Product Startup Podcast Episode 145: Expand a Hardware Product Line

00:00:00 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn from past hardware lead at Apple, Ford, and Adidas on how to innovate beyond your first hardware product launch.

00:00:11 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, manufacturers, 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. We're taking you step by step to build a functional product and scale your product business.

00:00:38 Narrator: Hosted by Kevin Mako, one of North America's leading experts on hardware development for small product businesses. Now, on to the show.

00:00:48 Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm very excited to introduce Hussain Almossawi to the show.

00:00:52 Kevin Mako: Hussein has worked as a senior hardware director or designer at Ford, Adidas, and Apple for many of their hardware brands.

00:00:58 Kevin Mako: He is also the author of The Innovators Handbook and his founder, the Creative Agency Masawi Studios.

00:01:04 Kevin Mako: Today, Hussein is going to share some valuable knowledge in how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can develop new hardware products beyond their first

00:01:11 Kevin Mako: innovation. How to scale your brand beyond being a one-hit wonder and how to best figure out what your next hardware innovation should be. Now, on to the episode.

00:01:19 Kevin Mako: I'm saying, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Well, we're excited to talk to you today because you've got a ton of experience both in major Fortune

00:01:27 Kevin Mako: 500 hardware companies and expanding their brand lines, but also working with hardware, startups, as well. Today's topic is about how do you expand beyond your first

00:01:36 Kevin Mako: hardware product? So you've come up with that great invention and you're either planning what you're going to do after that

00:01:41 Kevin Mako: first invention or maybe you've already launched and are now looking how to expand the brand, growing beyond just a one skew physical product to a whole brand

00:01:50 Kevin Mako: line success story to really create an empire around starting with your first invention, but scaling past there. So we're talking

00:01:56 Kevin Mako: today about scaling and expanding the line with you based on your experience in that. And first and I want to congratulate you.

00:02:01 Hussain Almossawi: You just released your book on innovation just a month ago. Thank you. That's right. Yep. The Innovators Handbook came out a month ago.

00:02:08 Hussain Almossawi: And it's basically my perspective and experiences that I got working with these big brands and how they approached innovation.

00:02:15 Kevin Mako: So in very simple steps, something that's not too overwhelming on the reader. That's amazing. And you've worked for a lot of major companies.

00:02:21 Hussain Almossawi: You've worked for a lot of these big Fortune 500 powerhouses.

00:02:24 Hussain Almossawi: I was fortunate enough to work with Apple, to work with Nike, Adidas, through my

00:02:30 Hussain Almossawi: my own studio agency, work with brands like Pepsi, Versace, Reebok.

00:02:36 Hussain Almossawi: So it's been a good experience to tap into different industries and also always be surrounded

00:02:41 Kevin Mako: by these innovative companies and innovative minds. That's amazing. So quite a track record and I know you've spent quite a few years working with these major

00:02:49 Kevin Mako: brands and then obviously working with them on a client relationship as well and also working with some hardware startups and some emerging brands as well, which makes you

00:02:56 Kevin Mako: are the perfect guest to talk about scaling beyond your first invention. So let's just break it down to look at the options to begin with.

00:03:05 Kevin Mako: So if we look at you've got your first invention idea out there, you've started, essentially you've started your brand.

00:03:11 Kevin Mako: What are the options to scale beyond your first product as

00:03:15 Hussain Almossawi: a new hardware brand? So yeah, I've worked a lot with the startups and brands that aren't multi-million, multi-billion dollar companies.

00:03:23 Hussain Almossawi: And the difference is that when you have an idea, like I've seen this a lot, some brands and

00:03:28 Hussain Almossawi: companies have some amazing ideas, amazing innovation, and they bring it to market, and then they kind of get stuck off, okay, what's next now? We had this cool idea.

00:03:36 Hussain Almossawi: Sometimes I've seen where brands take this idea for year after year after the year and they try to promote in different ways until the idea dies.

00:03:43 Hussain Almossawi: The successful ones are the ones that think about what's next and what's the evolution of that specific product. How can we do a 2.0, a 3.0, a 4.0, a 4.0. I mean, if you look

00:03:52 Hussain Almossawi: at any brand, look at Apple, look at Nike, they did the watch, the Apple Watch 3, 5, 6, 7, 8,

00:03:58 Hussain Almossawi: iPhone, all the brands, Air Jordan, whatever you think of, there's always a progression, there's always an evolution.

