Product Genius, the Podcast for Inventors, Entrepreneurs, and Startups

Steven Julian

How long is this going to take anyway? If you ask that of Noah McNeely, our product genius, he's probably going to say it depends. So put on some depends or not and listen to this next episode of Product Genius. Do you want to be a successful inventor entrepreneur 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.

Noah McNeely

Let's get started.

Steven Julian

Here's your slightly annoying co-host, Steven Julian. Hey, that's my line. That's what a slightly annoying co-host would say. As she stated, I am Steven Julian. Your Slightly Annoying co-host with the person you're really here to hear from, the trusted guide, he who is known as Noah McNeely here on Product Genius. Hey, Noah.

Noah McNeely

Hi, how are you doing?

Steven Julian

I'm doing great. We are talking about how long this is going to take. We're talking about time. We're actually talking about, you said to me. off the air, you remember when TikTok was just a way to tell time.

Noah McNeely

That's right. TikTok, TikTok, TikTok.

Steven Julian

And now we're going to talk about time in terms of how long it takes or how long is this going to take or how long should this take to get my product idea from idea to development to market to all those kinds of things. That's a question you get a lot.

Noah McNeely

It is. You know, a lot of people when they, you know, we've, you know, they filled out the form, which we talk about a lot.

Steven Julian

We'll talk about at the end of this show as well.

Noah McNeely

We will. We schedule the call. We're on the call. And sometimes. Before they've even told me what their idea is, they're like, how long is it going to take to get my product to the market? So I often have to respond with, I don't know.

Steven Julian

Is that good enough? I mean, then they go, oh, okay, great. So let's keep talking. I would imagine that's, you get some follow-up questions to that.

Noah McNeely

That is rarely good enough. And I usually have to preemptively prevent the follow-up questions by explaining. why I don't know. Because if I just left it at I Don't Know, they probably would not consider me a genius for very long.

Steven Julian

True. I believe you have a story from your past that maybe kind of encapsulates to start off. Because, you know, every good TED Talk or every good sermon starts with a great story. So let's hear yours.

Noah McNeely

Right. So one of my good college buddies, and shout out to Mike if you're listening, he used to have a roommate named Freddy. And Freddie would ask him all these ridiculous questions. And I don't even remember what they were, but Mike would say, I don't know. And then Freddie would respond with, well, if you did know, what would you say? So I kind of get variety of variations of that kind of response once in a while. So I have to go through why. we don't know exactly how long it's going to take.

Some clients press and some clients or some potential clients, they just can't accept, well, I got to know exactly. We usually don't end up working together because they don't really want to learn about the process. They don't really. want to understand why, you know, I can hire somebody to mow my lawn and I know it's going to take an hour. Why can't you tell me how long exactly it's going to take to get my product to the market? Now, most people are, you know, they're willing to listen. They realize, you know, I'm not an engineer.

I'm not a designer. I need to listen to this guy and hear. Why he can't tell me on January 5th, you're going to have a product in hand.

Steven Julian

And one of the reasons why we're doing this particular episode is if people listen to this, they may get some of those answers ahead of time before they even get on a call with you or anyone else that's trying to help them bring their product to market. So it kind of depends. And because of the process, what are some of those things that... Cause you to have to answer the question, how long is this going to take with, I'm not sure. I don't know. Let's talk further. What are some of the variables?

What are some of the key variables that you come across time after time? after time that we can learn about now during this episode?

Noah McNeely

Well, the biggest, really the only major variable, because everything else kind of falls under this, is how much is unknown about your product? How much is unknown about your business that you're trying to launch? And I don't care how simple your product is. You know, it could be a plastic widget. There's still something we don't know about it. Because you're an inventor. So everything, you know, by definition, if you're inventing something new, no one's ever done it before. It's brand new. It's unknown. So the more unknowns there are, the more ambiguity there is in how long it's going to take to get rid of those unknowns.

Product development is a research and development exercise. Sometimes it's minimal unknowns. Sometimes it's massive unknowns. And that research is where we go through the process of killing those unknowns one by one.

