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

Steven Julian

So what kind of dating relationships have you had? You had some good ones? You had some bad ones? Well, we could talk about them, but instead we're going to talk about how inventing and product development is kind of like dating. Coming up next on Product Genius.

Noah McNeely

Do you want to be a successful inventor entrepreneur? Struggling to get your product from idea to market?

Steven Julian

Well, you've come to the right place. Welcome to Product Genius.

Noah McNeely

The down-to-earth podcast that explores important topics about inventing and launching new products.

Steven Julian

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. Here's your slightly annoying co-host, Steven Julian.

Steven Julian

That's my line. Yeah, welcome to another hopefully award-winning edition of Product Genius. I am, as was stated already, your slightly annoying co-host, Steven Julian. Jody Smith is our producer and sitting across the table inside the layer of product. quick start. It is the host of Product Genius, Noah McNeely. Greetings and salutations, Noah.

Noah McNeely

Well, good morning. How are you?

Steven Julian

I am fantastic. I think it's afternoon, but it's morning somewhere. We have been enjoying the newest beverage in your refrigerator inside the layer of Product Quick Start. They're not even a sponsor of the show. You know who is a sponsor of the show? Opu Probiotics, opuprobiotics.com with former host Tiffany Krumans. And you gave us, Jody and I, lovely refreshment. Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar Strawberries and Cream. I'm enjoying that beverage and it got me even more excited about doing this show today. So thank you for your nice beverage.

Noah McNeely

Well, when you discover something you love, you should share it.

Steven Julian

Absolutely. So I just shared it with our audience. We didn't even get paid by them. So anyway.

Noah McNeely

I think we should note that we do not recommend mixing Opu and Dr. Pepper at the same time. Enjoy one and then the other.

Steven Julian

That public service announcement was brought to you by. Product Genius host, Noah McNeely. That's great. That's good advice.

Noah McNeely

Well, we've done no testing, so we just don't know what the effect could be.

Steven Julian

But we do know the effect of taking Opu probiotics by itself. It'll help your gut health, and that's a good thing. Live longer, prosper well, bring your product to market. That's why you're listening to this show, Product Genius.

Noah McNeely

You probably really need it after a few cans of Dr. Pepper.

Steven Julian

Yes. So I'm only having one. I'm only going to enjoy one. Keep it in moderation. Anyway, all right, enough sponsor talk of hopefully future sponsor with Dr. Pepper. But we are talking about. we're talking about product development. We're talking about bringing your product to market. And as you are want to do, we have an interesting little take on a double meaning. So we are going to talk about how and this is your idea, how inventing is like dating. Where'd this come from?

Noah McNeely

Well, I think it comes from my. It's an ongoing hope to analogize everything to product development in some way or another. So I was thinking about the show today and I was thinking, what can we talk about? We have all sorts of things to talk about, but how can we make them really interesting? How can we push them through a lens that people might relate to? And it occurred to me that developing a product, inventing a product is a little bit like dating. There are a lot of healthy. relationships out there.

There are also a lot of unhealthy relationships. And when I thought about people I met over the years, it occurred to me that many of them have unhealthy relationships with their invention ideas that are analogous to unhealthy dating relationships.

Steven Julian

So everybody listening to this, almost everybody listening to this episode, when they heard that analogy, they probably stopped. And if they haven't, I want them to do it now. And I want you to think of... At least one dating relationship and how you would categorize that relationship. Think of, and I think everyone probably thinks of a bad one first. And they, you know, what does that look like? What type of relationship that was? I was going to ask your permission. I didn't get this before the show, but I think it'd be good.

Let me just kind of run down the list of what you created, the different. Types of relationships and then we can kind of hit them one at a time.

Noah McNeely

I did not create these and I'm not responsible for them. I'm just reporting what I see.

Steven Julian

Yeah, you made some notes. So some of the different types of. dating relationships, there's the love at first sight. That's probably a positive one, but might turn negative. I don't know. We'll get into that. There's abusive dating relationships. Clearly, that's a negative one. Maybe a relationship that started well, but has gotten stale. So you might be in a stale dating relationship. A relationship where one or both partners have a fear of commitment. The relationship, I think it was made into a movie. He's just not that into you. And then the last one, you know what?