00:04:03 Hussain Almossawi: And there's always room to improve and tap into new technologies that exist and see how you can bring those into your product. There's new stories, culture always evolves.

00:04:13 Hussain Almossawi: So how can we take the product to the next level? And that's where some companies fall short and some companies take advantage. And the thing that really brings the product

00:04:20 Hussain Almossawi: to market, like in a specific time, it's always deadlines. The things that stops it from evolving is always a deadline. So there's always room for progression.

00:04:27 Hussain Almossawi: There's always room to hear your customer's feedback and then take the product again to the next level. So in terms of what

00:04:32 Hussain Almossawi: you can do, one thing is look at the product, see what flows it has, how you can improve it, customer feedback and all that.

00:04:38 Hussain Almossawi: Another thing is how can you grow the brand? Rather than having one product, maybe you can build some accessories around it. Let's say you design a bike. Maybe you can

00:04:45 Hussain Almossawi: start to create a helmet line. Maybe you can start to create a cushioning for the seats. Maybe you can start to create water bottles and all of that stuff.

00:04:52 Hussain Almossawi: And then you start to expand as a brand. You see what works, what doesn't work. And most brands, you realize that maybe it's just 5% or 10% of

00:05:01 Hussain Almossawi: their entire collection that makes money for the company rather than everything. So maybe it's

00:05:05 Hussain Almossawi: the water bottle that, maybe you design the bike, but it's the water bottle that's actually making you the money.

00:05:09 Hussain Almossawi: And as an innovator and as a designer, it's always good to be flexible as well. Sometimes you want to go from point A to B, but you'll land on point C, and that's fine.

00:05:16 Hussain Almossawi: That's where the journey takes you.

00:05:17 Kevin Mako: And just being fluid and flexible along the journey, that's really important. I like that you mentioned these different options. Like, first of all,

00:05:24 Kevin Mako: And I think this is really an overlooked option. And it's the first thing that you addressed is improving your product.

00:05:30 Kevin Mako: That is its own essentially new product or expansion of your existing line. And I think that's overlooked a lot, especially by hardware startups.

00:05:39 Kevin Mako: When they think about evolution, they think about, okay, I've got this initial idea. It's the bike. And then they've got this other idea, which is something completely unrelated.

00:05:46 Kevin Mako: And they think about expanding with all these different invention ideas from their first. But the reality is, stay close to home. That's where your feedback's coming from.

00:05:55 Kevin Mako: That's where your brand origination comes from. It's that first innovation. There's a ton of untapped market left just by listening to your customers.

00:06:04 Kevin Mako: And I love that you mentioned feedback. We talk a lot about that on the show. But listening to your customers and then figuring out how to expand your brand line from there,

00:06:11 Kevin Mako: something that I find, especially on the product development side of things, it's incredibly important, especially when you're thinking about that planning from your first

00:06:18 Kevin Mako: product to your second improved version or whatever that might be, is keeping your original

00:06:22 Kevin Mako: product simple as well so that you can get that product to market, listen to the customer feedback, and then figure out exactly how you're going to start expanding the features

00:06:31 Kevin Mako: to continue capturing more and more market share in a vertical that's near or in your existing product line space.

00:06:40 Kevin Mako: That, I think, is the big winning ticket where a lot of hardware startups need to think about that very carefully and realize your biggest next product isn't

00:06:48 Kevin Mako: necessarily just your next great invention idea.

00:06:51 Hussain Almossawi: It's all these derivatives. from your first product idea. That's the low-hanging fruit. And you also don't want your marketing to go to waste

00:06:59 Hussain Almossawi: and all the efforts that you did on the first product. I mean, you should use that to your advantage and build on it. And for example, when I was in the footwear industry,

00:07:06 Hussain Almossawi: but let's say football, soccer, molds to create those plates, I mean, in shoes in general, when you know the sole, the bottom part of the shoe,

00:07:12 Hussain Almossawi: the molds for that are super expensive because you have two pairs left and right foot and then each costs a lot. It's like over $10,000 each. So it's a really big investment,

00:07:20 Hussain Almossawi: especially for a new brand. Usually you need a few million just to start a footwear brand. Let's say in football, they had this premium shoe, which was like $300.

00:07:29 Hussain Almossawi: And then they had takedowns of that same shoe, different materials, different colors. And you had a range from $300 all the way down to $170, which you could get in a Walmart.