Steven Julian

I have a feeling that...

Noah McNeely

Right. You'd be surprised. But once in a while, I meet people that think just because I have engineering experience, I know everything about their product, which doesn't exist.

Steven Julian

Going on a long soliloquy, what are some of the unknowns? I mean, can you categorize those? I mean, can you take the unknowns and kind of categorize what those unknowns are? I mean, you kind of said, hey, it could just be a simple plastic widget. But as you've done so many different types of projects, you are kind of a generalist. We talked about that on a previous episode. So you've come across a lot of different types of things. So I'll start because I think I've hung out with you enough and I am not a product genius.

Noah McNeely

Now who's giving along slightly?

Steven Julian

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you are developing a product that has different types of things in it, you know, plastic and metal, you know, there are how many types of screws? So that's just one of the unknowns is exactly how to make sense. What are some of the other unknowns you do kind of come across or categorize?

Noah McNeely

Yeah, so some of the obvious categories are like, you know, what's the material? What's it going to be made of? What's it got to be made of to withstand X, Y, Z that it's got to handle? It's got to be dishwasher safe. It's. got to be food safe. It's got to be, you know, I got to be able to drop it off a four-story building without it breaking, whatever those things are. So that's kind of an obvious one. And then there's the physics unknowns. Can we even get this mechanism to work the way you've conceived it?

Do I have to conceive an entirely new mechanism to make this widget do what it's supposed to do? Then probably the biggest unknown or one of the most challenging unknowns, let me say that, is sometimes the client... It's still developing what their business idea is, and that is an unknown. And I do my best to help them work through this, but sometimes they don't know how they're going to go about selling it. Are you going to try to get in a retailer? Are you going to sell this direct? Are you going to sell it in the mail?

They don't necessarily know who they're marketing it to. So we work through a process of helping them realize these are decisions we need to make before we even start tackling the other unknowns of actually making it.

Steven Julian

Nice. Now, one of. the things you are willing to say, because even though your first answer is, I don't know, and it kind of depends, I do think you, with your experience and with the way that you've worked with startups and with large corporations and the different types of projects that you've been around, you can bring something to bear. on that question of how long is this going to take? You're not just going to shrug your shoulders and go, oh, you do have something you can add. So talk a little bit about your past and how that might help in this scenario to not give a specific answer, but give a little bit of guidance.

Noah McNeely

So the best I can do, and frankly, the best anyone can do. And if anyone tells you otherwise, if anyone tells you, hey, I know exactly how long it's going to take to develop your product. If anyone tells you that they're lying to you because they want your business or they just don't know what they're talking about. So back to the question, what do I do? So the best I can do is give an estimate based on previous experiences. Now, again, your product is brand new. It's unique. I don't have an exact match in my previous experiences, but let's say, you know, if it's a product that deals with circuit boards, I have a rough idea of what that's going to take.

If it's a product that deals with, okay, we're going to be putting this under water pressure. Well, I have a rough idea of how long it's going to take to Develop those seals and things like that and all the other nerdy engineering stuff we do. I can give a best guess, but I don't know what problems that we may find along the way that were not part of that previous experience. So I always have to say this is an estimated timeline.

Steven Julian

You can give some estimates based on your past experience, but there are always unknowns that which make you don't even know about. That's what makes them unknown. And those can hinder the process and have to be overcome in various different ways.

Noah McNeely

Would you rather me do it quickly or do it right? And if we run into a problem that has to be solved, we need to take the time. to solve that. We don't need to release a product on the market that does not address that issue.

Steven Julian

Yeah, I would answer I want it done right.

Noah McNeely

Well, I hope most people would.

Steven Julian

Yeah, and if they don't, they might not want to work with you.

Noah McNeely

That's correct. I can send you to people that will do it wrong.

Steven Julian

Noah McNeely, resource for getting things done wrong, a referral source. He can send you to people who will do it wrong, but he can do it right. Okay, so unknowns are one of the things that kind of crop up and make you at best be able to kind of estimate when you think things will get done. What are some of the other things that take time that especially that inventor, entrepreneur, the product? Idea person may not have thought of or has no idea, you know, what is hard to predict and what's going to take that time that they don't see.

