Noah McNeely: You can’t afford perfect product development, which is why you can’t afford to miss this episode of Product Genius. Steven Julian: Do you want to be a successful inventor entrepreneur? Noah McNeely: Struggling to get your product from idea to market? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to Product Genius, the down-to-earth podcast that explores important topics about inventing and launching new products. Noah McNeely is your trusted guide. With more than 20 years of product launch experience, he’s here to help you on your journey to become a product genius. Let’s get started. Here’s your slightly annoying co-host, Steven Julian. Greetings and salutations, everybody. I am Steven Julian. I am your slightly annoying host. Welcome to another fantastic edition of Product Genius. With me now, as always, is Noah McNeely of Product Quick Start. Noah, welcome to your own table. Steven Julian: Well, thank you. I should clarify that we are not always together, just on the show. Noah McNeely: We are now on this show, hopefully for a while, going to always be together. Steven Julian: Yeah, but I’m not riding home with you. Noah McNeely: No, negative. That is a negatory. You are going to go home to your wonderful family, I to mine, Jody to his. Yeah, but for now, at this table for Product Genius, you’re not coming on every once in a while. Now you’re on every show. Steven Julian: That’s right. Noah McNeely: So Product Genius brought to you by Opu Probiotics and Product Quick Start. You can catch all of our episodes on productgeniuspod.com. We welcome your questions. More about that at the end of the show. But to start the show, Noah, what’s on your mind? What are we talking about today? Steven Julian: So, you know, I run into a lot of inventors and they, you know, they have limited resources. You know, it’s sort of the classic, what I call the classic hero story, or at least that’s what I wrote in my notes here. You’re kind of, you’re the little guy. You’re against all odds. You’re in a world where there are massive giants out there. You know, the big companies of the world, the Coca-Colas, the Procter & Gamble’s, the on and on and on. So how do you get your… Product out there on the market and make some sales and have a business. And I think that’s what we want to talk about today. But how do you do that without? the resources of a big company? Noah McNeely: And because of those giant companies probably being able, no one can do perfect product development, but they can throw a lot more resources at it than you can. You also had some other thoughts and ideas about, we’re really kind of talking about. Guerrilla tactics for inventors and entrepreneurs and you. Steven Julian: Yeah, not really talking about silverback gorillas or King Kong and really talking more about, you know, revolutionaries. Noah McNeely: Ah, upstart. I believe your phrase you told me was upstart underdog revolutionary. And then you put another disclaimer on that. Steven Julian: Which sounds like a great garage band name. Noah McNeely: Oh, the upstart underdog revolutionaries. Yes. You better trademark that. Grab that domain site so that we can sell it for seven bucks later. Steven Julian: And I think we should note here that we are not advocating the overthrow of any governments or governmental agencies. Noah McNeely: We’re talking David and Goliath. We’re talking, you know, the great American story. And you called it the classic hero story. I think it’s become part of the American mythos of the inventor in their garage, not doing a garage band, but kind of coming up with something and then… Taking. over the world. The famous story of Bill Gates starting in his garage. And, you know, there are others that people will tell us what we forgot to say. And as romanticized as that is and as wonderful as that is, what’s the reality? Steven Julian: Well, the reality is that… You know, you have limited resources when you’re that garage person. And I think we ought to say that it’s not just inventors. I think we’re very focused on inventors because that’s sort of my whole thing. But I think these ideas apply to all entrepreneurs, really, because you’re trying to start something new. You’re generally entering a market where… There are a lot of big players. There are a lot of things that are in your way. There are a lot of reasons just to sit down and say, oh, that’s too much trouble. I don’t want to do it. I don’t have the funds to do it. So what I was kind of planning to talk about today is some of the tools and some of the ways to go about doing it without spending quite as much money as you might have had to a few years ago. Noah McNeely: I got a great way to kick off the interview, I think. Now, you can tell me I’m wrong because it’s your show. I’m just the slightly annoying host. Steven Julian: Is this the part where you ask me a question I can’t answer? Noah McNeely: No, no, no, no, no. That would be more than slightly annoying. That would be irritating and worthy of being kicked off the show, and I do not want that. So if we’re talking about limited resources or almost no resources and, you know, how do we do things? frugally or on the cheap? Can you give me, let’s start with the main one. If everybody’s listening and we hope they listen to the entire show, but if they have to leave early or they, God forbid, lose interest, then I really am not doing my job. What is one or two of the main things people can do to develop their products with limited resources?

Steven Julian: See, that is a question I can’t really answer. There’s not one main thing. This is sort of a lot of little things you can do. Noah McNeely: You really don’t like the seven ways to, you know, do this because last show you. said 367 or whatever it was. Steven Julian: Well, it would be nice if the world were that something. Noah McNeely: You’re almost like a lawyer. The answer to everything is it depends. Steven Julian: Of course, it depends. And, you know, it’s confidential because I’m your lawyer. Noah McNeely: I can see why you and Brock are such good friends. Yes. Steven Julian: Yes. Brock’s a good guy. So one thing. Noah McNeely: Do I need to change the question? Steven Julian: Well, actually, the one thing, don’t spend money, you don’t have to. And that’s, so that leads in. Noah McNeely: That is one good answer. Steven Julian: It’s a blanket. It’s also a lawyer type answer because it’s a blanket. It doesn’t say anything. It covers everything. Noah McNeely: But I can ask a great follow-up to that question. In your experience, and you’ve got a lot of it, what are some of the main things that people spend way too much money on that they don’t have to? We got there. We got there. Steven Julian: So a lot of times I’ll see. Early, early entrepreneurs, they go and spend a ton of money on a logo design or a marketing, branding, whatever, or, you know, this is a whole other show, but patenting the wrong thing. And, you know, that’s, we’ll bring Brock in for that one, but that’s, I see people throw massive amounts of money at that. But really, kind of today, I want to talk about tools you can use for some of these early things, tools slash services slash just different approaches. It’s what I think of it as in the last 10 years, we’ve had this democratization, big word, democratization of professional services. Noah McNeely: I’m going to give away my age. So all the electric company fans out there, democratization. Duh, duh. Anyway, sorry, I’m going to stop. So what do you mean by democratization? Steven Julian: So you have, as an entrepreneur, much greater access to Internet professionals and unfortunately also non-professionals that like to think they’re professionals. So there’s some good, bad, and ugly out there, you know, through the Internet. But you have access to that in a way you wouldn’t have had years ago. You know, back before the Internet, you’d have to go to the Yellow Pages or whatever. Local. Noah McNeely: You’d have to stay. You’d have to hope somebody locally could help you. Steven Julian: For those of you who are younger. We used to have these books called phone books and. everybody’s phone number, every business will be in that. And the yellow pages is where they get the business listening. So anyway, you’d have to go to that book and you have to look down, okay, graphic design, graphic design, graphic design. Okay. And then you call one of those companies and they’d say, you know, and then they would quote you that. And it’s probably company. 