00:07:39 Hussain Almossawi: So taking advantage of that, I already paid for the molds. I've already paid for my marketing. I've paid for my PR. I have a customer base.

00:07:46 Hussain Almossawi: So how can I get the product into as many hands as possible? So rather than just selling the $300 shoe, now I'm selling all these different variations,

00:07:54 Hussain Almossawi: different colors, different materials, different technologies, and just going into the same story

00:07:59 Kevin Mako: and I'm producing different outputs from that same one story. You mentioned something really key here that a lot of people overlook.

00:08:06 Kevin Mako: It's cost-down versions of your actual product. So when you release your first product, generally especially in hardware, we recommend it

00:08:13 Kevin Mako: as well as you try and start with a, it's called a relatively premium quality product because this is your first thing. It's representing your brand.

00:08:19 Kevin Mako: You want to get quality of output to get the good reviews and all that sort of stuff out there. But over time, you'll be able to capture two things.

00:08:27 Kevin Mako: First of all, economies of scale. As you grow bigger with your first product, you will have more purchasing power,

00:08:33 Kevin Mako: which allows for getting essentially your product at a cheaper price. But second, you'll have a lot more time to do your R&D on developing different versions of your product

00:08:41 Kevin Mako: that we're talking about. But when people think about different versions, they automatically think of their pro version.

00:08:46 Kevin Mako: Okay, how I'm going to take what I have now and add all these bells from. whistles. But there's another direction too, arguably a much bigger market share as well. And that's

00:08:54 Kevin Mako: the Walmart version where you take that ultra premium or let's call it relatively premium product that you made and you make a simpler, lower cost, but still reasonable

00:09:03 Kevin Mako: quality, reasonably

00:09:04 Hussain Almossawi: useful product and enter a mass market approach with that using the brand image. It's more accessible.

00:09:11 Hussain Almossawi: Absolutely. Absolutely. A kid that sees Namar playing on the football pitch, these superstars even in any sport, he doesn't need that $300, $400 shoe.

00:09:20 Hussain Almossawi: A $70 shoe that looks the same, that's going to keep

00:09:23 Kevin Mako: him going and that's going to make him think that he's as special as that player. So to your point, just make it much more accessible.

00:09:30 Kevin Mako: You've seen a lot of different companies, both big and small, go through these processes of improving their brand or expanding their brand,

00:09:38 Kevin Mako: let's call it, a better word for it, figuring out how to capture the market that they have and then growing from there.

00:09:42 Kevin Mako: What are some of the tips for innovating on your next version? Because it's easy enough to say, well, you can make a more premium version or you can make a lower cost mass market

00:09:50 Kevin Mako: version or you can make accessories. But that's a lot of different options, especially for a scaling hardware startup.

00:09:57 Kevin Mako: How do you actually figure out what is the specific right next

00:10:01 Hussain Almossawi: steps? Because of course, you can't be everything to everyone and you can't do everything at the same time. You have to start

00:10:06 Hussain Almossawi: somewhere. So I worked with the startup brand, footwear brand. Their strategy was they would always just do different colorways.

00:10:12 Hussain Almossawi: And season after season after season, they would just keep changing the colorways, bringing some exclusive colorways of different shoes. And that was their strategy,

00:10:20 Hussain Almossawi: which I think is a super easy strategy that doesn't cost a lot of money. But in terms of improving

00:10:24 Hussain Almossawi: the product when it comes to not just the aesthetics, but also the function and how do you think of what's next?

00:10:30 Hussain Almossawi: The way we did it in the industry, even with Adidas and different brands, looking at different surrounding industries outside of footwear. So for example, if I'm looking at

00:10:38 Hussain Almossawi: traction of the shoe, how can I improve the traction? I would start to look into continental tires.

00:10:43 Hussain Almossawi: I would start to look into different brands that created bicycle tires, car tires, and so on. And see what technologies they have and how I can bring that in.

00:10:50 Hussain Almossawi: When I'm starting to look at maybe the shoe is about fit, good fit, start to look at the seatbelt companies. How do they create a good fit? I'll start to look at baby strollers.

00:10:59 Hussain Almossawi: How do they create a good fit for the baby? So very unrelated things and then finding these intersections and bringing them into whatever I am creating.