Noah McNeely

Well, kind of, well, a lot of things, but one I'll address is the factory side. So, you know, when we start getting this ready for production, let's say we've been through the prototyping, we've. done all the engineering, all the design, and hey, this is exactly what we want or it's pretty darn close or whatever. Then we're going to get the same kind of deal with the factory. They're going to give us an estimate on tooling. How long is it going to take to make these molds? And they'll give a pretty tight estimate, but I always tell them the same caveat applies.

There are unknowns here. They may make this tool and they run a sample and the parts don't fit together. So then they're going to take another week or two to fix that. Do you want them to fix it or do you want them to give you parts that don't fit together? And my thing is the first order is always going to take longer than we want. It's always going to take the longest time. It's always going to have the most grim ones to kill. And then after that, we'll be able to predict much faster second, third orders and down the road.

So that's one answer to your question.

Steven Julian

And I think we're recording this at the beginning of 2023. I don't know when people. are listening to this, but we're coming off a period where when you talk about factory and you said, you know, they started up and there's something that they need to change. It's going to take a couple of weeks for them to change it. We're in the midst of, you know, a buzzword of supply chain that I think in the past, most people never even thought about it. And then even as most people are thinking about it, they think, why is this supply chain still an issue?

Because these are massive things that take time.

Noah McNeely

Well, and the supply chain is kind of downstream from what I would call the human supply chain because there's just not enough workers. Even now, it's getting better. But that rolls all the way up to the mines where they mine the aluminum, all the way down to where they process the aluminum, to the people that are putting the aluminum in the machine to make your mold or to make your product.

Steven Julian

And my only point is, to your point, here's someone who wants to develop a product and they're working with a factory to put out a product and. then they need to change something. It isn't just... Oh, send Jerry down to the floor and tweak a couple things and, oh, okay, it'll take 20 minutes. All right, let's get back going. It takes, you get the factory up and running. for them to make a change is going to take time. And that's just one.

Noah McNeely

Now, Jerry can probably try something in 20 minutes and he might get lucky. But most of the time, Jerry's going to take a week to fix it.

Steven Julian

Shout out to Jerry. I hope you're enjoying your break in your factory.

Noah McNeely

Not his real name.

Steven Julian

Not his real name. The names have been changed. I don't know why I said that. So you said eliminating – earlier you said eliminating unknowns. It's kind of what R&D, research and development, is all about. Bringing an invention to be a product and bringing it to market, I mean, it's all – you said research and development or R&D. I'm wondering if it's just T&E, trial and error. I mean, what's the difference between those things? How much of this is just kind of – Figuring, I said trial and error to an engineer.

I. should have never done that. I apologize.

Noah McNeely

No, you know, as much as engineers might try to defy this, a lot of what we do is trial and error. You know, research is, in many examples, trial and error. You try something, it works, it doesn't work. You learn from where it doesn't work, then you try something else.

Steven Julian

That's why Jerry could fix it in 20 minutes, potentially, on the factory.

Noah McNeely

If he got lucky.

Steven Julian

Yeah, trial and error, yeah.

Noah McNeely

Jerry or I, we have a lot of experience behind us. So we may have a really good educated guess and we may hit it. And that's great. But it doesn't often work that way. Sometimes we get a little better, but then we have to continue to make improvements to get the product where it is. I mean, right now I've got behind you in the studio, I have a box of product ready to go to one of my clients. This is the third round of samples from the factory because we've had to tweak those tools a few times.

This particular product has a lot of parts that have to go together just right. So in the real world, you make a mold just like you think it's supposed to be. Then you make the parts and they don't fit together quite right. So they have to go in, they shave that mold down, they polish it, and then they fit a little better. And they do that again. And then it fits right eventually. 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.