10, 20, 30, a hundred people work there. So you’re going to get a pretty big quote. But you’re like, I just want a simple logo. I can’t afford $5,000 to develop my logo yet. Now we’ll talk about what down the road later, but you just need to get started. You don’t need, let’s say you’ve only got $20,000 or $10,000 to get your thing on the market. You don’t need to spend a quarter of that on your logo. So there are, there are ways to do that now that are different. And even back in the early internet stages, it was sort of the same thing. It was just sort of, you would find a website of a company. You look for graphic design, you find a graphic design company, but it was just sort of the yellow pages in a digital format. And over the last several years, it’s, it’s changed. Noah McNeely: Well, I’m going to, I’m going to. Challenge you with something because the tag of the show is you can’t afford perfect product development. So you talked about misspending on things like logo and marketing and branding. Maybe you were talking about before they’ve even got the prototype or the product ready to go to market. But let’s talk a little bit about what you do when you are helping someone develop their product. That is an area where they can. They dramatically overspend based on who they work with and what they ask to be done. Where someone’s trying to develop a product and what specifically should they be paying for in getting that product developed? Is it paying for a prototype? Is it paying for the engineering? Is it kind of give us, this is one of those chances for people that have followed the show. You’ve talked about this at various times. I’m going to stop you and say, let’s do the 60-second to five-minute conversation and break down exactly what you do with people. when it comes to developing their product. Steven Julian: So I have a habit of answering your questions with negative responses about. you asked what to do. I’m going to say what not to do. So what should you not spend money on? I would say you should not, as an inventor or entrepreneur, spend money on the same things, at least at the same scale, that a more established company does. And, you know, those of you who know me or listen before, you know, that’s why I built Product. Weekstart is very focused on, you know, smaller clients, you know, inventors, entrepreneurs, small companies, et cetera. Our business model is a little bit different. Yeah, we do some of the same things. We do really all the same things. We just do them at a scale. That is more appropriate for someone on a very limited budget because, you know, if you’re a Fortune 500 company, like some of the companies I worked for earlier in my career, you can afford to hire a team of designers and pay them tens of thousands, maybe more, to go off and learn every possible thing there is to possibly ever know about. every toaster that’s ever been built. Assuming you’re designing a toaster, obviously, it wouldn’t make sense to learn about toasters if you weren’t. But then come back to you with everything about toasters from the history of the beginning of time. And, oh, and here’s 300 toaster designs we’d like to present to you. Well, you know, that’s great. And if you’re, you know, Acme Super Toaster Company, you can afford that. But if you are an entrepreneur, you can’t. You need someone that’s going to cut through a lot of that and say, you know, 99% of that we don’t need to do. We don’t need to do. We don’t need to know the science behind a toaster. We know toasters work. We know the heating elements work. Here’s four different kinds. We can start there, and we know the new feature you’re adding to a toaster is this. Let’s focus on that, and here’s four really good designs and four really good approaches to making that toaster. Now, I’ve just taken what could have been a $30,000 design program, and now it’s, what, a couple thousand dollars of time and effort to get you there. And now we. can move into the next phase and do the same kind of technique of, yeah, is it the perfect toaster? No. But maybe it’s the perfect toaster to get you to the market with your funds and your resources. And then we can work on Gen 2 down the road after you already have some cash flow. Noah McNeely: So what you just described is more about what you don’t do than what you actually do. Steven Julian: I’m a contrarian. Noah McNeely: Okay. Boy, that’s a challenging of how to ask a question. I believe one of the other things, and so let me circle back to the democratization. to an extent, I believe you were prepared and wanted to kind of focus on some very specific either companies or tools that people now have access to that they didn’t have before in terms of developing their product, again, not perfectly, but in a guerrilla and in a classic hero story, limited resources way. Shall I throw out the name Fiverr and kind of let you riff a little on why you wanted to bring up actual company names other than your own? Steven Julian: Right. And we’re not talking about the rabbit character from the book. Watership Down. It was named Fiverr. I know that’s a deep cut. That’s one of my favorites. Noah McNeely: I was going to go with High Fiverr, but I like yours better. Steven Julian: Yeah. So, yeah, it’s a deep cut. It’s a good book. If you have kids, read it. But, yeah, so the Internet. People have found ways to use the internet increasingly creatively in the last several years. I think that I’m going to caveat all this with the good, bad, ugly comp. On the internet, and this is kind of where the hero story comes in, you’ve got the good, you’ve got the bad, you’ve got the ugly, and you have to be able to discern those and figure out what you’re going to use. So Fiverr is an example of, it’s essentially a service website. It connects. People that do all sorts of things with you, if you want them to. You can go to Fiverr, you can type just about, I want someone to draw me a picture of a skateboard. Okay, you’ll find someone that’ll pay them $20, they’ll draw you a picture of a skateboard. If I ever started with little, little tasks a long time. ago, as I recall, everything kind of did cost $5. It’s a little bit different, it’s evolved now, so there are different tasks that, you know, people kind of put their own price on that. You’re not going to get someone to proofread a four-chapter book for $5, you know, but you can. You know, you can go and you see what they would charge. You can reach out to them. You can go back and forth. So I’ve had clients that have used this to find graphic designers to do their logos and they would end up spending, you know, maybe $50 for a good enough logo to get started. Now, let’s talk about the bad and the ugly. So the bad is they might get something that’s like, oh man, this logo sucks. Now I really don’t like this person. Okay, well, you’re $50 in, go hire another person. You may be, you know, for… Maybe you hire five people, you spend a couple hundred dollars doing that. That’s still cheaper than going to a traditional brand graphic design firm, which are great, by the way, and spending $5,000 to do that. Again, we’re just talking about getting. you started. So the bad is you may get stuff that sucks. The ugly is, and this is where you have to be a little bit careful, and I’ve seen this happen, you may get a logo back and say, that’s great, but they actually just copied that from someone else’s logo. So there are other tools, you know, you have to use the backside of the internet too. That’s not the right way to say it, but you have to use the internet in other ways as well. And so you can take that logo they designed, you can drop it into the Google image search and it’ll search and say, hey, it’ll find similar images. And if you find that exact one, then you’re like, you probably don’t want to use that logo because that’s a copyright violation. Noah McNeely: Thank you for reminding everybody that as great as we try to make this show and as much as we want people to learn, there is the sophomoric side of us. Say the backside of the internet. I caught it. You caught it. I don’t know if the audience caught it, but now everybody has because I brought it up. So that was my opportunity. That’s doing what I do. Slightly annoying. So we are, for those of