00:11:06 Hussain Almossawi: So I think like the idea of finding those intersections and bringing things that have nothing to do with what you're working on

00:11:12 Hussain Almossawi: and bringing those technologies and ideas and being inspired by them. That's the most place where innovation really happens and you can come up with really cool ideas.

00:11:20 Hussain Almossawi: So that's one thing. Another thing is always asking what if questions and going blue sky, forgetting about how much production it's going to cost.

00:11:27 Hussain Almossawi: What's realistic in 2022 manufacturing wise? Is it really possible to create this idea or not? So what if, just crazy ideas, you know, let's say we're creating a car.

00:11:36 Hussain Almossawi: What does a car look like in year 3000? You'd go super crazy. And then when you're done with your brainstorming session, you come back to reality, 2022.

00:11:45 Hussain Almossawi: All right, this idea was cool. Can we make this happen if we can't make it happen? Maybe we start to ask some questions that can improve the manufacturing process and so on.

00:11:53 Hussain Almossawi: So just thinking blue sky, what if questions, being super curious, that really

00:11:57 Kevin Mako: evolves and pushes the product. I've seen it multiple times in tech. I've seen it in footwear. I've seen it in home goods and so on. This is interesting.

00:12:05 Kevin Mako: You're taking two essentially different approaches. One is the crazy blue sky ideas approach.

00:12:10 Kevin Mako: Think of like what are the most elaborate things you could do if there were no limitations on time, money, technology, et cetera.

00:12:16 Kevin Mako: But you're also taking a very realistic approach, which is what have similar industries done to expand that have been successful in their sphere?

00:12:24 Kevin Mako: And you essentially are combining these two pieces of data. The crazy blue sky ideas in conjunction with the very realistic ideas.

00:12:31 Hussain Almossawi: And I imagine somewhere in the middle then evolves a really good, realistic, but innovative concept to expand a line.

00:12:38 Hussain Almossawi: And the idea of intersections, I mean, there's a book called the Medici Effect by Franz Johansson, highly recommend it.

00:12:43 Hussain Almossawi: And he talks a lot about this idea of diversity and intersections. Biomimicry, I don't know if you've heard of the term, but bringing ideas from nature

00:12:50 Hussain Almossawi: into product design, that's the exact same concept. So I'll just tell you a quick story. For example, in Zimbabwe, Harare, there was an architect who wanted to design a building.

00:13:00 Hussain Almossawi: So he looked at termite mounds and the structure of termite mounds, where they have to maintain the temperature at a certain temperature at all times.

00:13:07 Hussain Almossawi: There's like these different channels inside that release hot air and so on. So he observed that, he analyzed it, and he worked with a biologist, and he mimicked the same

00:13:15 Hussain Almossawi: exact way that the termite mounds were built, and he constructed it into his architecture. And he saved them, like, over $4 million, more than 70% energy.

00:13:25 Kevin Mako: It was a wage of just looking at nature, bringing something from a different field and bringing it into architecture. And there's lots of examples when it comes to that.

00:13:33 Kevin Mako: It's powerful, and it's something that anybody can do. Any hardware founder or product developer can just hop on to Google and start looking at other

00:13:41 Kevin Mako: industries and just start brainstorming. It's kind of a fun exercise to do as well.

00:13:46 Kevin Mako: I'm a big fan of keeping notes. So as you're going through this process, make sure even something simple, like have it

00:13:51 Kevin Mako: recorded on a Google Doc, like what are you deriving from this, let's call it exploration,

00:13:55 Kevin Mako: which would be a really fun and creative time of the day, a time that you set aside, you turn off your phone, you turn off your notifications, and you really get creative.

00:14:02 Kevin Mako: It's as simple as Googling these sorts of success stories. successful integrations of products or whatever else in other fields and saying, how could I

00:14:10 Kevin Mako: apply that to my field, whether it's biology, by looking at actual animals or insects, seeing

00:14:15 Kevin Mako: how their physics that they work with might evolve your product, or simply just looking at other product lines and product brands that are in related fields.

00:14:22 Hussain Almossawi: I think the closer the field, probably the more relevant, the insight that comes from it as well. And this is something you can simply do sitting in front of your computer.

00:14:30 Hussain Almossawi: For sure, for sure. And you know, always, that's another thing, like be a curious sponge, always find inspiration and everything.