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Steven Julian

And again, this is a topic we keep coming back to, and I think it's kind of one of the foundational pillars of what you do and why you're talking about this show. Every single product you're developing has never been developed before. Every invention has never been done exactly this way. So that takes time. You don't just throw Jell-O against the wall and call it art. I mean, you got to work at it. You got to, I mean, there's an. art to this.

Noah McNeely

Clearly you've not met my son.

Steven Julian

Is his creation, are they on sale yet? Can we find them on?

Noah McNeely

He sees a teenager now, so these have all been washed away long ago.

Steven Julian

Lost to the sands of time. So kind of your product is unique and different, and out of that uniqueness and out of that difference, that's just another reason why you can't fully answer the question of how long is this going to take. I don't know, because it's never been done before. And you've never had a product development project. That didn't have to be tweaked.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, I think that's fair assessment.

Steven Julian

You don't, there's, you're in the, if you ever had one that never had to be tweaked, never had an issue to overcome, never had something that had to be adjusted. If that happens, you might be like, I guess I have to close my business and walk away now because I've found it, you know, the perfect project.

Noah McNeely

Well, this isn't really today's topic, but a lot of the difference between really good product developers and not so good ones is that ability to tweak things efficiently. I mean, to. learn from things that are not optimized and be able to optimize them as quickly and efficiently as possible. But this still takes time.

Steven Julian

And, okay, so then let's kind of take this conversation to another point, because speaking of time, there have been the occasions where someone says, I've got to have this done by a particular amount of time. Maybe there's a trade show. Maybe they're appearing on the pilot episode of some TV show, and they've got to get, you know, and in that scenario, they weren't allowed to bring. Just clay models. They would have had to have a prototype. Shout out to Tiffany. We miss you and can't wait to talk to you again at Opu Probiotics.

But if they have a deadline, talk through those scenarios. Talk through that client.

Noah McNeely

Yeah. So a few things about that. Number one, if you've got a deadline, you're trying to get to the National Hardware Show and you're going to have meetings there, you need to let me or whoever you're working with know that as soon as possible. Don't just get our estimated timeline, then two weeks before the show, come in and say, hey, you. were supposed to be here and you're only here. Well, at that point, there's not a lot we can do to adjust. But let's say you do come into my office in February and the National Hardware Show is three months away and you're like, I really have to have something to show then.

Then we may have to strategize, what can we get you in that amount of time that helps you have the best meeting possible? Now, I'm probably going to say, I wish you'd come to me six months ago. To start this, but we are where we are. So at this point, maybe we can give you some really nice renderings and animations and things of what we visualize the product will ultimately look like. However, parallel with that, we're, you know, we're still developing and things are probably going to change. And, you know, you're going to take me to the meeting.

I'll go to the meeting with you and we can spin that in just the right way possible without telling any lies. We can say, hey, we're still in development. This is our alpha approach, but. We've got all the problems. We've got. plans for all the problems worked out, and we're just in the process of executing that. There's a way to tell that story and still have a good meeting. But if you do that, understand overall your development cost is probably going to be a little bit higher because doing that rush to get to the trade show, we're probably going to do things that end up being thrown away or abandoned because we do even better things as we were through the normal development.

Cheapest, best way is still to contact me much earlier in the process or whoever you work with much earlier in the process. Make us part of the team in the sense of knowing what the deadlines are and what the dates are. Now, if you come to me one week before the trade show, then don't expect much. You can hire me to go to the meeting with you and I'll tell the best story I can, but that's about it.

Steven Julian

You can tell people what you're in process of doing or what's coming next, but that's about it. You said this earlier. You can have it done right or you can have it. done fast. In the scenario of someone, I need this by this deadline, it's not going to be completely right. To get it done fast, there are some things, concessions people have to make, potentially higher costs to get things done in a more compressed time, and recognizing that it might be viable, not perfect, or not complete. And in the worst case, They can bring you along to give a pitch.