you just joining us, where have you been? Why’d you come halfway to the podcast? Product Genius with Noah McNeely. And we’re talking today about the classic hero story. You can’t afford to do perfect product development. Which is why we’re kind of talking about guerrilla tactics and we’re talking about, and I’m not going to say cutting, I think some people would go, oh, you’re talking about cutting corners. No, we’re not talking about cutting corners. We’re talking about doing effective product development without the budget of the Fortune 500 companies. It can be done and it can still be done well. It just might take a little creativity. It might take a little. Elbow grease and research on your part to find the way to do it. So I mentioned Fiverr. You kind of talked about that. Given where we’re recording this now, one of the huge topics in the news right now is AI. How does AI interact with the product development process and the democratization? Steven Julian: Well, before we jump off Fiverr entirely. Noah McNeely: Oh, okay. Hold on. There’s more. to talk about with Fiverr. Steven Julian: Well, I did want to say, so Fiverr, that’s a really low-cost way to do it. If you’re like, my task is a little more complicated, you can go up a level there. There’s a site called Upwork. That’s going to connect you more with people that will quote your job specifically and you have more interaction. and maybe that’s for a bigger, more complicated thing again. Noah McNeely: So that’s almost like… Steven Julian: It’s finding freelancers. Noah McNeely: Yeah. So Fiverr is like the garage sale level. That’s probably too cheap. There’s overlap. Steven Julian: There’s overlap because there are great people doing work on Fiverr. Yeah. Upwork is more of a, it’s just really more of a way to connect with freelancers in various types of industries. Again, copywriting or drawing or whatever it is. Noah McNeely: I am so obsessed with finding the right reference. It’s the Dennis Miller in me. I apologize. So Fiverr is more broad. Fiverr welcomes, I guess there’s more of. The bad and the ugly as well as the good in Fiverr? Is that fair to say? Or it’s just broader? Steven Julian: I think that’s a fair aside. Noah McNeely: Okay, okay. So Upwork is going to be more. restrictive of who can get in and more specific in exactly what they’re quoting that they’re going to do rather than just, hey, let me find somebody to do a logo for $10 or $20. Steven Julian: Yeah, you can still get crap on Upwork. Noah McNeely: Absolutely. You get crap anywhere. Steven Julian: And so on Upwork, it’s more you think about your kind of interviewing freelancers a little bit more directly and more specifically about your job. Fiverr, a lot of times the people you work with on Fiverr are offshore, you know, sometimes on Upwork as well, which neither good nor bad. It’s just what it is. You may not be able to communicate as effectively with everyone in that case, and you may have to give them smaller chunks of tasks. Noah McNeely: And you might be able to get more of a specific quote. Or even more of a bigger quote on Upwork. So, okay, so we’ve kind of differentiated and we’ve gone back and forth and you’ve satisfied my urge to try to do my reference. Thank you for that. GarageShare was absolutely the wrong one. I apologize to Fiverr. They’re a great organization. They are actually a publicly traded company. And. in my separate line of work, which I can’t talk about because of compliance, I’ve actually interacted with them to some extent. Steven Julian: What’s the CIA got to do with that? Noah McNeely: None of that. That’s not what it is. That’s not what it is at all. It’s being a product tester for Little Caesars. Steven Julian: Product Genius is brought to you by Opu Probiotics. Pre and probiotics you can pour directly on your tongue in delicious mint and mocha flavors. Noah McNeely: But the taste is just the beginning. With Opu, you can see improved digestive function, boosted immune system, easier weight management, improved mental health, and much more. Steven Julian: Try today at GetOpu.com. Noah McNeely: That’s GetOpu.com. So now can we talk about AI? Have we satisfied that enough? Steven Julian: We can. Noah McNeely: So how does AI work in this idea of product development, especially when I’m the little guy trying to take on the big companies? Steven Julian: Yeah, I don’t know. We don’t know when you’ll actually be listening to this podcast. It could be some far-flung future date in which AI will have evolved even more than it is today. But in 2022 and 2023, AI is really becoming very mainstream in a way that everyone can. use it. And these are internet AI tools. Big companies have been using AI for all sorts of stuff for a long time. I’m sure the Pentagon has been using it for a long time for things we can only imagine and probably don’t want to know about. But now AI has gotten to the point where you can just go to the internet, you can use it, some of the tools are free or cheap, and they’re not that hard to learn how to use. These are things that some of my clients use to do certain tasks as well. Again, not to get perfect results, but to get really quite good results to get themselves going. And then down the road, they can go out and hire the really expensive branding firm or whatever when you have the money to do that. So one of those tools is called ChatGPT. There have been all sorts of articles about it. It’s a tool where you can go to their website. And right now, at this time of this recording, it’s still in sort of a beta test. You can use it for free. Sometimes their server does get overwhelmed. So you go there and it’s going to say, oh, we’re busy. Come back. They have a little funnier way of saying that. But you go there and you type in whatever you want and it’ll give you pretty decent writing back. But you can do really fun, silly stuff. Like you can say, hey, write me a haiku about Legos. 12 seconds later, you’re going to have a decent haiku about Legos. Noah McNeely: Something tells me you’ve actually done it. I have. Yeah. That was a very specific example. Steven Julian: It is a fantastic way to waste time. Ah. So that’s one thing, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. Noah McNeely: Something to take the crown away from YouTube. Steven Julian: Yes. Write me a poem about the Smurfs meeting Garfield. Transformers. Noah McNeely: Yeah, whatever. Steven Julian: It could be anything. And then you’ll get something back. It’s kind of interesting. But more productive ways. Noah McNeely: Yes, for product development. Let’s talk about that. Steven Julian: Yeah, well, not just product development, but for really your business development overall, you know, growing your business development. Let’s say you’re struggling coming up with a tagline for your product. It’s like, you know, it’s my product. It makes it easier to. clean your baby’s face after a meal. Well, okay, well, that’s a really not a great tagline. So you can go to ChatGPT and you can type, rewrite this, and you can say in a more dynamic voice, in a more compelling voice, whatever, put a colon there and then put what that is that you just typed and you’ll get something back. And the great thing about it, if you get something back, you can either take that and you can adjust it to your own needs, or if you don’t like it at all, you just hit redo, redo, redo until you get something you love. That’s a simple example. You can do much bigger things as well. You can do… I’ve done this when it’s like late in the day, it’s like seven o’clock and I’m like, I send this email, I explain all this stuff to this person. I don’t have time or energy left to write this in a really good way. So I’ll just put my bullet points in chat GPT and say, write a nice email that covers this. And I just write out my bullet points and then I get back a. nice email that covers that. I may have to edit it a little bit, but then I can send it out and no one would know I was exhausted by the time I wrote that email. Noah McNeely: That explains the email you sent me. Steven Julian: Was it about Legos? Noah McNeely: There was a haiku about Legos in there. Is there a cost to the chat GPT service? Steven Julian: At the moment, no. I do suspect that at some point you may have a small subscription fee. I doubt it’s going to be very much. Noah McNeely: Who’s behind it? Who started chat GPT?