00:14:36 Hussain Almossawi: To your point, whether you're reading a book, whether you're listening to a TED talk, whether you're

00:14:39 Kevin Mako: looking at success stories, whether you're looking at other products, whatever you do, there's always room to find inspiration and bring that in.

00:14:46 Kevin Mako: And subconsciously, it's always going to feed your next project. You mentioned as well feedback early on. And I think that's, you know, if you're to put a third

00:14:54 Kevin Mako: pillar in there as well, it's something that's super critical. And really, again, I use the word low-hanging fruit because it's people who are buying your existing product, giving

00:15:04 Kevin Mako: you insight as to what they would like to see either on your next product or as an accessory to that product or as an improvement to the product.

00:15:12 Kevin Mako: So that is incredible knowledge that's being given directly to you from the most relevant audience, which is people who've already purchased your product.

00:15:21 Kevin Mako: So if you combine that with this blue sky thinking and the crazy what if in combination with

00:15:26 Kevin Mako: looking at accessory industries or other industries or related industries and trying to see how it can

00:15:31 Hussain Almossawi: all fit together, you've got a very powerful framework, which will start over time. evolving and painting the picture to that next hot item that you can start pursuing.

00:15:41 Hussain Almossawi: 100%. And I mean, to your point, again, when I was at Adidas, a big part of, like,

00:15:45 Hussain Almossawi: when we're designing basketball shoots, we're always trying to identify what was hot and, you know, what was relevant and trending in the culture.

00:15:52 Hussain Almossawi: So we always met with high school kids. We went to their games. We brought them into the office, asking a lot of questions. We built a relationship

00:15:58 Hussain Almossawi: with those kids that are eventually our customers and start to learn

00:16:02 Kevin Mako: from them how they play, how they dress, how they act. So yeah, 100% tapping into your consumer base and seeing what they want, what they like,

00:16:09 Hussain Almossawi: and trying to also bring them into the process. Let's talk a bit about your book, the Interventor's Handbook. What are some of the key lessons out of there

00:16:17 Hussain Almossawi: that can apply to emerging or scaling hardware startups? So we mentioned some of them. One is evolving a product.

00:16:24 Hussain Almossawi: I mean, the main thing is that you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. And as a young designer, as an aspiring designer,

00:16:30 Hussain Almossawi: I always thought that if I had to innovate and come up with cool ideas, I had to reinvent the wheel every time, but that's not true. Everything is a remix.

00:16:36 Hussain Almossawi: You can take a product and you can improve it. You can take two products and come up with a better idea out of it. You don't really have to build something from scratch every time.

00:16:45 Hussain Almossawi: So that's one thing. Being a curious sponge, which we talked about, always asking what of questions, being laser focused, and this is huge.

00:16:52 Hussain Almossawi: When I was in the footwear industry, for example, let's say I wanted to design a shoe that's lightweight, it's durable, and it has good fit.

00:16:59 Hussain Almossawi: So the way I used to approach footwear design before designing any product, actually,

00:17:04 Hussain Almossawi: I would just try to think about all these different ingredients and start to come up with ideas, which became really overwhelming.

00:17:10 Hussain Almossawi: The way of being laser focused is coming up with the most lightweight shoe, forget about everything else, come up with the most durable shoe, with the shoe with the best fit.

00:17:18 Hussain Almossawi: And then when I have these three buckets with lots of amazing ideas in each,

00:17:22 Hussain Almossawi: then I can start to mix these different ingredients and come up with a shoe that has all of those three elements.

00:17:26 Hussain Almossawi: And so I thought this was a really good way of designing for any product. Another one is First Principles method, which is something that they use a lot in Tesla,

00:17:34 Hussain Almossawi: SpaceX, Elon Musk used a lot. And we also did this a lot in the footwear industry. First Principles method basically is I would take a shoe, when we're talking about evolving

00:17:42 Hussain Almossawi: a product, especially, I would take a shoe, deconstruct it down to its basic form, the laces, the sole, the cushioning, the materials, everything, just laid down on a table.

00:17:51 Hussain Almossawi: And then go to each part and ask, okay, let's say I want to do a lightweight shoe. Is this really serving my purpose? is this the best way to do it? Do I need these laces?