Noah McNeely

I'm going to have a floor below which I'm not going to get because my reputation is on the line. Let's say you want something in a rush, two weeks, and I'm like, I can't possibly deliver anything of quality in that period of time. I'm not going to deliver you anything and then have you go and present it. And then you're not going to tell them, you only gave me two weeks to work on it. They're just going to say, hey, that Noah guy does terrible work. Good and cares about their reputation is going to be the same way.

So there is going to be a floor below which I just can't deliver anything like that other than, like I said, going to the. meeting or vouching and say, hey, it looks like a great idea. We have a path to development. That's the best I can probably do.

Steven Julian

And I think this is an interesting little subject. I'm going to take a minute or two to kind of – You might go off on a rant. I may have to pull you back or I might have to really draw something out of you here.

Noah McNeely

I'm famously known for my rants.

Steven Julian

Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm trying to do. Listen, we're trying to get clicks and views and listens and all that kind of stuff. So I want to ask you, you know, your reputation is on the line. That's right. And so you're not going to do – the number one way you stay in business and the way you've done this for more than 20 years is you're not going to do a crappy job. In what you do. And I think it's one of those things where sometimes people just think, they don't think about everything you've got to do on your end of the table of what you're bringing to the table.

And you try, and I've been around. you a while and I've known you for a while, you don't want, because in that scenario, if you're not careful, you either come off as pretentious or some kind of unapproachable artist. Or you could just be cheap and easy and do a crappy job, but you're not going to do that. So talk about, let us be your counselor for just a second. You're on that side of the table. What are some of the things you're looking out for, both for them and for yourself and for this industry of what you do?

Noah McNeely

Well, that's a lot of questions.

Steven Julian

Yeah, it is. I said, come on, start ranting. Let's go.

Noah McNeely

So, so yeah, I'm not going to hurry up and do a crap job for you because you're just going to end up unhappy with me. I would rather you be unhappy with me because I say we can't deliver in this timeline because that, you know, that that's a good reason to be unhappy with somebody, but you'll, you'll get over it. What you won't get over is if I do something horrible, you go into your investor meeting and they're like, this is horrible. Don't. talk to us anymore. That you're not going to get over.

Now we can possibly, like I said, we can spin where we are. I mean, we are where we are when you come to me. Like I said, you should have called me eight months ago, but you didn't, and here we are. And I'm going to do my best to help you through that. But I'm not going to do bad work just to help you hit an impossible deadline. I forgot all these.

Steven Julian

Yeah, yeah, I know. I did the rant, apparently. I apologize. You're in a very unique situation as Product Quick Start helping people with their product design because you're almost part of the start, Of a business, the birth of a potential empire, and you don't have any vested, you don't have equity in it. You're not a silent partner. You're not an investment partner. You're just trying to help them down the path. That's a place of great trust and a lot of intimacy, business intimacy of kind of knowing where they're needing to go, which is why one of the funny things that you've joked about many times is on that Contact.

Us page. I've got a great idea. Call me. And people, are you going to sign an NDA? Because, you know, it's their baby, right? We've said that many times. So you're walking a fine line there. What do you keep telling yourself? to make sure you don't overstep that line or do something really stupid or, you know, you almost have to, there's a lot of tact. There's a lot of, you got to be smart here.

Noah McNeely

What do I keep telling myself? Well, it's almost Friday and you've got a bottle of rum at home. Just kidding about that.

Steven Julian

Well, partially true.

Noah McNeely

Partially true.

Steven Julian

All comedy is built on partial truths.

Noah McNeely

So I try to do my very best to put myself in the mindset of the client as best I can. Some people I will never understand and I can't get in their mindset. But I at least try to think of myself almost like a fiduciary in the sense of if this were my money and my idea and I believed in it and I wanted to launch a business. What would I want me to do? Yeah, the other me, switching places again. And if? my answer is right now, I wouldn't want to pay me to do anything.

That's what I'm going to tell them. You know, often there are times when I tell people, you know, look, don't spend any money with me or with anyone else because this, this, and this. Now, if you can address this, this, and this, and sometimes that is, well, I got to have something in two weeks. Well, too bad. Don't spend money trying to get something horrible in two weeks. Let's talk about the best we can do.