Steven Julian: The giant robot that kills everybody at the end of Terminal. Noah McNeely: Skynet. Got it. Steven Julian: Use it for now until we’re all slaves to the overall. Yes, exactly. Noah McNeely: Until the GPT is telling us, here’s what I need you to do. Steven Julian: So I actually, what is the name of the company? The company developed ChatGPT. I can’t remember the name offhand. Noah McNeely: I’ve stumped Noah McNeely. Woo-hoo! You know, if we asked ChatGPT, it would tell us who was behind it. Steven Julian: Now, yeah, so ChatGPT. GPT is fabulous. You can use it. Again, let’s say you have written something and you’re like, well, that’s my. sales pitch. It doesn’t, it’s not very compelling. You can put that in there and say, write this in a more compelling way and it’ll do it. It’s a fantastic tool. Noah McNeely: As we’re currently recording this, so it’s really, and the way it spits all this stuff back out is that it is, it’s machine learning. It has all the data. Potentially at its fingertips of what it’s, okay, I’ve got this bullet point and I’m looking at millions of examples of emails that have been written similarly and then I spit back out and then you take it and go from there. Steven Julian: Right. Even if you don’t like anything specifically, it spits back out. I found that it will prompt me to have other ideas. So I didn’t think about that. So now I can incorporate that into what I was going to say. Noah McNeely: And as you’re working on limited time and limited budget, potentially, whatever those limited resources are. Steven Julian: Right. Noah McNeely: A resource like AI, when used smartly or correctly, and sometimes entertainingly, is that a word, entertainingly, allows you to get those things done. Steven Julian: So it’s a resource that helps you save time. Noah McNeely: I am now officially scared. that Product Genius is eventually going to be hosted by ChatGPT. So I will be doing everything in my power, and it makes me work harder so that you don’t replace me with ChatGPT. I believe there were two. What’s another AI tool? Steven Julian: So the other group of tools is the image generation tools. And there’s really three big ones that I know of. There are others. You’ve got stable diffusion. That may be the best known one. There’s one called DAL-E, and I don’t know if I pronounced that properly. And then there’s one called Mid Journey. And I’ve actually used this in some of my workflow to generate ideas for some box designs and things like that. And I never quite got something that I could just use straight up, but it prompted ideas for me and that I didn’t have to sit down and do a brainstorm with a bunch of people to get to that point, which I really didn’t have time for and the client didn’t have budget for. So I was able to do this and get to something that was… That’s really quite professional looking and it got the launch now down the. road. Again, they may go back and they may hire a high-powered brand firm for their second product, but they can’t afford that right now. Noah McNeely: So when you say image generation tool, I’m going to play the idiot. It’s a picture. Now, what exactly are you talking about? Are there entrepreneurs and inventors listening to this and going, Steven, come on. Seriously, you don’t know what an image generation tool is? Steven Julian: I don’t know what people are thinking about this. Noah McNeely: Well, then why don’t you explain it to me and then they won’t feel as bad because I will play the court jester. Steven Julian: So if chat GPT was a good way to waste time, these are fantastic ways to waste time. So you can literally go and type anything and say, I want to see a picture. of a monkey riding a rhinoceros through New York City. And you’re going to get some options of pictures of a monkey riding a rhinoceros through New York City. You’ll get different options. He’ll show you four. One of them may be right spot on to what you want and you can take it. Or it may, you can say, if you don’t. like any of them, you just hit redo and you’ll get four new ones. and you hit redo and you get four new ones. Noah McNeely: So I don’t know how our listeners’ minds work. I immediately thought, what oxymoron could I type in that would break the machine? The first thing that came to mind was type in, show me a picture of an honest politician. Steven Julian: It’ll produce something. Noah McNeely: It’ll produce something. I think that’s a good one to try. Yeah, I’ve just given you something, you know, seven o’clock when you’re tired, you’re going to put in the next image generator. Okay. Steven Julian: So on a top level of how it works, where it would get that image from is it’s, you know, there’s billions of images on the internet. They have descriptions and yeah, there’s a lot more to it than this, but kind of think about that’s all in a database now. And you type in. You know, monkey, rhino, New York City, it’s going to look at pictures of monkeys and rhinos and it’s going to sort of combine that together in clever ways. I don’t understand that. I have no idea how the algorithm works. You know, it’s way above my computer science pay grade, but it’s pretty cool. Noah McNeely: And clearly in product development and in developing a prototype, things like that. So clearly the way you would use it or the way someone who’s an inventor entrepreneur, hey, I’m trying to come up with a product that, you know, is a doorknob that… It helps people who have prosthetics, limbs, or whatever. And they type all that stuff in and it can help create an image. Steven Julian: It’s not going to necessarily, in that case, and I have used it in that sort of sphere a little bit. It’s not going to design a product for you. It’s not going to engineer a product for you. But it will show you some different shapes of things that you may not have thought of. And it’s like, okay, I was thinking of these three shapes as possible, but that one’s kind of different. Let me explore that out on my own in the CAD or in the whatever to see if I can develop that further if I like it. Now, it’s also going to show you some that are totally infeasible just because it doesn’t know. All. it does is the words you typed in. It doesn’t know that that doorknob shape is ergonomically impossible or inappropriate, but it’s almost a numbers game. You do that, you roll that 10 times, you might get two or three out of that. It’s like, oh, that’s worth exploring. Noah McNeely: Going back at, so the chat GPT generates wording. The image generator generates images, and I’m simplifying, I’m sure. But I’m sitting here thinking, again, going back to what you’re bringing up here of how you do a product development with limited resources under the ChatGPT. One of the key things is, does this thing already exist? I can go to ChatGPT, start typing in some of my ideas and the things I’m thinking need to be developed. Then all of a sudden I go, It generates something or generates an image or it shows me somethi

Steven Julian: Greetings and salutations. Steven Julian: I am your slightly annoying host, Steven Julian. Steven Julian: Welcome to a new edition of Product Genius. Steven Julian: This time… Without Tiffany Crumans, but what we do have is the fantastic Noah McNeely. Steven Julian: Noah, welcome back to the show. Noah McNeely: Yeah, it’s good to be back. Noah McNeely: I feel like it’s been an entire pandemic ago. Steven Julian: Almost. Steven Julian: It’s been at least, it’s been a year, but it does kind of feel like a whole pandemic ago. Steven Julian: So, Product Genius, this might sound a little bit different. Steven Julian: There are some differences. Steven Julian: Why don’t? Steven Julian: we cover all that stuff up front?