00:17:59 Hussain Almossawi: Are there better laces? And you start to ask lots of questions and you question every part. And then once you change some parts, you remove some

00:18:05 Hussain Almossawi: parts, you bring in some new parts, you put the shoe back together. And then you have a much

00:18:08 Hussain Almossawi: better shoe. So that's also another way of doing a 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 version. So I thought that

00:18:13 Kevin Mako: was a really cool way of designing shoes. And I really enjoyed using that process in the

00:18:17 Kevin Mako: industry. So these are some the key things that I talk about in the book. There's some other things as well. But I think these are things that stand out the most. I like that you

00:18:24 Kevin Mako: mention that it's not a massive overhaul of the product. I think that takes a lot of the stress off an evolving product.

00:18:32 Kevin Mako: I know a lot of folks when they released their first invention idea, they may not actually have clear direction or even an idea as to how they would expand it.

00:18:42 Kevin Mako: And the way that you've broken it down gives a lot of different tools for somebody to use, anybody to use, really, that can help start guiding some of those different

00:18:51 Kevin Mako: elements. Maybe it's the feedback loop from a customer that will spark that next idea. Maybe it's something from another industry. Maybe it's something from another organism.

00:18:59 Kevin Mako: Maybe it's some of these other tools that you reference in the book. The point is that at some point, if you go to these exercises, all the while

00:19:07 Kevin Mako: thinking about it as a small incremental improvement or change or accessory, it takes the stress off

00:19:14 Kevin Mako: of thinking you have to come up with another hit wonder to be just

00:19:18 Hussain Almossawi: as good as your first hit wonder. It's not how brands grow. Very few brands have one major hit after another after another.

00:19:27 Hussain Almossawi: It's an incremental long-term marathon game, not a bunch of home runs in a row. Absolutely, absolutely. And maybe just two more things.

00:19:35 Hussain Almossawi: One is don't jam your products with a million different innovations. Nike Tailwind is a really good example. That's when the Nike Air came to life.

00:19:43 Hussain Almossawi: And Phil Knight in his book, he mentions Shoe Dog. He mentions that they put like seven or eight, I don't know the exact number now,

00:19:49 Hussain Almossawi: But they put a bunch of different innovations in the first shoe that had the Nike air cushioning in it. Anyway, it's a pocket of air inside the shoe.

00:19:56 Hussain Almossawi: And it just burst. It didn't work. So their mistake was that they put a lot of different innovations into one shoe. And that's the thing.

00:20:02 Hussain Almossawi: Like, make sure that your products have one innovation, one hero. And that becomes the story of that product.

00:20:08 Hussain Almossawi: If I have three innovations, let me make three different products out of it. Another thing also in the industry, a lot of products that come out, 50%, 60,

00:20:16 Kevin Mako: maybe even 70%, it's marketing. It's not even the design and the innovation. Sometimes there are products that don't even have a good idea behind them, but they have strong

00:20:23 Kevin Mako: marketing and they make it. So it's a really good balance of good design, good ideas, good marketing, and all those work together to give you a success story.

00:20:31 Kevin Mako: I love how you mentioned simplicity. I talk about it a lot on the podcast, especially on the product development side, even going back to your original first innovation.

00:20:39 Kevin Mako: One of the biggest failures of a hardware startup is feature creep. They come up with too many ideas that are not necessary to the core.

00:20:48 Kevin Mako: innovation that was discovered originally. And that's something that a good hardware startup, a good product designer will really focus on simplicity.

00:20:56 Kevin Mako: And that's coming for me who owns a design firm. The more complicated a product, the more money a design firm makes. And I'm the first person

00:21:03 Kevin Mako: advertising that you should keep your product as humanly simple as possible for a number of

00:21:08 Kevin Mako: reasons. You mentioned marketing and sales, but from the technology side as well, you mentioned the bursting air cushion in the Nike soul.

00:21:14 Kevin Mako: So you have to understand in the development side is if you have one core feature and you put all your resources towards that, you can build a really good quality version of that.

00:21:23 Kevin Mako: As soon as you add a second and a third, it doesn't make it twice or three times as complicated. It's an exponential curve. Three features probably will be 10 times as

00:21:31 Kevin Mako: complicated to design and engineer than one feature that's focused on exclusively. So it means

00:21:36 Kevin Mako: faster to market, less money in development, better quality in terms of the actual focus of that

00:21:41 Kevin Mako: product, easier to manufacture, less defects, clear messaging for your marketing, less returns when

00:21:46 Kevin Mako: And it actually comes to the product being sold, less confusion of people buying things based on multiple

00:21:50 Kevin Mako: features, but maybe not getting the feature that they really wanted in isolation. So all of these things packed together means start simple, build a simple but

00:21:59 Kevin Mako: high quality version of your hardware product because that quality is critical. And then I love how you're taking it to the next level to say, even as you expand your product

00:22:06 Kevin Mako: line, let's say you raise a $2 million seed round to now make your next three versions of the product.

