Product Startup Podcast Episode 154: Three Keys to a Great New Product

00:00:00 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn from an expert who has worked on over 50 products, some of which exited for billions

00:00:05 Kevin Mako: of dollars on the three key parts of physical product development.

00:00:09 Narrator: You're listening to the Product Startup Podcast, a show to learn from top leaders in product development, prototyping, manufacturing, product selling, and everything in between.

00:00:17 Narrator: Hosted by Kevin Mako, the leading expert on product development for physical product startups, sponsored by PTCs to best-in-class 3D CAD product development software solutions, Onshape

00:00:26 Narrator: and Creo, and produced by Mako Design + Invent, the original firm, providing world-class consumer product development services tailored specifically to startups,

00:00:34 Narrator: small manufacturers, and inventors.

00:00:37 Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm very excited to introduce Jonas Rinde to the show. Jonas is the founder of his latest product, Nomono, a portable podcasting device.

00:00:45 Kevin Mako: Prior to that, he has had three major product exits totaling billions of dollars in acquisitions in addition to working on over 50 hardware products over the last 20 years.

00:00:54 Kevin Mako: Today, Jonas is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, and small manufacturers on the three key elements to building a great new physical consumer

00:01:01 Kevin Mako: product device and how each of those has led him to achieve billions of dollars in success with many hardware products. Now, on to the episode.

00:01:09 Kevin Mako: Hey, Jonas, welcome to the show. Hi, nice to be here. Excited to have you on today to talk about the three wows of product design. And I'll let you get

00:01:17 Kevin Mako: into exactly what that is and helping new hardware startups and emerging scale-ups do the best that they can in developing a new product to be a big success.

00:01:25 Kevin Mako: What better person to talk about than someone that's had major exits in the space, three phenomenal exits all out of Norway

00:01:32 Kevin Mako: and all related to, or at least in part of the hardware space or in the hardware space or a combination of hardware software products. So it's pretty phenomenal to see what you've

00:01:40 Kevin Mako: accomplished over your 20-year history and developing over 50 products. Today, I'd love to talk to you about what we're doing in terms of helping these designers.

00:01:49 Kevin Mako: Before we get there, first of all, congratulations on that big article on TechCrunch recently about your most recent product

00:01:56 Jonas Rinde: Thank you, Kevin. It's been a journey. It's been fun. As you mentioned, three wows is something I'm strong believer in.

00:02:02 Jonas Rinde: It's an easy way method that I've been using along the way. As you mentioned, probably 50-ish around products there. In my design process and developing solutions,

00:02:12 Jonas Rinde: I usually start with myself. I use myself as the customer as the user. I think I have pretty high expectations on products I use myself, but also pushing that over

00:02:22 Jonas Rinde: products and products I work on myself. When it comes to three wows, it's so important for me when we build the concepts is to

00:02:29 Jonas Rinde: have the first wow being how you get to know the brand, the product, the looks of it, really would like it to be inviting.

00:02:38 Jonas Rinde: So you're not scared about your product, it's scared to use it. It should have an approachable design from a perspective. And to get there, Kevin, you know, there's a lot of

00:02:48 Jonas Rinde: work that needs to be done. But it's so important to get the first while in place that the product and the solution is inviting for the user.

00:02:55 Jonas Rinde: And the second wow is when you start using the product, what kind of information do you get? What kind of feeling do you get when you're using the product?

00:03:01 Jonas Rinde: Do you feel you're in control? Do you like what you're doing with this product? And then number three,

00:03:06 Jonas Rinde: it's also a very important chance of the wow that's kind of to close the circle is the experience to sit with after you may using the product. What's an enjoyable moment?

00:03:15 Jonas Rinde: And the key thing here is to get to a position where the user feels he or she want to do this again.

