And so in that, we also have a boot camp, actually, before the team pitched the idea

00:19:58 Kapil Kane: at the selection day where we work on their, we work to turn their business case into a very crisp, you know, five minute pitch.

00:20:07 Kapil Kane: And so they were like, you know, 10 to 20 teams will come and pitch in front of a jury and we'll pick five. And then they get into our accelerator,

00:20:15 Kapil Kane: which is a four-month program.

00:20:18 Kapil Kane: And we have eight sprints. And these are, we call them business prints. And the very first sprint will start with a business model canvas. So every project,

00:20:28 Kapil Kane: has to put their idea in a very, you know, typical like strategizers,

00:20:34 Kapil Kane: a business model canvas where you know, where you look at, you know, what are your value proposition, what is your customer segment,

00:20:41 Kapil Kane: what is the value proposition for each of their segment,

00:20:44 Kapil Kane: then, you know, what are your cost structures, you know, what are your, what are your channels, all this stuff, you know?

00:20:51 Kapil Kane: And we look at that business model canvas every week. And maybe the second sprint is looking at your biggest biggest, assumptions on that canvas.

00:21:00 Kapil Kane: If they were false, your business falls apart. Then we design a plan called validation plan where we figure out how we are going to verify, validate or invalidate

00:21:10 Kapil Kane: those assumptions. And then we do something called a market research hackathon where we kick the guys out of the building.

00:21:20 Kapil Kane: We say get out of the building and go talk to the customers, come back with the real life data and so on, you know, and

00:21:27 Kevin Mako: we do financial modeling, a business case, and finally your business pitch, which we then bring back to

00:21:36 Kevin Mako: the management of China to see, to ask for bigger round of funding. So it's like getting a VC funding, like, you know,

00:21:44 Kevin Mako: and during our accelerator, we also give them seed money, you know, just like how Y Combinator would give 50K, 100K, and then they go and raise like millions.

00:21:53 Kevin Mako: million, $2 million, $5 million to go big with the idea. Once they have validated the business case and can show it, right?

00:22:03 Kevin Mako: And we run this outside of Intel, actually, by design, because we want these guys to feel like they are entrepreneurs.

00:22:13 Kevin Mako: We call them CEOs, CMOs, and we

00:22:19 Kapil Kane: have the mentor network. And we also have this very cool thing called experts, in residence, which are who are entrepreneurs who build businesses, who will

00:22:28 Kapil Kane: every week spend one hour one-on-one with each team to challenge what they're doing and to point them in the right direction. So that's the process we follow.

00:22:38 Kapil Kane: And at the end of this four months, maybe out of like, you know, in a year out of 10, maybe we get two or three that go on to actually

00:22:48 Kapil Kane: go and create an adjacent product for us, which, you know, it drives like millions of dollars of revenues. Yeah. That's a really

00:22:56 Kapil Kane: amazing program to have internally within Intel. Very cool. Let's talk about those who who essentially win the prize, those who get the funding to go on.

00:23:06 Kapil Kane: What differentiated those folks from the ones that didn't? What really makes the winners win in terms of, because this is

00:23:12 Kapil Kane: a very in-depth model that you look at, very professionally done and laid out. I think a lot of

00:23:17 Kapil Kane: hardware startups listening can think about this and apply it to their own inventions. their own ideas as to, you know, how do you, how would you pitch

00:23:25 Kapil Kane: if you were to get five minutes as a hardware startup or even as a, if you're an established company listening and you're developing

00:23:31 Kapil Kane: your next product, how would you be pitching this and winning on all of the pillars that Capil would be looking for on those, on all of those

00:23:40 Kapil Kane: eight sprints that you, that you do in the boot camp. So what are the things that lead to the winners?

00:23:46 Kapil Kane: So, yeah. So I think, well, you know, definitely your, that five minute. business pitch, right? In that, you need to show what is the pain point you're trying to

00:23:55 Kapil Kane: solve or what's the opportunity?

00:23:57 Kapil Kane: How big is the opportunity?