00:22:12 Hussain Almossawi: don't just blow it on all these crazy features. Think about small, incremental, high-quality, laser-focused feature improvements or changes

00:22:21 Hussain Almossawi: to scale the brand as opposed to coming with the most elaborate version of the shoe just because you got funding to try to do that. 100%.

00:22:29 Kevin Mako: And keep those ideas in your back pocket. I mean, I've seen lots of amazing ideas. I worked with the innovation team when I was at Adidas, advanced concepts.

00:22:37 Kevin Mako: And lots of amazing ideas never made it to market. But eventually they will start to find their way in different products and they will make it, but don't

00:22:44 Kevin Mako: jam them all into one product. Well, in development, there's a way to do that too. We do that with a lot of clients where, let's say they do have their 10 different future ideas

00:22:53 Kevin Mako: that they want to have in it.

00:22:55 Kevin Mako: You can do, let's say, rough conceptual designs of that work while building your, let's say, one or two feature very focused hardware product for actual production

00:23:03 Kevin Mako: so that you can even potentially patent those concepts or at least put them in your own company library or keep.

00:23:09 Kevin Mako: Working through those things over time, but you're basically having your cake and eating it too.

00:23:14 Hussain Almossawi: So you're allowing the good ideas to be designed, to be flush out, to be part of potentially your future business plan going forward.

00:23:20 Hussain Almossawi: But you're also not blowing your budget on those so that you can focus on a very, as you mentioned, I love the term laser-focused core one major

00:23:30 Hussain Almossawi: innovation product, which is what you're actually going to launch to market and get into production. And I remember I was designing a bike.

00:23:36 Hussain Almossawi: It's called the N-cycle, and it's an electric bike.

00:23:39 Hussain Almossawi: When I was first designing this, so we've all done this mistake of jamming products with innovations or trying to jam it with innovations. So it was an electric bike.

00:23:47 Hussain Almossawi: The frame looked different, very iconic.

00:23:50 Hussain Almossawi: The handlebars would lock onto a lamppost, so you could lock the bike.

00:23:54 Kevin Mako: The pedals were designed in a specific way. And every element, I was trying to push for innovation, which this was a long time ago.

00:24:01 Kevin Mako: But looking at it now, it's just too overwhelming.

00:24:04 Hussain Almossawi: There's no way that that could even happen. I mean, on paper, again, dream big, blue sky.

00:24:09 Hussain Almossawi: But then when you come to reality, just focus on one story and push for that. That's a big statement. I'm going to recycle that one. I like it.

00:24:17 Hussain Almossawi: Let's talk about where folks can buy your book, because I think that's very useful and

00:24:21 Kevin Mako: resourceful, especially for expanding hardware brands. Sure. So the Innovators Handbook, it's available on Amazon and paperback and Kindle versions.

00:24:30 Kevin Mako: And it came out a month ago. So, yeah, check it out. And we'd love to hear even people's stories, how they. They innovate. So feel free to reach out.

00:24:37 Hussain Almossawi: You can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram. Easy to find.

00:24:40 Hussain Almossawi: And as always, I'll put all the links, including the link to the book, in the show notes below so anyone can just click through.

00:24:45 Hussain Almossawi: Hussein, thanks again for all your words of wisdom today on scaling up a hardware brand and innovating past your first invention idea. Thanks. And we look forward to

00:24:53 Kevin Mako: talk to you again soon. Thank you. It was great to be here. Thanks. Thanks. Take care.

00:24:56 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 and turn it into a

00:25:06 Narrator: big success. This podcast series is brought to you by Mako Design + Invent, the original and leading firm in

00:25:13 Narrator: North America to provide global caliber in-to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors, and small product business clients.

00:25:22 Narrator: If you're looking for product development help on your invention, head over to MakoDesign.com. That's M-A-K-O Design dot com.

00:25:31 Narrator: for a free consultation from one of Mako Design's Ford Design Studios from coast to coast. Thanks for listening and see you next time.