Steven Julian: Broadcasting this show almost live from the Plush Palatial Studios that is the worldwide headquarters of Product Quick Start. Steven Julian: Tell everybody about your new digs. Noah McNeely: Yes, so Product Quick Start, we were fortunate enough to move into a new facility, well, new to us facility that we’re renovating in what they call the Depot District of Lawrenceville, Georgia, which is this… Exciting little area where we have some breweries and we have a distillery going in. Noah McNeely: that I think is going to make tequila and I try to remain sober during the day when I’m working here. Steven Julian: Especially when you’re doing the show. Steven Julian: Well, maybe not as much when you do that. Noah McNeely: Probably more important that I remain sober when using the power equipment in the back. Steven Julian: Amen. Steven Julian: The other thing we want to talk about for those people who are coming upon this episode and have listened to past episodes. Steven Julian: In some respects, we’re the same, but in some respects, there are some differences. Steven Julian: This show was always known as Product Genius with Tiffany Krumans. Steven Julian: Tiffany is still with us, but she’s not with us in the studio. Steven Julian: So, Noah, I ask. Steven Julian: you, where in the world is Tiffany Krumans? Noah McNeely: Well, anyone that has listened to more recent shows probably knows Tiffany has a lot of ideas for businesses, and she also has… New children in her life, and she stays very, very busy. Noah McNeely: Her latest company is called Opu Probiotics, and it’s a fabulous product. Noah McNeely: I recommend you try it. Noah McNeely: I particularly like the mocha mint flavor. Noah McNeely: But anyway, we believe that Tiffany is scouring the world looking for the finest ingredients she can for that particular product. Noah McNeely: So you might find her in the Himalayas or the Amazon. Noah McNeely: Probably wearing a baby and a baby Bjorn and with three other kids following her around. Steven Julian: And everybody can go to opuprobiotics.com, opuprobiotics.com, and see all the latest things that Tiffany is doing with that product. Steven Julian: And therefore, she was the creator of Product Genius originally, and you were a fantastic partner and sponsor of the show and would come on and talk about… Developing products through your business, productquickstart.com. Steven Julian: And when Tiffany really launched Opu, she told all of us, Jody Smith, the producer of the show, and myself as the slightly annoying host, hey, I’m going to take a little. Steven Julian: bit of time off. Steven Julian: I got to launch this new business. Steven Julian: And then in the meantime, let me just fast forward a little bit. Steven Julian: And I don’t know how much behind the scenes and unplugged you want to get. Steven Julian: Why are you sitting across the table from me and why are you now kind of leading this ship that Tiffany built up to this point? Noah McNeely: Well, first, we’re going to hope that the Shipley is led in a good direction and not running aground. Steven Julian: Not yet, at least. Steven Julian: We’re five minutes in. Steven Julian: It’s so far so good. Noah McNeely: So, yeah, we’re doing great at the moment. Noah McNeely: Well, I always enjoyed doing the show. Noah McNeely: I mean, I had a lot of fun with you guys and it really hits one of my passions, which… I like talking about this stuff. Noah McNeely: I do what I love. Noah McNeely: I enjoy explaining it to people. Noah McNeely: I think the show is a good way to do that. Noah McNeely: I’ve actually met a number of people through the show. Noah McNeely: Those are all great conversations. Noah McNeely: My hope is as we move forward, Product Genius will be a show that’s useful for inventors, of course. Noah McNeely: Really, I think we’re going to. Noah McNeely: talk about things that relate to all entrepreneurs or most entrepreneurs. Noah McNeely: Even to people that work for bigger companies that want to think more like entrepreneurs. Steven Julian: So here we are after more than a year off. Steven Julian: We’re doing a new show. Steven Julian: Noah McNeely is sitting across the table from me. Steven Julian: Jody Smith from JodySmith.com is still our producer. Steven Julian: I’m still the slightly annoying host. Steven Julian: And here we are still talking about product development. Steven Julian: We’re going to talk about inventing. Steven Julian: And today we’re talking about help. Steven Julian: I’ve got too many ideas. Steven Julian: Which is definitely true of this show after not doing it for a year. Steven Julian: And people who are doing product development and kind of trying to bring their product to market, as they’re bringing one product to market, they have all these other ideas. Steven Julian: That’s the entrepreneurial, that’s the inventor. Steven Julian: There’s a lot of people listening who, number one, are going, okay, yeah, they’re talking about something I need to talk about. Steven Julian: And when you’re listening to this, you might also be thinking, Ooh, I know someone else that needs to hear this. Steven Julian: So listen to this one, invite them to hear the show because we’re going to be talking. Steven Julian: about, I got too many ideas. Steven Julian: So the title of the show, obviously I gave a little bit of a inkling of it.

Steven Julian: You are guilty of this just like anybody else, right? Noah McNeely: Oh, absolutely. Noah McNeely: In fact, the fact that I’m doing this podcast while writing a business and… Engaging in various other hobbies may be an example of where I’m guilty of this, but I’m trying to balance it well. Noah McNeely: And we thought this would be a really good topic for the first show because Tiffany is actually a great example of doing this well. Noah McNeely: She realized at some point that she had too many different things going on. Noah McNeely: So to be successful, she had to push some of them to the back, and that’s why. Noah McNeely: That’s why we’re here. Steven Julian: That’s why she’s out finding those great products or finding those great ingredients to go into the mint mocha. Noah McNeely: That’s why she’s in the Amazon today. Noah McNeely: Exactly. Noah McNeely: So, you know, this is a problem that doesn’t just affect inventors and entrepreneurs. Noah McNeely: It actually affects big companies as well. Noah McNeely: And back when I did a lot of big company work, this was a topic that would come up. Noah McNeely: The big. Noah McNeely: scary corporate name for this is portfolio management. Noah McNeely: As an inventor entrepreneur, you never need to use that phrase again, probably. Noah McNeely: But the idea is even big companies, they have so many things that they want to do or would love to do, but they can’t do them all. Noah McNeely: In a big company, like a Fortune 500 company, I almost said some names there, but I don’t want to be sued or anything by any of my clients from years ago. Noah McNeely: In a big company, you have entire teams of people in many cases. Noah McNeely: Their whole job is to manage and really to do the portfolio management role. Noah McNeely: They’ll have roadmaps of products that the company is going to develop for five, ten years out in some cases, and they have to prioritize those. Steven Julian: So let’s talk about the person who’s listening to this podcast who’s trying to bring one or a couple of products to market or are trying to build their business. Steven Julian: Go from idea to prototype to development.