00:03:22 Jonas Rinde: they want to go back and do this when they feel that they trust the product they have a good experience that's usually also what i'm going to tell the family friends and colleagues

00:03:29 Jonas Rinde: and that's when you get into a bit of viral effect like hey come on you should try this out it's super easy it solves a this and this and it makes me

00:03:37 Jonas Rinde: shine or at least it gives me a good experience i mean that's a clear parallel to all the products i've been working and

00:03:43 Jonas Rinde: taking the latest now in pneumonia we have put in a lot of effort in doing a compelling human design or a product.

00:03:50 Jonas Rinde: Some call it looking like an Apple product, but I think that's a compliment, you know, rounder shape. But it also looks different compared to the other technology you have

00:03:58 Jonas Rinde: where we target right now, the podcast and the audio and the microphone industry, where it's been pretty well-status quo for the last 10, 20 years.

00:04:06 Jonas Rinde: So we come in with something new. And there has so much technology built inside and it's super complex. It's like 12 microtrollers. But the product should not reflect that.

00:04:15 Jonas Rinde: The product should reflect an ease of use, something inviting, something that people can start to use without being afraid. So that's the first one.

00:04:23 Jonas Rinde: And also, if you go to our webpage, you probably see a lot of effort into brand, tone and voice, also make it more human and inviting.

00:04:30 Jonas Rinde: And if you compare it to competitors, they are probably having a more techy approach, a lot of more specifications, performance numbers and what have you. We don't talk about that.

00:04:39 Jonas Rinde: We just talk about the human interaction.

00:04:41 Jonas Rinde: And that's the thing with our product right now is I wouldn't go into the philosophic area. But, you know, we really believe that we aren't a part of the human evolution in terms

00:04:49 Jonas Rinde: of how we tell stories. And the whole purpose with pneumonia is to capture those stories as they're being told.

00:04:56 Jonas Rinde: And the end result, now I'm jumping to the wow factor number three there, but I'll come to number two as well with today's solution.

00:05:02 Jonas Rinde: It's when you listen into this, you're putting the listener inside the story. You can immerse yourself into the story because we are then using spatial audio

00:05:10 Jonas Rinde: and the latest doll bathrooms. That's the third bar with our product. So just kind of get the one number one with Nemone, as I mentioned for you, make it inviting.

00:05:19 Jonas Rinde: People want to use it. Number two is when you're using the product, the wireless microphones. So what happens is when you stop using our product, the technology goes away.

00:05:28 Jonas Rinde: And that is a red thread with all the products I've been working on. Because when they're in use, we want to kind of make the technology go away.

00:05:34 Jonas Rinde: So we as human can focus on the action we're supposed to do if it's meeting people, talking. And now with Nemon, of course, recording audio.

00:05:42 Jonas Rinde: And we have been also to notice, like when you do podcast and you forget about the technology, the dialogue becomes much more warmer, much more interesting.

00:05:52 Jonas Rinde: Because sometimes when you sit in a studio, for example, I have big membrane microphones in front

00:05:55 Jonas Rinde: of you, it might be a get, when you get a little bit stiff or get a bit nervous or like when

00:06:01 Jonas Rinde: you're sitting in a sofa, for example, talk with your friends, you're in a more kind of loose setting. And we see that can also improve.

00:06:06 Jonas Rinde: So that's like one number two without solution. When you use it, feel comfortable, be yourself. And then number three, I was always talking about that.

00:06:12 Jonas Rinde: But that's when we kind of, when you listen, what you just recorded, they go like, wow, did I do that? This sounds really professional. This is really high quality audio.

00:06:19 Kevin Mako: So the feeling here is to give at least our users and customer, this kind of, let's call all the superhero powers. And we want to be the ones providing that to people.

00:06:29 Kevin Mako: I love that you've broken it down into those three key elements. Essentially, if I look at those, the first is really capturing the person's interest.