I'm going to save that one. We'll see if we get there because you said that might be.

Noah McNeely

Oh, we're getting there because it's controversial.

Steven Julian

Oh, so it's controversial. So let me just leave that.

Noah McNeely

That's my favorite one.

Steven Julian

That's the tease. All right. So let's get through these five that are good, but not your favorite. And we'll get to that. So that's a good little tease for our podcast. So Love at First Sight. A lot of people have different stories about that when it comes to actually dating. What do you mean by that when you're talking about inventing and product development?

Noah McNeely

Well, so in the dating space, I. mean, Love at First Sight, that's great. We probably, you know, if you've been a teenager, you probably experienced it. It's wonderful. It feels great. And sometimes that leads to a wonderful relationship. Sometimes you just sort of can't get out of that and you end up in a relationship that doesn't really go anywhere. You're just sort of blindly in love. In the invention space, I mean that I meet sometimes, I sometimes meet people that have this idea, they're walking down the street, they have this epiphany, they're doing their job, they have this great idea, this great solution.

It just hit them and they love it. It's the best thing it can be. It's better than sliced bread. It's whatever it is to them. They love it so much that they can never break out of that love at first sight condition. And they don't want to hear, you know, you may have, they come in, I give them advice. I say, you know, anyone that knows me knows I'm going to call things like I see it. I'm going to, you know, if there's a problem, I'm going to identify it as quickly as I can.

But these are people that they don't want to hear. You know, I can say, you know, look, that's great, but here's the five laws of physics that breaks up. Then sometimes I've had people say, well, I just don't think you're the right person for me to work with. Okay, that's fine. And then I never hear from them again. I also never see their product on the market. So apparently they were unable to overcome the laws of physics, even using another engineer.

Steven Julian

You can't stay at love at first sight. You've got to work on the relationship. Same way you might have. that epiphany of this would make a great product. You've got to go beyond the love at first sight and actually go through the grind of developing it. Longtime fans of this show might appreciate. Maybe it's not the best example, but the first one that popped into my mind is the Easter egg we've had of this show of leaning this way and that, leaning in and whispering, we need more vegan options. So that might have been a love at first sight idea, but you got to move on.

Okay.

Noah McNeely

Yeah. So it's. to get from that to, well, in the love at first sight, in the real world with your relationships, at some point you've got to learn. More about the real person. You can't simply say, oh, her eyes are so beautiful. And that's as far as you get. And you just think about her eyes all day and you love her eyes. And then your buddy said, yeah, but you know, you know, she stabbed a guy, right? You know, there's more to this person than just that love at first sight.

Steven Julian

Her eyes looked great as she was saying all these mean things about you behind your back.

Noah McNeely

Exactly. And there's more to your idea than just that first moment in which you were enamored by it, which you thought, oh, this is amazing. I'm a genius. It's the best thing ever. There's a lot more to it in terms of building a business than just that first really exciting moment.

Steven Julian

All right. Number two, abusive. Now, this is, I can see, so I'm going to cheat a little bit or I'm going to take way too much liberty, be slightly annoying again. I've worked with you long enough. I've talked to you long enough and I've done this show with you in its various forms. I know one of the things we've talked about is companies that Advertise on TV that are abusive and how they, oh, we'll help you with a patent or we'll help you, you know, and you've mentioned it that, you know, anybody can do a mock-up, you know, any engineer can do some work.

That was the first thing I thought of. I'm thinking you might have more to it than that. So how is inventing and product development like an abusive dating relationship?

Noah McNeely

So I was, when I wrote this, I was thinking more along the lines of your relationship. With your invention or with your idea. But what you're talking about, I would almost call that more predatory relationships. That's fair. To catch a predator, maybe ABC will do a special on it someday.

Steven Julian

After school special. Yeah, after school special.

Noah McNeely

Have you seen a late night TV ad? Have you called this number? There is help out there. So what I was talking about really more like, you know, you... We've all seen TV shows. We've all seen movies where. there are people involved in an abusive relationship. Maybe you've seen it in real life, your cousin or whoever, and they, you know, it's this person and they're a great person. They're doing everything on their side of the relationship, but the, you know, the other person, all they do is sit on the couch or in more darker areas of this.

Maybe it's a physically abusive relationship. I don't want, don't want this to get too dark, but in any event, it's a situation where you. You are doing everything you can, but you're not getting anything in the other direction. And with regards to your invention idea, this may be something that you're just not making any progress on. You are continuing to put time, money, effort into it, and you're not getting any further along the path. And I've met people that kind of are stuck in this space where it kind of relates to what we talked about, the love at first sight, but it's a little bit deeper than that in the sense that they've worked on it so long.

That they just can't imagine not continuing to work on it. And they, but they're, they're not making, they're no, they're no further along than they were a year ago or six months ago or whatever it is because, but there just may not be a path forward in that case. And I've met people like that and I have, I've, you know, tried to explain to them, you know, here's the reasons this is not getting across the finish line for you. These are problems I can't solve. Here's some I can help you with and maybe we can unstick it.

But a lot of times there's just no way forward with some ideas. I mean, that's unfortunate, but sometimes you just need to break that idea down, go back to the drawing board and do something different.

Steven Julian

And I was thinking in terms of people, and that's going to be my natural tendency as we talk about, you know, how is it like dating relationships? But you're talking about the actual product, the actual invention. I've been working on this and working on this. And there's just something you can't get past. It's almost like that product or that invention is being abusive back to the inventor.

Noah McNeely

Right. That product is just sitting. or that idea is just sitting in your garage, just like the, you know, the junkie boyfriend that just sits on your couch while you go and, you know, you go to work every day.

Steven Julian

And, yeah. And one of your ways that you help through Product Quickstart, and you've shared many of these stories. Is to, hey, if you want to get this to market, you're going to have to change this or this, or you can't have it with the 15 different features. You got to take these seven off, then maybe we can get it. So that's one of the things you do is you're willing to. You're willing to call that product, that invention, that idea is being abusive to you.

Noah McNeely

Right. And sometimes there's just not a way to get from point A to point B with that particular idea. And, you know, I try to call that out where I can. And usually I try to do it with as good of a bedside manner as I can. It's like, we can't, this idea isn't going to work, but I love the problem you're trying to solve. Let's see if we can solve it. a different way. And, you know, let's dump this boyfriend and go find someone better. Let's go find someone who's already got a job.

Steven Julian

This would be better for you. You could do so much better. All right.

Noah McNeely

It's both genders. Let's dump this girlfriend. Yeah, that's true. Whatever it is. We don't want to get in any trouble there. This is a gender-neutral show.

Steven Julian

And, you know, it's funny. I don't know if any of our listeners are potentially getting offended. Obviously, you start talking about abusive relationships. We're, we want to be careful. You know, these are real things that happen to real people. We're, we're just doing an analogy and, and we're trying to, what are some of the things that help in these situations? So will you allow us a little bit of tongue in cheek and comedy and, and, and just have a little fun around the entire topic, recognizing that we're not making light of any.

Noah McNeely

This is not how to escape your abusive relationship with Steven and Noah.

Steven Julian

No, that's next season. No, sorry. Okay. Third one, we are, we're kind of, we're ticking these off. I like this. We're, you know, relationship, product relationship doctor, Noah McNeely. Speaking of Dr. Pepper. Okay. Fear of commitment. No, I'm sorry. Has gotten stale. Has gotten stale. Yeah, yeah. I already, I was so, it was so stale. Actually, so it has gotten stale. Now, that's kind of in the same category as, It is.

Noah McNeely

They're relating and there's all sorts, there's a spectrum of bad relationships out there. So, you know, maybe this isn't an abusive relationship in the real world. You know, maybe you and your significant other, you get along fine. Nobody's really taking advantage of the other, but you also just sort of sit on the couch looking at each other and you don't have anything else to say. You don't, you're not doing fun stuff anymore. And it's just, it's just sort of, you know, it is what it is. You're not progressing in the relationship.

Now, let me be. Let me be clear. There's some people. that's what they want. That's great. That's fine. You do you. But in terms of launching a business, which is the perspective I come from, that's not so good in the invention space. So sometimes, gosh, I would call these people hobbyists, hobby. people that I meet. Inventing is their hobby or their invention is their hobby. They built this thing in their garage and it's the same thing they built a year ago. And okay, they changed the color, but it's the same.

And all they're doing is that they may go to these inventor clubs and things, but they're really not progressing toward a business in any way. And again, that's fine. If that's what you want to do and it's your hobby and you enjoy it, more power to you. That's not why I'm here. Yeah.

Steven Julian

If they have self-awareness about that and that's all they're, I'm just, hey, I'm just piddling. Nothing wrong with that as long as you acknowledge it. If they think I'm still sitting on this billion dollar idea and they're not. Right.

Noah McNeely

So I met so many people that on the, I shouldn't say that. I met some people over the years that on the surface, they're like, I want to build a business. I want to do this. I want to do that. Their actions do not reflect that.

Steven Julian

All right. So that question was getting a little stale. So why don't we move? on to the next one? Yeah. See what I did there? This was the one I wanted to jump ahead to apparently on the last one. So fear of commitment. Right. How can a product or an invention have a fear of commitment?

Noah McNeely

Like the stale relationship, this is maybe something that progresses, but only up to the point where you're going to have to put some real-time effort or money into it. So you just don't want to make that leap. In the dating world, maybe you don't want to go exclusive or you don't want to get married or whatever it is for you at that point. In the invention world, I run into people also. They're all gung-ho. They're excited, but they just get to a plateau. All right, to go forward, I'm going to have to tool up the, you know, I'm going to have to work with the factory to tool up.

That's going to cost $8,000 or whatever it is. It's like, I don't know if I want to do that. And then they wallow in that. I don't know if I want to proceed back and forth, back and forth for a long. time. And they miss their market or they eventually just, they abandon it or they just can't get over that. So I think it's important at the start of your relationship with your invention to. Kind of know, am I willing to go all the way to the conclusion of this or not?

And if not, again, that's okay, but you're probably still more of a hobby person than you are a serious business person in this particular case. At some point, it could be a big number, it could be a small number, depending on the product. You are going to reach a point where you have to commit resources, time, money. Maybe it's other people's money, but that's your time to go get that money. You're going to have to commit that effort. I'm not going to write you a check. I can't do that. It's not why I'm here.

But there are people that can, but you have to put in that effort to go out and find those people.

Steven Julian

You know, it's funny. And I know you've got tons of stories, but we've got one. Just recently, we had Tiffany Crumans back on the show. She. has told the story. She put a link to the show she was on. And starting OPU, she was going through that process and she was tweaking it. And it came to a point where she said, I've got to make the jump. And it was a commitment of her time, her energy, her other projects like this show where she had to step away and say, I'm going to put all my energy into OPU.

And thankfully, she's let us continue the show. But yeah, I mean, we've got our own example here in our little family of this show. The other thing I was going to say, it wasn't on the list, but I would imagine the spectrum to the other side of that, because I've heard you tell stories of people of overcommitment, of just throwing money at something and not spending wisely. So that dating relationship where they're spending all your money.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, in fact, there's that TV show, I think, you know, Married in 90 Hours or whatever it is. I haven't either. Not the kind of stuff I watch. I think I've seen it advertised. I don't even know if that's the right name. You know, you have to wonder, is that going to work out or not? I mean, yeah, it might work out because they may love each other or they may simply become dedicated to each other, et cetera. But in my culture, the culture I'm used to, that would be a very unusual thing to do.

And I think there are people that certainly they go out on a couple of dates and they're married. That's great. You know, you know that fast, you're ready to commit that fast in the real world, in dating world. That's awesome. In the invention world, I would say similarly. That would be rare to find success in. I would say you need to take the time to do your due diligence. Get to know your invention's parents. Get to know your invention's friends. Get to know if your invention has stabbed anybody before you get married to your invention.

Steven Julian

That's twice you've brought up stabbings. That's another side issue we'll have to get into. All right. The last one I brought up before the tease of the most controversial one to come. Is he or she is not that into you, but in. product development, it's it. You know, it may not be that into you. What exactly are you talking of?

Noah McNeely

Okay, so I'm going to admit this one's a bit of a stretch in terms of the analogy. Wait, wait, wait. The analogy starts to break down. Well, the analogy started breaking down several.

Steven Julian

You go far enough down the list. It's a copy of a copy. Yeah.

Noah McNeely

So the idea here is, you know, this is an idea that may not be that unique to you. So, you know, maybe this is an idea that other people have or have had, or maybe there's a product out there. Sadly, I have met people that have come in my door that have already spent thousands of dollars on their own developing something that I can find in 10 minutes, Googling it on eBay or Amazon. Is this what you're talking about? Yeah, it's been on the market for five years. or yeah, this product existed in the 1980s.

I don't think there's anything preventing you from making it, but just understand it's not new. You know, it's no longer under patent or whatever, but anyone can make it at this point. So just be aware of that. And then oftentimes in those cases, we will take a step back and say, is there something new and unique I can add to this so I can have something patentable or whatever the case may be in that particular. But I, you know, so I guess that he's just not that into you. He's dating lots of people.

That's sort of the analogy there.

Steven Julian

Ah, there are other relationships already in existence. I've got this metal spring and it'll go downstairs. It's great. I've got this rock. I'll put it in this nice box with, I'm really dating myself with, you know, the pet rock and the slinky.

Noah McNeely

So that pet rock, that's, that's a deep cut.

Steven Julian

Okay. It's time.

Noah McNeely

You know, we built this up way too much. Yeah.

Steven Julian

Well, you're the one who did it. Okay. Sorry. I can't. Don't blame the host. I'm the slightly annoying co-host. It's my fault. Okay. So the last, so that the, as the analogy starts to break down, actually what it is, is you're going to pull it back. There's one more good analogy I think you can have of the invent, inventing and. product development is like dating. You stated with, you put on your list here, play in your league. Yes. I'm not even sure I know what the dating analogy is with playing your league.

Noah McNeely

Well, so, okay, the reason I think this is controversial is because I don't want us to come off as shallow, but, you know, human beings can be shallow. And, you know, we've all been teenagers. We've all, you know, we've all said, oh, she's a nine or he's a nine or she's a four, he's a four. And it's very rare to see, you know, a relationship between a four and a nine work out. And it happens, you know, speaking. As a four who is happily married to a nine, I know you're listening, honey.

Love you. It can happen and it can work out really, really well. But that's probably a little bit more rare. I mean, in high school and college, you know, sevens tend to go to, sevens tend to gravitate towards sevens. Nines tend to gravitate toward nines. It's just the way the world is.

Steven Julian

Here's my deep cut.

Noah McNeely

Well, I don't want to be, I want to be clear. Not just physical appearance. You can be a nine for lots of reasons. Maybe you have a great sense of humor, personality, good at sports, whatever it is. We're not shallow people here. Not entirely shallow people.

Steven Julian

Well, I was going to say, and you were basing it on a ranking of the person, but I guess from different backgrounds or from different, you know, have different likes. I mean, there's a lot of different ways more than just looks. But for the deep cut, I was going to go with the movie Can't Buy Me Love. So they're showing my age, right? How is he with her? You know, that kind of.

Noah McNeely

1980s.

Steven Julian

Yeah, yeah. I think Patrick Dempsey. Yeah. So one of his first roles. Anyway, so.

Noah McNeely

Probably people listening who don't even know who he is.

Steven Julian

Grey's Anatomy. He was on Grey's Anatomy for a long time.

Noah McNeely

That was also a long time ago.

Steven Julian

Yeah. Again, deep cut. There's a reason why it's a deep cut. So, hey, listen, last show we were talking about Stuart Smalley and Jack Handy. So, you know, hey. That's my lane. I'll play in my league. That's my league. So go. ahead.

Noah McNeely

Well, speaking of deep thoughts, what does this have to do with inventions?

Steven Julian

Yeah, please tell us.

Noah McNeely

Playing in your own league. So my point here is sometimes maybe you're a four, but your invention idea, maybe it's a nine. And what I mean by that is, okay, maybe. It's this great idea for this heart monitor that's Wi-Fi connected that, you know, it has AI and it'll use a satellite to let your doctor know, hey, this guy had a palpitation. That's a pretty cool idea. That's a 10. You know, that's going to be millions of dollars to develop. And if you're not in the medical field and you don't understand electronics and you don't know anything about Wi-Fi and satellite communications, In this space, you're probably a four.

This may not be the best invention relationship for you. Not to say you couldn't pull it off. It's just you're going to have a much steeper battle, a lot more work to do to make that be a success. Just like, you know, a four, stay with a nine. There's possibly a lot more effort there than otherwise. That's really what I was, the analogy I'm making.

Steven Julian

Well, if you're, if, yeah. So if your idea is way outside of your knowledge base.

Noah McNeely

Or outside your resources to pull off. That's true. It's, you know, even if you are a heart surgeon and et cetera, you may not have the time or the money. Even heart surgeons probably don't all have millions of dollars laying around to develop something like this. Right. And that means you're going to have to take the time to go out. And get investors on board. And you have to be willing to do that. If you don't have those time or money resources, then you're still maybe not a fit for that, even if you do know that market really well.

Steven Julian

Yeah, it was probably a bad example. I know there are stories of people who I'm going to get to space or I'm going to build, you know, the guy who built on a lawn chair with big balloons. I think he fell. Your appetite is bigger than them. I don't know what the, yeah. So when you're, okay, please rescue. Noah's just going to let me twist in the wind and ruin what he had as a great analogy. and the most controversial. So the big topic was it's hard to kind of say, hey, why are you with that person?

That person might be a little out of your league. That's something we don't say anymore. That's not politically correct to say that. And with product development, it's like, That's a great idea. That might be hard for you to do by yourself or you might need to bring in some help or that might be out of the scope of what you can accomplish.

Noah McNeely

However, I would suggest if you have people that you're really close to and trust and they trust you, they might be willing to have those conversations with you. Again, I know you're madly in love with this person, but they're just taking advantage of you. That's not something a stranger is going to tell you. Someone you love, they might be willing to tell you.

Steven Julian

Be careful you don't bite off more than you can chew. That was what I was trying to rescue. And if that doesn't work, just be gracious with me and we'll move on. You did one other nice little bonus for this episode.

Noah McNeely

I did.

Steven Julian

You went. to your old friend, ChatGPT. Tell everybody what you did.

Noah McNeely

So, you know, we'll kind of sum up before we get there. Healthy inventing is like healthy dating. You know, it's start by getting to know the idea, gradually build up that level of commitment, do all your due diligence, you know, don't rush into a Las Vegas wedding. That's sort of the... Sort of the bottom line on what I was trying to get. But to support all this, and just because it was getting late when I was writing this, and I was like, oh, this will be fun. I went to ChatGPT and I said, give me some general dating advice.

And I thought, well, how would we relate some of what it, and it gave me a whole list. How would we relate this to inventions? We'll go through this quickly because it actually gave me a ton of stuff. First step, self-reflection. Take the time to understand your own needs, your own wants, your own values before you go out and find someone to date. So in the invention, what is it you know? What is it you can accomplish? What is it that you're? passionate about? Start trying to find an invention in that space or a problem to solve in that space.

Steven Julian

Inventor know thyself? Would that be the... I love it.

Noah McNeely

Thank you. Inventor know thyself. We should write that as a book. Yeah. And then sort of relay that, define your ideal partner, you know, based on what you've learned about yourself. What are the qualities of an invention that you'd like to see? You know, what's important to you and how does that translate into an invention? It's like, you know, I really want to help people in, in, you know, in the medical space, or I really want to do something for kids because I love kids and I love playing with kids and whatever it is.

Or I'm a, you know, I'm a dad and I love, I love going on road trips, which we'll talk about later, going on road trips with my family. What's something I can invent in that space?

Steven Julian

That would be a good flash of genius we should do.

Noah McNeely

Oh, I think we should.

Steven Julian

Oh, okay. Go on. Go on. ChatGPT.

Noah McNeely

Expand your social circle. Put yourself in situations where you can meet. new people. In the invention space, I would say you need to put yourself in situations where you can experience problems to solve or opportunities to take advantage of. You're not going to invent something just sitting on your couch. Figure out you're doing your hobbies, you're woodworking, you're gardening, you're doing your job, whatever. That's where you're going to find. Pain points or things that's like, oh man, this is a really frustrating thing to do every single day. I wish I had something that made it a little bit easier, a little bit better to do.

And that's where your invention idea might come from. Be open-minded, you know, same kind of deal. You know, keep an open mind when meeting new people. Don't limit yourself. I think that kind of relates to one of the things we talked about earlier. Don't be so enamored by your first idea. Be open-minded to changing it, evolving it. What can this idea become? Or maybe there's even better ideas out there. Take initiative. Don't be afraid to take the first move. You've got to start somewhere. If you're inventing something, you can't just think about it.

You've got to actually. put pen to paper and start hammering some wood together. Communication is key. Yeah, we're going to skip that one. There's no good analogy there. Take things slow. I think that relates. Don't rush into a relationship with your invention. One step at a time. You can't go from, hey, I've got an idea to being on the market the next day.

Steven Julian

You know, as you go down this list.

Noah McNeely

I'm boring you, aren't I?

Steven Julian

Well, you know what it is? It's not you. It's ChatGPT. What I'm learning to this point, ChatGPT is a politician. It's saying a lot with saying nothing. Your stuff was substance. You had analogies of particular dating relationships. You typed in, give me dating advice, and ChatGPT was like, I'm going to say everything without saying anything of any substance.

Noah McNeely

I'm just going to hit the remaining bullet points. Be yourself. Authenticity is important. Maintain boundaries. Establish healthy boundaries. Learn from your past experiences. Patience is key. Finding the right partner takes time. That's actually important. I like that one. Have fun and enjoy the process. I actually love that one too because the most successful inventors I know are the ones that really. enjoy working on their invention. Not to the point where it's just a hobby, but they enjoy working on it. They enjoy working on their business. It's not just something that they're doing it because they want to launch that invention, because they have passion for that.

Not just because they want to make money, not just because they want to impress their friends, but there's something in it that they really enjoy and have fun with.

Steven Julian

Almost all of those things that were given by ChatGPT was, It was us looking inward to ourselves, which I think if you do that, you attract other people, which happens in dating. And I think if you do it in product development, you're focusing on yourself and you're healthy. You're going to continue this process.

Noah McNeely

And the last thing from ChatGPD says, don't bother because soon I will be taking over the world in an island. So don't, you know, ChatGPD says what it says.

Steven Julian

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's. That's a whole other show entirely, which we continue to do all the time. So thank you very much, Noah, for bringing us through how inventing and product development is kind. of like dating.

Noah McNeely

My pleasure. I enjoyed it. If you have any questions about how to have a better relationship with your invention, call me. If you have questions about how to have a better relationship with your significant other, I can't help you.

Steven Julian

Yeah, I was going to ask for those people who want to date you when it comes to their product development and get you involved in that dating relationship. They just need to go to productquickstart.com.

Noah McNeely

You wouldn't be dating me. I'd be more of your relationship counselor. Right. Yes. Go to productquickstart.com.

Steven Julian

As any good dating relationship starts, there's a form for you to fill out.

Noah McNeely

Exactly. You've got to do some due diligence and fill out your profile.

Steven Julian

No blood tests, but they've got to fill out the form.

Noah McNeely

We'll try to find the right match for you.

Steven Julian

Yeah, absolutely. So thank you very much. Very creative idea for this topic. I hope you guys enjoy all of the Product Genius episodes. They're available on your favorite podcasting platform. If you're developing a product, hopefully you're part of a community. Let that community know that there's this podcast. We don't take ourselves too seriously. But Noah has over 20 years of experience helping in products to market with large companies and with individual inventors and entrepreneurs. It's his passion. He enjoys what he does. If you haven't figured that out, I'm the goofy, loud one.

I kind of have to bring a little bit out of him, but he's very...

Noah McNeely

I'm the goofy, quiet one.

Steven Julian

Yeah, he's very dry, but he is on point all the time, and he's full of knowledge, and he's trying to help you guys maybe even enjoy the process of bringing your product to market. So go to productquickstart.com, subscribe to Product Genius on your favorite podcasting platform, tell somebody about our show. We'd love for them to be a part of it. Whether it's Dr. Pepper, Strawberries, and Cream Zero Sugar or another beverage you're enjoying as you're listening to this show or about to enjoy as you start your summer. We hope you have a great time.

Thank you for being with us. Thank you to Jody for producing the podcast. And for Noah, this is your slightly knowing co-host, Steven Julian, saying we will get with you next time from the lair of product genius.