Steven Julian: When you say, help, I’ve got too many ideas, can that be true of one product? Noah McNeely: It can be. Noah McNeely: It can be true of one product or it can. Noah McNeely: also just be the nature of the individual. Noah McNeely: So I’ve met people that clients have come in and they get really excited about their product. Noah McNeely: We go through that. Noah McNeely: And then a lot of times on the way out the door, they’re like, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Noah McNeely: I’ve got seven more I’m working on. Noah McNeely: We’re going to talk about them next time. Noah McNeely: And I think they tell me that to get me more excited about working with them, but that’s really often a red flag. Noah McNeely: So on the next meeting, you’re at the next meeting, I usually have to tamp that down a little bit and say, you know, look, that’s great. Noah McNeely: I love all these ideas, but let’s get one on the market first. Noah McNeely: And I think that can be a tough thing for entrepreneurs, even myself, because I have… I have so many things I want to accomplish and want to do, but it’s easy to want to spend all the time in the visionary stage. Noah McNeely: Hey, this is going to be fun. Noah McNeely: I’m going to spend all day thinking about this idea and jotting out what’s it going to be like when. Noah McNeely: I’m done. Noah McNeely: But the problem is there’s a lot of things that have to happen between now and achieving that vision. Steven Julian: And the ideas is the sexy part. Steven Julian: The ideas is the everybody’s. Steven Julian: Had at least one or two ideas. Steven Julian: I actually, I still don’t know why at times I’m the slightly annoying host of the show because I’ve had very few ideas of products. Steven Julian: I’ve never tried to develop anything, but I would relate it. Steven Julian: I, I love the world of comedy and I love listening to comedians, especially them talking about doing jokes. Steven Julian: And it’s one thing to have, Hey, Seinfeld had a book called, is this anything you start with an idea? Steven Julian: Hey, is this anything? Steven Julian: Is this potentially funny? Steven Julian: But from that point to getting it to where it’s a tight bit to be done on stage, there’s this huge, there’s a lot of work that goes in. Steven Julian: So you just mentioned it’s easy to do the ideas. Steven Julian: I got seven more, but they got all this work they got to do to just to get that one. Steven Julian: But I want to drill down and I want to kind of push back and ask even that. Steven Julian: person who’s on that one, I’ve got too many ideas. Steven Julian: Do they get sidetracked with too many things even in that one single idea? Steven Julian: That they’re bringing to market? Noah McNeely: Yeah, that can happen too.

Noah McNeely: I think we may have talked about this a long time ago, but there’s a concept I call minimum viable product or early viable product. Steven Julian: I remember that. Noah McNeely: Yes, it’s a classic. Noah McNeely: You should check it out. Noah McNeely: But the issue there is sometimes maybe it is just one product, but they have all these ideas for that one product. Noah McNeely: Oh, I want it to do this. Noah McNeely: I want it to do that. Noah McNeely: I want it to be Wi-Fi and I want it to levitate and I want it to glow in the dark. Noah McNeely: Sir, it’s a doorknob. Noah McNeely: It doesn’t need to necessarily do all that. Noah McNeely: Those are all great. Noah McNeely: Let’s get one on the market. Noah McNeely: because all that stuff you just talked about, that’s a two-year development program. Noah McNeely: If we just do your basic product, which is already cool and already different than anything out there, you can be on the market in six months. Noah McNeely: You can generate revenue. Noah McNeely: You’ve got a successful business at that. Noah McNeely: point. Noah McNeely: And more importantly, you’ve got money that you can now spend on Gen 2 and Gen 3 and Gen 4. Noah McNeely: But if we start down the path of developing, The super mega colossal product now, you’re never going to get there. Steven Julian: And we titled this show again, Help, but I think probably more often than not your job as the product development guru, as the genius who helps people bring their product to market, you have to tell them you really should be saying, Help, I have too many ideas in this super amazing, stupendous product. Steven Julian: Very rarely do they verbalize that. Steven Julian: You’re helping them verbalize. Noah McNeely: Right. Noah McNeely: Well, sometimes I have to help people realize it is a problem because, like I said, a lot of visionary people and a lot of entrepreneurs, like myself, we do tend to love that visionary phase. Noah McNeely: And we think that’s the most important thing. Noah McNeely: It’s not. Noah McNeely: It’s actually one of the least important and easiest parts of having a successful business.

Noah McNeely: So think about it this way. Noah McNeely: Think about all the little boys who dream about winning a Super Bowl as the quarterback. Noah McNeely: Now, you can’t just keep dreaming about winning a. Super Bowl. Noah McNeely: That’s great. Noah McNeely: That’s a wonderful vision. Noah McNeely: But if you don’t start exercising and training and learning the game, you’ll never play on a team, much less get to the Super Bowl. Steven Julian: So it’s a difference between being a Super Bowl quarterback and being Uncle Rico sitting on the front step saying, if Coach had put me in that game, we would have won the state that year. Noah McNeely: That’s exactly right. Noah McNeely: And there are no time machines that will get you back there. Steven Julian: Exactly. Steven Julian: So portfolio management, to use the term of the Fortune 500 companies, is really them kind of categorizing or siloing or insert other corporate term here. Steven Julian: But really, it’s checking boxes. Steven Julian: It’s laying it out in steps.