00:06:36 Kevin Mako: How do you peek them to look at your product, potentially on a store shelf or to identify with it on an ad or to believe in it on a, maybe it's a crowdfunding campaign or whatever

00:06:45 Kevin Mako: the case is, you need to have this modern, beautiful, inviting, which is a keyword you use product, to really capture their attention.

00:06:52 Kevin Mako: So that's the first wow. And then that brings you into the second, which is, well, what happens when they actually use it? You want to have a, I like

00:06:58 Kevin Mako: how you mentioned it, a very complex technology that leads to a very simple user interaction.

00:07:04 Kevin Mako: And that is the key in really good product design and good industrial design, mechanical engineering, electronic engineering.

00:07:10 Kevin Mako: The key is you are dealing with new technologies, complexities, all that sort of stuff. But great design leads to a very simple user experience.

00:07:19 Kevin Mako: And it should definitely not be the other way around. And realistically, if you've done one and two very well, that should lead you to three, which is where you get a fan.

00:07:27 Kevin Mako: You've got an actual fan who is a raving customer about your product. That fan will want to refer the product to other people.

00:07:35 Jonas Rinde: And the reason they're a fan is because you really accomplished some sort of incredible value for them. You got them hooked to the solution or in avoiding the pain point that

00:07:44 Jonas Rinde: your product helped solve the problem for. Yeah. I guess you also know that, Kevin, but it sounds so simple. I think that's key as well to get into these three steps.

00:07:55 Jonas Rinde: But under the hood and all the work, you need to always balance. And as you say, you have probably a product with a lot of technology in it, a lot of interest,

00:08:02 Jonas Rinde: on it, which is good. But then there's always these what we call the feature creeps to ask for adding things more.

00:08:07 Jonas Rinde: You know, within a mono product, we're going in to talk to professional audio technicians and producers. They're super skilled in their profession, very good trained ears

00:08:17 Jonas Rinde: and know exactly what to do with the audio to make it sound good. The challenge there is that they have their legacy of microphone and technology they

00:08:26 Jonas Rinde: use today. And they invest a lot of time and money in that. So they are pretty secure in how to use those tools. But that doesn't

00:08:32 Jonas Rinde: at scale. And that's where we come in with a solution much more easier to use. However,

00:08:37 Jonas Rinde: though, you always get the ask, could I plug in my microphones to your solution? What about this and what about that?

00:08:42 Jonas Rinde: And that goes back to, we have to be strong in our focus because this is a revolutionary new product and you will get those challenges while you're developing and designing.

00:08:50 Jonas Rinde: So here is also important tip to everyone to kind of listen in, but do your own decision and analyze as of what you should implement in your solution.

00:08:59 Jonas Rinde: Because I've seen it so many times, In the beginning, you have a pretty clear view, at least where I've gone from, what you want to do and bring to the world.

00:09:07 Jonas Rinde: But during those years of development, there's so many other factors that comes in that you need to stay strong.

00:09:14 Jonas Rinde: And of course, sometimes you need to listen to challenge the idea you have, which is good. But then again, a strong belief you have kind of pushed it through all these quotes

00:09:22 Jonas Rinde: from Steve Jobs. But it's about this with focus, especially when you do product design. And we have the phases where we do easy research, you know, you kind of expand out.

00:09:32 Jonas Rinde: And then you work your way down to go back into the focus. That's when you start with the concept and then you do your prototype builds, you test them

00:09:40 Kevin Mako: with pilot customers, you get feedback. You go kind of out of broad and then you kind of narrow in again.

00:09:45 Kevin Mako: And in the end, you have this, I wouldn't call it the whole great, all your precious thing. But after some development cycles there, of course.

00:09:54 Kevin Mako: I love how you mentioned a few key things here that all interact, feature creep and focus, which leads

00:10:01 Kevin Mako: to developing your first, let's call it, minimum viable product of your thing that you're going to release to the market. It's a very difficult thing for startups and inventors

00:10:10 Kevin Mako: especially to do when they're developing a product. You want to add all these bells and whistles

00:10:14 Kevin Mako: in. And then that compounds exponentially when you start getting all of this feedback, whether it's friends or family or actual users, they all want to add these

00:10:24 Kevin Mako: bells and whistles that they think would be cool on a thing as well, which is really interesting to hear from you that's built so

00:10:30 Kevin Mako: many products, huge mega exits on these products, you still, to today, even with all those

00:10:37 Kevin Mako: resources available to you, you still focus on your core product that you want to build in a key market vertical.

00:10:46 Kevin Mako: You cannot be everything to everyone with a new product launch. And that's a huge misconception amongst inventors. We definitely see a lot at Mako Design, where

00:10:54 Kevin Mako: people come in and they say, I want to capture basically every market and we need to have this and that and whatever because we have to get the kids and the adults and this nation

00:11:02 Kevin Mako: and this type of person and all this sort of stuff. So they try to make like the universal product from day one.

00:11:09 Kevin Mako: It's difficult enough to make a new product with a new technology that hits all of these three wow factors, even with an MVP, let alone compounding

00:11:18 Kevin Mako: the complexity by all this feature creep. And it's just great to hear it from you with so much success that

00:11:24 Jonas Rinde: that's still the core to what you see in developing a great product and how to focus when you're going through

00:11:31 Jonas Rinde: those exercises of figuring what features you must have, would like to have, and probably you can save for another day.

00:11:40 Jonas Rinde: Yeah, it's so important. And I mean, that's always the challenge there. So you have to be strong in the research you have done, but also in the dialogue with

00:11:49 Jonas Rinde: the end user to kind of balance it out. And then it's also the priorities of that, priorities over time.

00:11:54 Jonas Rinde: And you mentioned MVP is super important to nail and define what your MVP are and it's far good to have for that, the budget, to have the resource and everything.

00:12:02 Jonas Rinde: And then all the interests you get along the way, yes, there might be parts of the MVP you can change out or tune in or take out.

00:12:11 Jonas Rinde: And then also you have the timeline thinking in terms of the different versions you can get out off that MVP as well.

00:12:17 Jonas Rinde: You know, the funny thing is, and I think that has happened every time, is you get so much input and feedback while you develop your hardware product or soft of product.

00:12:27 Jonas Rinde: During that, you already realize what should be the product number two or product number three. Because that's what at least I do with my team.

00:12:35 Jonas Rinde: Thanks for the feedback. Awesome feature. Does it fit this product or not? No, it's out of scope. It's a good idea.

00:12:40 Jonas Rinde: Okay, let's put it in the freezer for product number two or product number three. And then while you work with your new product, you still have the opportunity to start

00:12:49 Jonas Rinde: almost concurrent engineering on the second product because you get. so much ideas and feedback on your first product. So you aggregate. And that could be a product that

00:12:58 Jonas Rinde: is going in different vertical, different market. It could be expensive. It could be cheaper. But then again, just a tip, don't throw those ideas away.

00:13:06 Jonas Rinde: Organize them and structure them because there you might have your facelift or your second product. So that helped me all this as well.

00:13:13 Kevin Mako: And I think if you look on my track product, you can see that as well. I'm a big fan of building portfolios because in the first place,

00:13:21 Kevin Mako: you want to nail the first product, but there's almost never one product for everyone or for every market. So back to focus.

00:13:28 Kevin Mako: That's usually the hard thing to scale down to the MVP that we talked about. That's very powerful for somebody psychologically dealing with cutting out those

00:13:38 Kevin Mako: features because it's tough. You look at the product and you say, yeah, but it would be so great if it just had this extra thing on it.

00:13:45 Kevin Mako: How can I justify taking that away when I feel like I'm reducing the quality or the output of the product.

00:13:52 Kevin Mako: But what you do is you put it into the vault, let's call it the brain vault, for potential future versions. You can kind of have your cake and eat it too.

00:14:00 Kevin Mako: Look at your first version is testing the core technology. You get a really beautiful, simple, modern, reliable, well -designed, well-developed,

00:14:10 Kevin Mako: manufacturerable first version that really is just solving that core technology that you're trying to build.

00:14:15 Kevin Mako: But don't lose track of all these things that may be your version, too, your pro version.

00:14:20 Kevin Mako: your cheaper version, your discount version for mass market, whatever it might be, all these different verticals.

00:14:25 Kevin Mako: And as you mentioned, it may build into a future portfolio of products for your business around that original core technology, but have the comfort knowing when you're

00:14:33 Kevin Mako: making that first MVP that it's okay to reduce those, let's call it feature creeps, those great ideas when you're putting them in the vault going forward.

00:14:41 Kevin Mako: Also, we've had a number of experts on the show that talk about the sales and marketing side of things. And it's just a quick side note

00:14:47 Kevin Mako: that it is easier for marketing professionals to sell a simple product than a complicated one.

00:14:51 Kevin Mako: So if you're afraid of having less sales because you haven't addressed maybe what you believe

00:14:56 Jonas Rinde: is a total addressable market, know that that's a fallacy. You're actually going to sell more, the simpler you make that original product.

00:15:03 Jonas Rinde: The more focused, the less people that you try and target, but the more specifically that you try and target that smaller group of people,

00:15:11 Jonas Rinde: All of that will actually lead to a bigger launch success than feature creeping all these ideas into the product. Very good point.

00:15:19 Jonas Rinde: And maybe not use NMono too much as an example, but we've been working on this for almost four years now. It's kind of the ones as most.

00:15:26 Jonas Rinde: But the thing is, for example, with NMono is we're targeting the podcasting, the content crazy, storytellers verbal.

00:15:35 Jonas Rinde: And that's our focus. And that's the first market entry point. But there's no limitation of what you can use the microphones for.

00:15:43 Jonas Rinde: And we know and we have feedback from pilot customers that be used for other things than podcasting. And that's fine.

00:15:50 Jonas Rinde: So music, for example, we're not going to go into music. No, we're not going to train the AI for that.

00:15:56 Jonas Rinde: But then again, it's high quality microphones. They're wireless. And they have a need, they feel a purpose also for people doing music.

00:16:05 Jonas Rinde: And also video content creators.

00:16:08 Jonas Rinde: We have one. guy is very keen on using GGI drones for his content and using our microphones together with

00:16:15 Jonas Rinde: that is an also opportunity for him to kind of mic up the people that is doing some activities

00:16:20 Jonas Rinde: below the drone and then he can just sync it up in his work tools as well. So it's a balance

00:16:28 Jonas Rinde: and I just want to also stretch the take it to the streets.

00:16:34 Jonas Rinde: So where you start somewhere with an idea concept you build that you get money on board you build a team you build the

00:16:41 Jonas Rinde: product and everything and you have customers interaction along the way by by a lot of better customers testing it out but then when it gets into the what you

00:16:49 Jonas Rinde: call take it to the street that's so at least for me motivated to see what especially creators do using solutions in different areas and different ways

00:16:58 Jonas Rinde: that you hadn't thought of I think that is made we started to see that with the beta on on the Mona as well. And then it goes back to us in terms of luxury problem.

00:17:09 Jonas Rinde: What they're using our product for, is there something we should continue supporting? And now with the Mona, we're heavily invested in AI and training that with data models.

00:17:18 Kevin Mako: For now, it's around verbal, spoken language. What do you have around that? But then again, there's an opportunity, you know, if somebody's using it for other

00:17:27 Kevin Mako: things like, for example, music, but also you can use the live events. It's a wireless microphone, so you don't have to use a post-pressing. And that's also interesting.

00:17:37 Kevin Mako: It's not target, focus for us, but yeah, and that's, I think, at least for me personally, it's the big motivation of doing this over and over yet is when you see it get in the hats

00:17:45 Kevin Mako: of people, how to start using it and experience the get five. That feedback loop is so critical because even if you're trying to consider what features

00:17:55 Kevin Mako: you should or should not have, know that if you focus on your MVP and get that to market, you're going to have this massive base of initial users who are generally

00:18:04 Kevin Mako: pretty passionate about a product. Most people who get into new products are willing to like beta test, they're either very wealthy and they can just buy it, which is great.

00:18:12 Kevin Mako: You can get your margin. Or they're the must have buyers. So they're the gadget folks that want the latest and greatest thing and they really care about this stuff.

00:18:21 Kevin Mako: They're usually a lot easier to get feedback, especially let's say your first hundred customers because you can literally as the founder reach out to each and every one of them

00:18:29 Kevin Mako: via email, via phone, ask for some feedback, and you'll find that a lot of them will give you really candid, honest feedback.

00:18:36 Kevin Mako: What better way to make the decisions about how you're going to evolve your product or what features you are going to add to it going forward than from

00:18:45 Kevin Mako: your actual customers themselves, who, funny enough, may end up being the future buyers.

00:18:50 Jonas Rinde: If you follow Jonas's three-step rule, that third wow factor is getting them to be a raving

00:18:56 Jonas Rinde: fan, which will likely lead them into being a repeat buyer as you release your version 2.0 or your pro version or simply your next year version.

00:19:04 Jonas Rinde: As we see the craze with the iPhone, how many of those users will buy the latest edition just because it's the latest one, right? And this is the sort of

00:19:13 Jonas Rinde: brand passion that you want to be building right from day one. This is what works if you follow that three-step wow process that Jonas is explaining here.

00:19:21 Jonas Rinde: Any last tips before we let you go here as we're wrapping up.

00:19:25 Jonas Rinde: I always say, keep it simple, or keep it stupid, simple, simple, stupid. So it's super important.

00:19:32 Jonas Rinde: And I mean, we are working in an industry, and I think we can start with ourselves. We are pretty interested in early adopters. We like new tech.

00:19:40 Kevin Mako: We like features and what have you.

00:19:42 Kevin Mako: But, you know, always challenge yourself to try to get the MVP down, get the complexity down, focus on the simplicity.

00:19:49 Kevin Mako: And as you said, Kevin, it's so true a product that is easy to use. it's also easy to sell, but it's also easy to understand, which is most important for the user,

00:19:57 Kevin Mako: which is the key thing here. Because if the user can't understand or use it, well, then it's no value.

00:20:03 Kevin Mako: And this last thing also, make sure when you bring a new product into market that replaces other things.

00:20:09 Kevin Mako: So you want to bring something that replaces complexity. You don't want to add complexity. And that's, I think, is also super important for mind if you want to build a successful

00:20:18 Kevin Mako: products. This has been fantastic advice, much appreciated for your words of wisdom, helping

00:20:23 Kevin Mako: emerging startups get their product design the right way so that they become the next big

00:20:27 Kevin Mako: success. Thanks again for all your words of wisdom and looking forward to talking to you again. Thanks for having me, Kevin. Much appreciated. Take care of that.

00:20:34 Narrator: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the product startup podcast. If you found some value in the show, please do us a huge favor and leave us a quick five-star review.

00:20:41 Narrator: If you have any questions, guest suggestions, or anything else, feel free to reach out to us anytime at our email, podcast at MakoDesign.com. That's podcast at MakoDesign.com.

00:20:51 Narrator: This show is hosted by Kevin Mako. North America is a leading expert on product development for physical product startups.

00:20:57 Narrator: Huge thanks to our sponsors, PTC, and their two best-in-class 3D CAD product development software solutions, Onshape, and Creo, and Mako Design + Invent.

00:21:04 Narrator: The original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored specifically to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors.

00:21:12 Narrator: Thanks for joining and see you next time.