00:23:59 Kapil Kane: Why you? Why are you the one to, you know, do this? Why is this the time?

00:24:06 Kapil Kane: Okay. So if you're able to do, and what is in it for Intel, for example, or for example, if it's an investor, what is in it for investor? That means

00:24:13 Kapil Kane: what is the return or how faster business is going.

00:24:17 Kapil Kane: So that's one thing. So in that, in all of that, what we see is how first of all what has the team done so far are they just talking or actually

00:24:26 Kapil Kane: they have built something right so that's something uh this is the second thing even better is

00:24:32 Kapil Kane: you you're not just talking you build something and you also understand the market well like

00:24:38 Kapil Kane: how big this market could be who has the pain point uh and even

00:24:42 Kevin Mako: better is that you have maybe done some pilot with a potential customer or actually you got this

00:24:50 Kevin Mako: request from from the from the field or from the market to to build this product right so it shows

00:24:56 Kevin Mako: that need it shows you are passionate and one of the things because it's an accelerator we also see whether these guys are coachable or not because a lot of times we have brilliant

00:25:06 Kevin Mako: techies come in very senior but they're just not coachable so it doesn't end well for either us or the other guys so

00:25:15 Kevin Mako: they sometimes some people they just want some money to build the product and that's where they focus and in

00:25:23 Kevin Mako: our accelerator we don't talk about anything about technology technical we simply focus on the business and we believe in whatever they say about

00:25:33 Kevin Mako: the product they're building or whatever development they're doing yeah so so that's it you know

00:25:40 Kevin Mako: like you know one of the the challenges is I mean talk is cheap ideas a dime a dozen it's what you do with it if you show people what you're done what you're trying

00:25:49 Kevin Mako: even if it fail, I think that's what shows your passion, right? So in the end, your solution might be temporary,

00:25:56 Kevin Mako: but the passion you have to solve that problem,

00:26:00 Kapil Kane: you know, if that is long, then you can back that entrepreneur because he'll find ways to solve the problem.

00:26:09 Kapil Kane: There are guys who come in because they are in love with their solution. Even they don't find a problem to fix with their solution.

00:26:16 Kapil Kane: They still, you know, keep trying to move their solution. forward. And those are the kind of things we try to avoid.

00:26:24 Kapil Kane: Kapil, that's very powerful information. I think anybody listening to this should really think about that in terms of their own product and their own product business and

00:26:33 Kapil Kane: utilize the tips that you've said today to try and make the best pitch forward if or when you're pitching

00:26:38 Kapil Kane: for investors, whether it's in the early stages as you've got just a prototype or you're going

00:26:43 Kapil Kane: to, yeah, your first to market with crowdfunding or whether you're scaling it and trying to get investment for growth, all these investors look for those very things.

00:26:51 Kapil Kane: Coachability is one of the big ones that we hear about a lot and is one of the quick fail points to somebody with a phenomenal business plan, a phenomenal product, but they fail

00:26:59 Kapil Kane: on getting the investing because they were deemed as uncoachable. And that's something really you have to self-reflect on and think honestly with yourself

00:27:09 Kapil Kane: and get real feedback and listen to that feedback. More important than anything else is, do you have the ability to work with some of these seasoned

00:27:17 Kapil Kane: Because generally when you're pitching, you're pitching to somebody who's been there, done that.

00:27:21 Kapil Kane: And they want to know that you have the ability to understand and learn the best from them to apply to your business model.

00:27:30 Kapil Kane: And that's so powerful when it comes to any investment level, whether it's your first angel round at 50 grand or whether it's a series A at multi-millions.

00:27:38 Kapil Kane: It's important to remember that coachability element. Kapila, look, thanks so much for all your tips today. I appreciate you joining us on the show.

00:27:45 Kapil Kane: and we'll look forward to talking soon. Absolutely, you're welcome. It was nice to talk with you and share this with your listeners. Appreciate it.

00:27:55 Kapil Kane: Take care of you too.

00:27:56 Narrator: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market

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00:28:37 Narrator: Thanks for listening and see you next time.