Steven Julian

And that goes back to, you know, we started this show by kind of saying TikTok used to be a way to tell time and how long is this going to take? And it's almost like we were battling impatience. But part of your job is to help them stay focused on what's the most important thing, which is getting a viable product to market or... Not wasting money going after something that early on in the process, you from your 20 years of experience to go, this isn't going to take any longer because I think with what you've got, there's no way this is going. to be a viable product.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, I mean, that's part of it. And back to the deadline thing, it's not the worst thing in the world to miss this trade show. I mean, if you're going to go into this trade show with a one in a thousand shot and that's your shot. Versus maybe you'll pick up the next one, another trade show six months down the road or a year down the road, and you're going to have maybe a one in five shot or one in two shot.

Steven Julian

Because you took the time to do it right.

Noah McNeely

It's better to wait in some cases and take the best shot you can rather than the fastest shot you can.

Steven Julian

I think sometimes, and this might be another topic for another show, but I think sometimes we all want the movie. We want the sitcom or the, you know, we want the, Oh, he took his one in thousand shot and it just worked and it was great.

Noah McNeely

They don't make movies about the 99.9% of the people that took that shot and ended up penniless and destitute.

Steven Julian

They never make the movie about the engineering and design process. where you're eliminating unknowns and you're doing R&D to get it to minimum viable product and bring it to market.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, Tony Stark is not real. His engineering lab is not real. There is no magic involved.

Steven Julian

So in the original Iron Man, when he's showing his tests and he falls against the wall, that's one of about 987,000 other things that went wrong to then finally get...

Noah McNeely

Right, but who's going to watch an eight-month-long movie, right? Right.

Steven Julian

Eight-year-long movie is more like it. So is there anything we missed?

Noah McNeely

No, I think we covered every topic in the universe ever. That's right. You know, kind of more parting advice is it's more important to do it right than to do it fast. I mean, if we can do both, that's fantastic. But if you have to pick one, which you almost always have to do, pick quality over speed. And I think you'll have a better, you'll have a happier results in the long run.

Steven Julian

And I'm going to take one piece of your advice and I'm going to... Paraphrase it in a way that you probably wouldn't do. If anyone that as you are developing your invention. and product, if anyone tells you that they know exactly how long it's going to take and they know how long they're going to take to get it done, please run from them because they are not worth their salt and they're probably not even a proper engineer because they're not dealing with the unknowns and they're not there to help you.

They're just there to get a paycheck. For those people who want to work with Product Quick Start and get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Noah McNeely

As usual, it's best to go to the website, fill out the contact desk form, preferably fill out the self-assessment form because that will help me prepare for a call with you so that we don't spend the first half hour on the call saying, hey, what's your name? What do you do? Where do you live? We can have that all kind of situated and then we can be very efficient with your time and mine. And see if we can help you or if we know someone else that can't.

Steven Julian

And we also want to remind you that Product Genius is brought to. you on your favorite podcasting platform. Make sure you tell your other inventor friends and startup friends. We're here to give advice. This is always a free show. And this show had a former life with another host, Tiffany Krumans. And we want to thank her for her allowing us to continue the show. And we want to tell you about her new product, Opoo. You can order their product, a product that she has been developing along with the other stuff that she's been doing.

In fact, we did not even give her a shout out last show. So we ran a little market test and we'll see how mad she gets at us for not mentioning her on the broadcast.

Noah McNeely

And let's just point out that Tiffany does things right. She did not rush that product to the market. She took the time to make sure it was right. And to kill all the gremlins first. And that's the difference between success and failure many times.

Steven Julian

And she has a product that is packaged well, looks great, and works fantastic. And she's shooting it to the moon. So shout out to Tiffany. We've shouted her out twice on. this show. And we're running a little experiment to see if she gets mad at us and if she's actually listening to us, the show that she started. But shout out to her. Also want to thank our producer, Jody Smith from JodySmith.com. So for Noah. For Jody, this is Steven, your Slightly Annoying co-host, saying we will catch you next time on Product Genius.