Steven Julian: Is that something that you, as the person with Product Quick Start, is trying to help people say, okay, here are the 17 steps that we’re going to have to take? Steven Julian: Or is it just getting them focused on creating the 17 steps? Steven Julian: Kind of talk through that process. Steven Julian: Someone’s got an idea, and then someone starts to spiral into too many ideas. Steven Julian: The portfolio management that you do, not for the Fortune 500, but for the individual. Steven Julian: entrepreneur and inventor, what do you try to bring to the table? Noah McNeely: Yeah, so it’s really launch your product in 375 easy steps. Noah McNeely: No, it’s not. Noah McNeely: There’s really only two questions. Steven Julian: I thought it was 367 steps. Noah McNeely: We revised it last year. Noah McNeely: Oh, okay. Noah McNeely: So there’s really only two. Noah McNeely: Two questions that I ask people to consider when they’re trying to prioritize the features of their product or which product to develop or which product to develop when. Noah McNeely: And with the assumption that inventor entrepreneurs, you probably don’t have five people or 20 people on a team that you’re paying to do all the analysis. Noah McNeely: And yeah, you go to a really big company and they’re going to ask a lot more than these two questions. Noah McNeely: At least they’re going to ask a lot more versions of these two questions. Noah McNeely: But the two questions I tell people to consider is, number one, what can I get to the market with my resources? Noah McNeely: And of course, I can help them try to figure that out. Noah McNeely: This is how much it’s going to take to develop this product, to make the tooling for it, to produce it. Noah McNeely: So we have to be. Noah McNeely: realistic about what resources you have to actually get that to the market. Noah McNeely: And that may mean you can’t launch five at a time. Noah McNeely: Now, I’ve had some clients that are just independently wealthy, and yeah, they can do it. Noah McNeely: They have the resources for that. Noah McNeely: It can still be a bad idea in those cases because a resource that people often overlook is their own time, their own focus, their own ability to strategize and think about their business. Noah McNeely: So the second question is, what can I sell? Noah McNeely: You know, what will I be able to sell? Noah McNeely: So, yeah, this is a great idea. Noah McNeely: I have the funds to develop it. Noah McNeely: I have the resources to develop it. Noah McNeely: But is there a market for it? Noah McNeely: And is it a market that I understand well enough to actually sell? Noah McNeely: And the answer to either of those questions is no. Noah McNeely: Then that’s probably not the product you should develop first. Noah McNeely: You need to focus on the product or the collection of features in your product. Noah McNeely: that both of those answers are yes. Steven Julian: And I know we’ve talked about variations of those questions over past episodes. Steven Julian: Encourage everybody to go back and. Steven Julian: listen to Noah’s past episodes on Product Genius. Noah McNeely: Product Genius is brought to you by Opu Probiotics. Noah McNeely: Pre and probiotics you can pour directly on your tongue in delicious mint and mocha flavors. Steven Julian: But the taste is just the beginning. Noah McNeely: With Opu, you can see improved digestive function, boosted immune system, easier weight management, improved mental health, and much more. Noah McNeely: Try today at GetOpu.com. Steven Julian: That’s GetOpu.com. Steven Julian: Let me focus in on the second question. Steven Julian: first, because I think… The typical inventor entrepreneur who sits down with you, especially with their first idea, and you ask them that question, you know, what can I sell? Steven Julian: Can this sell? Steven Julian: Their answer, bar none, is going to be, well, of course this is going to sell. Steven Julian: It’s a fantastic idea. Steven Julian: I came up with this. Steven Julian: It came in a bolt of lightning. Steven Julian: Everybody who brings you any idea is going to tell you, well, of course it’s going to sell. Steven Julian: It’s fantastic. Noah McNeely: Yeah, I’ve heard variations of, well, why wouldn’t you buy this if you could buy it? Noah McNeely: I’ve probably heard a hundred variations of that throughout the course of my career.

Steven Julian: You’re a communist pig if you don’t buy this, of course. Steven Julian: This is great. Steven Julian: Sorry, that was my insertion, not Noah’s. Steven Julian: My apologies. Noah McNeely: Yeah, so we’re going to remain politically apolitical here as best we can. Noah McNeely: Uh, yeah. Noah McNeely: So a lot of, um, a lot of inventor entrepreneurs, they’re so enamored by their idea. Noah McNeely: They just can’t imagine it not being successful. Noah McNeely: And then they’re like, well, as soon as people see this, they’re going to want it. Noah McNeely: That may be true. Noah McNeely: And that, that in some ways that for most people, that probably is true. Noah McNeely: The question becomes, how do you reach those people? Noah McNeely: And that’s also part of how do you sell it? Noah McNeely: Can you sell it? Noah McNeely: Uh, so if you’ve got a, it’s a product that, oh, everyone would use it. Noah McNeely: Well, that’s almost the worst kind of product for an inventor because. Noah McNeely: You don’t have the marketing budget to reach everybody. Noah McNeely: If it’s more focused, like, well, people that have teenage girls that want to learn how to play golf, you can reach that market a lot easier and in a more forceful way. Noah McNeely: So that’s also part of, you know, what’s it going to take to sell this? Noah McNeely: Not necessarily even, do I have the sales? Noah McNeely: skills? Noah McNeely: You can always hire someone to do that for you, but it’s got to be. Noah McNeely: Do I have the resources not only to design, develop, produce this product, but do I have the resources to sell it? Noah McNeely: What are those resources going to be? Steven Julian: And in your help in answering that question, because I was kind of pushing back against the question, the second question you asked there, what can I sell? Steven Julian: You have to drill down and you have to ask that question more specifically or they have to answer that question more specifically because really what you’re asking is, is there a market for this? Steven Julian: Can the person define the market? Steven Julian: Can you sell it? Steven Julian: Meaning the person who’s got the idea, how would you sell it? Steven Julian: So let me then ask this in helping them answer that question. Steven Julian: How much is it you trying to get them to have their eyes open to all the all that that’s going to entail of selling the product? Steven Julian: or and or how much is it you saying, if you’ll listen to me, I’ve had a lot of experience and I’ve done this for a long time and I’ve done. Steven Julian: this. Steven Julian: On corporate level and individual level, here’s what I believe and I know surrounding what you’ve just told me about this idea. Noah McNeely: It’s a little bit of both. Noah McNeely: It depends on who I’m talking to and how receptive they are. Steven Julian: Ah, there we go. Noah McNeely: Different people with different personalities. Noah McNeely: You know, it’s kind of like the old Aesop’s fables, the way he would teach very powerful people lessons without insulting them, as he would tell a story about someone else who was fictional. Noah McNeely: They would maybe learn a lesson about. Noah McNeely: So sometimes I have to do that. Noah McNeely: And it comes along as, you know, I have to say, you know, look, I’m not into sales. Noah McNeely: I’m not into marketing. Noah McNeely: I design, build, and create stuff. Noah McNeely: I can help you fill a warehouse full of product. Noah McNeely: That’s no problem. Noah McNeely: We got that. Noah McNeely: What I can’t help you do is I can’t help you sell. Noah McNeely: I can’t help you market. Noah McNeely: I can tell you what I’ve seen other people do and what that’s cost them. Noah McNeely: And oftentimes that loan and going through that process is enough to help them realize, oh, I hadn’t thought about that. Noah McNeely: I hadn’t thought about that. Noah McNeely: I am going to need a budget for that. Noah McNeely: And so sometimes I approach it that way. Noah McNeely: Sometimes people come in and they do have a lot of really good business savvy, business knowledge, business experience. Noah McNeely: They understand that right up front. Noah McNeely: I have to do a lot less in those cases. Noah McNeely: Sometimes in those cases, it’s more about explaining why it costs so much to make this product or that product or whatever it is. Steven Julian: So let me just ask Noah McNeely, the Product Quick Start CEO and the guy who’s done this for more than a few years, although you only look like you’ve been doing it for a few years. Noah McNeely: Well, hair dye goes a long way. Steven Julian: Exactly. Steven Julian: And flattery will get me everywhere. Steven Julian: Do you enjoy to an extent when someone who’s just starting out in this, it’s their first idea, they’ve never run a business, but they’re receptive to your kind of expertise and guidance. Steven Julian: There’s that that’s satisfying. Steven Julian: As well as the satisfying of kind of someone with some business savvy who knows the business stuff and you don’t have to spend as much time on that and you can really just focus on. Steven Julian: the product development. Steven Julian: Is there a preference one where this is just a personal question I’m asking at this point? Noah McNeely: That is a very difficult question. Noah McNeely: Exactly. Steven Julian: I’m slightly annoyed. Noah McNeely: It’s very individual based. Steven Julian: This is a relational thing for you, right? Steven Julian: This is a relational business, even for you and this. Noah McNeely: I’ll put you this way. Noah McNeely: I’m at a point in my career, I’ve done this long enough, I don’t usually have to work with people I dislike. Noah McNeely: Now, I will do my best to help anyone. Noah McNeely: Even if I dislike you, I will try to point you in a good direction, sometimes to someone I don’t like, but also. Noah McNeely: They don’t know that. Noah McNeely: Yeah, they don’t know that. Noah McNeely: No, but either can be good. Noah McNeely: I think it’s better for me to answer this from the standpoint of what’s the worst type of relationship. Steven Julian: Oh, there we go. Noah McNeely: That’s where someone comes in and they’ve never developed a product before. Noah McNeely: They don’t know anything about it, but they saw something on TV. Noah McNeely: So now they’re an expert or they stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Noah McNeely: So now they’re an expert and they come in and they’re like, this is how you’re going to do it. Noah McNeely: This is how you’re going to do it. Noah McNeely: And I’m like, well, why are you here? Noah McNeely: How am I supposed to help you? Noah McNeely: You know everything already. Noah McNeely: Even though everything you just told me is completely wrong. Noah McNeely: I know you’ve read a book about it that some idiot wrote who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but that’s not how you do it. Noah McNeely: That’s not how the real world works. Noah McNeely: So those are not good relationships. Noah McNeely: Those usually end quickly. Noah McNeely: The other side of that is people that they just cannot accept what I’m telling them. Noah McNeely: So here’s the problem you have. Noah McNeely: And if you cannot solve this problem, You don’t have a business. Noah McNeely: Now, that’s just my opinion, but my opinion is based on a lot of experience, and some people just, they get really irritated about that, and I never hear from them again, and that’s probably for the best for me. Noah McNeely: But unfortunately, they then go out and they find an engineer who’s just happy to take their money, and they’ll spend a year. Noah McNeely: Dumping thousands of dollars into making something that they can never afford to produce or. Noah McNeely: that it’s never going to sell or it’s just the wrong market. Steven Julian: I like the way you answered that question. Steven Julian: Well done. Steven Julian: I asked a difficult question. Steven Julian: Noah gave a great answer to it. Steven Julian: So let me transition from the second question you asked of what can I sell. Steven Julian: And let’s kind of circle back real quick to that first question. Steven Julian: What can I get to the market with my resources? Steven Julian: This is a… Another way of kind of talking about minimum viable products. Steven Julian: So what do you need to know from the person that you’re talking to? Steven Julian: when it comes, because that word resources, let me unpack that just a little bit more. Steven Julian: You know, what can I get to the market with my resources? Steven Julian: You kind of need to know some things. Steven Julian: How much money do you have? Steven Julian: How much time do you have? Steven Julian: Kind of break that down. Noah McNeely: Yeah, I need them to be honest with themselves and with me.

Noah McNeely: Stuff costs what it costs. Noah McNeely: You know, I can’t work for free. Noah McNeely: Most people cannot. Noah McNeely: It doesn’t do you or me any good for you to come in and wear a fancy suit, pretend like you have. Noah McNeely: all this money, and then you don’t. Noah McNeely: Because then you and I are going to talk and go, hey, this is generally what this is going to cost. Noah McNeely: And you’re going to get one or two steps into that and say, oh, I can’t afford to go any further. Noah McNeely: Well, it’s like, well, why did you waste the money on the first two steps? Noah McNeely: I told you what it was going to cost to get this far. Noah McNeely: It’s like, I don’t know. Noah McNeely: Well. Noah McNeely: I can’t refund your money. Noah McNeely: All the work is done. Noah McNeely: The prototypes are built. Noah McNeely: Whatever it is, that’s done. Noah McNeely: I’m sorry you can’t take it any further, but I don’t know what you want me to do. Noah McNeely: Go out and raise some money and come back in a few years, I guess. Noah McNeely: So that’s kind of the worst scenario there. Noah McNeely: I think I do need to do my best to explain to them, and I try my very best to this where I can. Noah McNeely: This is generally what it’s going to take. Noah McNeely: Hear what they’re trying to do. Noah McNeely: I’ll lay out a scope. Noah McNeely: Okay, the first phase is to get us to a prototype. Noah McNeely: I can give. Noah McNeely: that a pretty tight number. Noah McNeely: If there’s stuff in there, I don’t know. Noah McNeely: Yeah, I don’t know. Noah McNeely: Are we going to end up in this material or that material? Noah McNeely: Beyond that, I have to give an estimated range. Noah McNeely: And then I can give my best guess at what the manufacturing is going to cost. Noah McNeely: But I can’t, you know, obviously on day one, nothing’s been designed. Noah McNeely: So I don’t know exactly what that is going to cost at the back end. Noah McNeely: So I do my best to open their eyes to what the costs are going to be. Noah McNeely: And also a little bit, you know, you’re going to have to have money for marketing. Noah McNeely: If you’re going to do a patent, I’ll send them to Brock, who you may know from other shows. Noah McNeely: All that’s going to take money. Noah McNeely: You may have to prioritize what you want to spend your money on and how you want to spend it. Noah McNeely: And I think actually in our next episode, we have some ideas about that. Steven Julian: Ooh, fellow with a tease. Noah McNeely: A slight tease, yes. Noah McNeely: I like that. Steven Julian: Well done. Noah McNeely: I am not a radio professional. Steven Julian: You just played one on this podcast. Steven Julian: So let me just, again, push back slightly on the word resources. Steven Julian: So we are talking about money. Steven Julian: There’s no question. Steven Julian: that is the main. Noah McNeely: Not just money. Steven Julian: Well, that was my question. Steven Julian: Don’t take my question away from me. Steven Julian: You definitely are not a professional when you did that. Noah McNeely: Clearly not. Steven Julian: So apart from money, what other resources can people bring to the table that you need to know about that will help you in helping them develop their products? Steven Julian: See how I did that? Steven Julian: Was that good? Steven Julian: All right. Noah McNeely: Thank you. Noah McNeely: So you may have other resources in terms of people in your network. Noah McNeely: You know, if you come in and say, I have this great idea and it’s for, you know, baseball players and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Noah McNeely: And okay, that’s great. Noah McNeely: But you don’t tell me, oh, and by the way, my cousin plays Major League Baseball. Noah McNeely: Well, you know, that’s a resource that we could know about. Noah McNeely: that can actually change my mind about how you would market this. Noah McNeely: Oh, well, maybe you don’t need all this money for marketing because your cousin can endorse it. Noah McNeely: Well, that may change what I advise you. Noah McNeely: on. Noah McNeely: