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

Steven Julian: So you think you have a great idea for a product. Maybe you’re wondering, will other people think it’s a great idea? Or maybe you’re just tired of listening to your mom talk about her opinion of your great idea. Well, today’s guest is going to help you know if you have a great idea for a product to bring to market. Next on Product Genius.

Announcer Lady: 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. Let’s get started. Here’s your slightly annoying co-host, Steven Julian.

Steven Julian: Welcome to another edition of Product Genius. I am your slightly annoying host, Steven Julian. We are coming to you almost live from deep in the lair of Product Quick Start. Sitting across the table from me, next to me is Jody Smith, our producer, but across the table from me is the host, is the star, is the guru, he who is known as Noah McNeely.

Noah McNeely: And I do pride myself on being slightly less annoying than you.

Steven Julian: You’re doing a great job of it. Yeah, you’re doing a great job of it.

Noah McNeely: If the only person I annoy is you, it’s a good day.

Steven Julian: You never annoy me. That’s why you’re slightly less annoying than me, because you don’t annoy me. I think if you annoyed me, see how I can see? There we go. I’ve already been slightly annoying. We’re only one minute into the episode. Fantastic. Noah, good to see you as always. We’ve got a little bit of a… A little bit of a cool show. We’re not alone, and I’m not just talking about Jody on the other side of the table from us. Tell us about today’s episode and what’s so special about it.

Noah McNeely: Yeah, so I am super excited about the person we’re going to talk to in just a minute. His name is Narek Vardanyan. And one of the things that are the main reason I’m excited is that people ask me questions about certain topics around. how do I… How do I see if? there’s a market for my product? How do I kind of do pre-sales? How do I get exposure? I don’t always have a good answer for those questions, but Narek, I think he has all the right answers.

Steven Julian: All is a big word.

Noah McNeely: I’m super excited to talk to him.

Steven Julian: Yeah, absolutely. So we are excited and thrilled to have as our guest today, Narek Vardanyan. He is with PreLaunch.com. Narek, welcome to the episode today.

Narek Vardanyan: Hey, thanks for having me.

Steven Julian: Absolutely. So why don’t we just kick it off with the main biggest question? because Noah kind of really set it up when he used the word all. But he gets asked questions about various parts of the launching and the pre-launch that he doesn’t necessarily have the answers to. Sounds like you might have some of those answers, if not all of those answers. So tell our listeners what pre-launch is and what you guys do.

Narek Vardanyan: So pre-launch is a product validation platform. And whenever somebody has an idea. You know, everybody thinks that this idea is going to be like really bestseller. And while the founder’s optimism will definitely help you in the long run, there’s nothing. worse than blindly believing your idea and just working in isolation without talking to customers and just, you know, going to the market and failing. So pull on shelves to understand your market potential at an early stage. It does that with the data-driven methods. So all the analytics is based on the actual purchase intent that people provide. So basically, on the one hand, you have brands replacing their early-stage concepts on the platform, and then you have community who is placing $10 to $20 to reserve a discount if the product comes to life. And then Pliners takes the data, analyzes it, and provides very credible signals on… Two main questions, basically, whether there is a potential for the product in the market and who the customers are and why they are buying your product.

Steven Julian: So, Noah, I can see immediately for long-time listeners of the show or slightly annoying hosts who sat across the table from you and done some shows with you, I can see why you got so excited when you first met Narek because these are some of the questions you get and these are some of the things you help your clients and. people you’ve come in contact with kind of wrestle.

Noah McNeely: Right. So, so. Yeah. So, so I meet so many people and they, you know, they design their product or I design their product for them. And at the end of the day, they really don’t understand their market as well as they thought they did. So we ended up designing the wrong product and we have to go back and, you know, they’ve already launched and now we get back to the drawing board. And sometimes it’s really simple, like just change the name, just change the color, but it’s always expensive to do that. So I love Nurex company pre-launch. based on what I know about it is. Because based on what I know about it, it’s basically taking what a lot of people use Kickstarter for, but it’s really not what Kickstarter is designed for. And Narek has made that a streamlined process, a formal process, really designed around those two things of, hey, is there a market? And who is my market? And am I going to be able to make sales to these markets? Those are questions that are… Critical to get early in the process.

Steven Julian: Yeah. Now, Rec, let me ask you this question. So let’s kind of try to paint a picture here, and I’ll try to do it in a slightly annoying or even non-annoying way. So let me just ask, I come to prelaunch.com, and I have my widget that I have invented that I want to bring on to the market. What would it look like? Can you kind of narrate my way through some of the first, The ways that I would use pre-launch or some of the main ways that I could use pre-launch with my new widget that I want to put on the market and how I would use your platform.

Narek Vardanyan: Yeah, absolutely. It’s super simple, actually. So you create a page and we have a very intuitive page builder. So you basically can create a page of a widget within like 20 minutes or so. So you’ll have a page within in pre-launch.com and you’ll start the pre-launching. So basically like. If the price of your widget is $100, people will put down $1 to reserve a discount if you actually produce your widget, right? The cool thing from the consumer side is that actually they’re. not risking their $1 because we’ll give you these deposits only if you start the production and start the shipping. But if they change their mind for some reason, like they bought another cooler widget from the nearby store, they can just cancel it and they’ll receive a full refund. So it’s basically very safe from their side. But when they are giving this $1 to you, they give very credible signals that they really want to buy this widget, right? And then what Pre-Launch does, Pre-Launch takes into account the data, analyzes it, compares it with its own benchmarks, and basically tells you how well you’re doing, like how your concept validation is going on, how your price is going well, whether the $100 is the right price, or maybe you need to increase it. In a lot of cases, it turns out that maybe you need to like… Pricing $200. So you’re underpricing your product. So for all those questions, and then you’ll understand who are those people who are buying my widget? Are those like, you know, the high school kids or those are people who just want to have fun or people who are working in? the office and they need some fun during the lunchtime, et cetera, et cetera. So those are all questions where you could have all those hypotheses and pre-launch will help you to validate it with the data. So you will see the real data and you will see which one works the best. And at the end of the period when you already be ready to go into the manufacturing part, you’ll basically know what price works the best for your widget, what colors works the best, what positioning works the best, who is the best audience, why they are buying your product, what messaging you should use, et cetera, et cetera. And all this data will help you to kind of launch confidently and succeed. And in case you see that, you know, it doesn’t work, you can just stop it and move to, you know, another product.

Noah McNeely: And that’s a lot better than just asking your neighbors, hey, do you like my product? You get a lot more actionable data and data which I think, as you and I talked the other day, it may actually change the direction of your product development. So early on, you haven’t. done all the heavy engineering. You haven’t gone into manufacturing. You may, through your system, get feedback that’s like, oh, Nobody’s buying it because this feature doesn’t even make sense. You go back to the drawing board, you change it, and then you do another pre-launch campaign.

Narek Vardanyan: Yeah, 100%.

Steven Julian: And please help the slowest person in the room trying to keep up with you guys. So you create this page. You’ve put out a concept. Other people have paid a very small entry fee because of their interest potentially in that product and because their willingness. To give you their feedback, to give you maybe some ideas or maybe some thoughts. And so the idea is I put out this page and I have 20 people, I have 100 people. Is there a limit to how many people can kind of come give their input? And I guess to go with that, let me ask the entry question at the end here. The people on the other side who are paying the dollar or who are paying this small entry fee, how do they find pre-launch? Are they just like, yeah, I’m interested in new ideas and new topics or. they’ve searched online and they found this? Talk a little bit about how the people who are going to give me the data, how do they find pre-launch?

Narek Vardanyan: That’s a very good question, actually. A couple of ways. First of all, we have an organic community of about 1 million people. Those are people who are subscribed to our newsletters, who are coming, checking our website for some new good products, etc. So some of the traffic will come from our sources. Like the Prilence.com will bring you some of the people, like several thousand people will find you through Prilence.com. But most importantly, we’ll do advertising. So we’ll advertise it on Facebook and on Google. To bring you some very specific type of audiences. So if you want to check like very specific demographics or geographies, you’re getting this data through advertising and there’s definitely no limit on how many people you want to get. We have some minimums on like minimum thresholds to have the viable significance level for the data. Essentially, you can get hundreds of thousands and even millions of people to your page to get more feedback, more data, and more reservation. Essentially, you’re creating. a community at an early stage, and those communities is helping you a lot.

Steven Julian: And so Noah talked about if I do one of these campaigns on pre-launch, and you talked about how easy it is to set up a page. So I set up a page. I start with my product. My concept at the very beginning, are there small tweaks that I can make based on responses before I have to relaunch a new campaign? Is there a certain amount of threshold of, you know, okay, I’m going to now test it with a different color or I’m going to now test it with small differences rather than, okay, I’m going to go back and I’m going to do a whole other concept where I take out these five features and I put in three new ones. You know, when you have to do a whole nother page type scenario.

Narek Vardanyan: Yeah, we have some recommendations on what to start first. So it all starts from the concept. Like basically you need to validate whether the concept resonates with the audience or not, right? So if people just don’t engage with your concept, know any, it doesn’t make sense. to work on the pricing, for example, or work more on the org details or on the colors, et cetera. So the first thing is the constant validation. And we have specific benchmarks where you will see basically whether you’re doing good or bad. So whether people like it or don’t like it. If people like it, then we have some several testings where you can, you know, change the colors. You can change a bit the messaging. You can change the, then you can move to the pricing point. So you can change the price. And then if everything goes perfect, then you can come up with some variations, some add-ons. And based on your hypothesis, which you want to test, you can create some endless tests, like, you know, change the pricing, the messaging, test different audiences, et cetera, et cetera.

Steven Julian: Fantastic. Noah, I want to bring you in here because before you met Narek and kind of learned about prelaunch, I would imagine… The best people had was talk to a neighbor or talk to you.

Noah McNeely: Yeah, so the advice I would have to give people before looking at pre-launch would be, you know, don’t find out. what your mom thinks about it. Don’t find out what your neighbors think about it. You need to find independent viewpoints from people that really are going to be objective. However, that’s very hard to do. So one of the things, unless you go out and you hire a market research firm that’s very expensive. So one of the things I love about… I keep saying that is that it is very accessible in the sense that, and Narek, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you’ve got, you work with very big companies that will do like 20, 30 products at a time, but you also have packages that work with a very small company or even an entrepreneur level that just has the one product at a time. they’re testing. And that’s at an accessible price. So they’re getting the level of data and analysis that would in the past. That’s a $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 market research exercise. They’re actually getting that in a very, I’m going to use my buzzword of the day, democratized way that everybody can access it.

Steven Julian: Good word.

Narek Vardanyan: Yeah, definitely. It’s even like free to start. So people can just jump on. great page and experiment with it for quite some time, even without paying anything. And it’s very, very affordable. Compared to the amount of failure that you will get if you’re working on the wrong idea, I think it definitely makes sense. And it’s very accessible, it’s very easy, and yeah, it helps you to make decisions based on the data and get all these agile benefits.

Steven Julian: So Noah’s word was democratized. I’m going to kind of use the word… Frugal or capitalist or let’s talk kind of dollars and cents a little bit. It sounds like, and based on these great answers you’ve given, the two main ways that prelaunch.com kind of engages with the public in a financial sense is if I’m the entrepreneur inventor who’s looking to create a product, I would pay to do a campaign. And I’m sure the pricing is very transparent there. But it sounds also like this community that you’ve created. You mentioned kind of a million members. Is that a second way? Is there a monthly membership if you want to kind of be a part of a community and kind of be around the world of product development and invention? and market research? Is that the organic group that you’ve talked about? Is there a monthly membership to be a part of that?

Narek Vardanyan: It’s free. So there’s no membership piece on the community side and they can just freely subscribe and get really interesting deals on a weekly basis. And the main benefit is to just access on the product creation at an early level, right? And we call it a co-creation and it makes a lot of sense for the community because the main benefit is to get really good products. So this is the main incentives, right?

Noah McNeely: I was going to say in your car, co-creation, because it’s actually co-created between the, you know, the inventor, entrepreneur, the company that had the idea and also the community. So the community and the company, they’re almost, they almost become partners in developing this thing in a way because of the feedback that comes through your system.

Narek Vardanyan: Exactly. Because in the hardware, specifically in the hardware, like all the product launches and production are happening in the isolation. So no community members typically are involved and providing feedback during the production process and only they are exposed to the products. at a final stage where it’s already too late. But in this case, we want to bring this notion of co-creation and make it a new behavior, I would say, where the customers will jump on board at an early stage, support and co-create the products alongside with the creators. And just make sure that they are getting a very right type of products that meets all their requirements and also help the creators. So it’s a win-win situation.

Steven Julian: You know, Narek, Noah just asked a great question. I know it was a great question because it was the question I was going to ask and he interrupted you to do it.

Noah McNeely: See, I beat you to the punch.

Steven Julian: You did.

Noah McNeely: I could see a question forming in your brain. I just grabbed it and asked.

Steven Julian: Which I would say might be slightly annoying, but then I won the title back by pointing out. Of course. That you were slightly annoying, which makes me even more slightly annoying. So anyway.

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Steven Julian: We are speaking with Narek Vardanyan. He is with prelaunch.com. And Narek, I think this is the point in the interview. We’ve got to stop. We’ve been talking concepts. We’ve been talking definitions. We’ve been talking your description. And you’ve done a fantastic job of painting us a picture. I think it’s time for Noah and I to both get out of your way and ask. You’ve got to have a couple, at least a couple, and probably you’ve got hundreds. But you’ve got to share a couple of good success stories. Of people who have used, especially on the individual side, someone bringing an individual product and doing a campaign. Give us an idea of some successes that you’ve seen through prelaunch.com.

Noah McNeely: And if you can’t be specific to the confidentiality, you can talk in generalities. That’s okay. Whatever you’re comfortable with.

Steven Julian: I forgot. That’s right. We got to say that.

Noah McNeely: I have to do that with my clients too.

Narek Vardanyan: Yeah. You know, the interesting thing with us, like with our. success stories is that whenever we prevent somebody from launching a product, that’s also considered as a success story for us because we kind of save them a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of nerves essentially on like working on a product, which is basically does the resonance with the audience. But we also have like really, really interesting success stories where we basically help to reshape the product from. Inception to something totally different. For example, we had these guys, it’s called Poma Brush, and they have been launching this toothbrush. And the initial idea was totally different, like to make a toothbrush for travelers, to make it comfortable, to make it, you know, the big, like from some other materials, etc. And essentially it didn’t work. It didn’t resonate with the audiences that they were targeting to. So they were continuously tweaked the product, iterated, continuously changing. They even changed the name of it. So the materials, the size of it, the concept. And essentially when they see when things are working, they launched it and boom, it worked and they did like millions of dollars of sales. So these kind of cases are. a lot with us. Recently we… We had this electric motorcycle campaign. The founder of it was a Sarlene Davidson senior engineer, Eric Buell. He’s a kind of legendary person and they prelaunched the product for eight months on prelaunch.com. And although it was like groundbreaking innovation on its own, like they changed and tweaked a lot of nuances and a lot of stuff before launching it finally to the market. And they just launched it like a couple of weeks ago and did $3 million of revenue in just a matter of days.

Noah McNeely: Is that a good enough success story for you, Steven? A million in sales, three million in sales in two weeks. Does that qualify?

Steven Julian: I guess it’s all right. I’ll tell you what I love is hearing Narek’s passion, not only for the success in terms of the sales very quickly, but again, long-time listeners or even short-time listeners of this show, how many times have we heard Noah sitting across the table from us? Talk about. one of the things he’s very proud of is helping people not waste a ton of money on an idea that’s not going to work. Helping people realize their. baby’s a little ugly and they need to change.

Noah McNeely: Yeah, I think Narek’s an excellent parallel with how I think. I can tell people it’s not going to work, it’s ugly from a physics standpoint, or you’re never going to be able to manufacture that standpoint. I can’t tell them whether people are going to buy it. I can give my opinion, but I’m a focus group of one. But Narek, yeah, the numbers and the science behind it, that’s what tells them through pre-launch.

Steven Julian: And see, you don’t have to go to your neighbor or your mom because, and even if they had the guts to go, I don’t think this is going to work. So let a community of like-minded individuals, and most of them you don’t know, but at least they show passion and they’re interested in helping you with your project. Even if that biggest help is to go, this isn’t going to work. Don’t waste a lot of your time and money unless you’re willing to make some changes.

Noah McNeely: That’s right.

Steven Julian: Let me ask this. You’ve talked a lot kind of about the campaign. Let me just ask, and this might be an unfair question. By the way, you didn’t know this. I didn’t tell you this before you came on the air. As the slightly annoying co-host, I am allowed one really, really stupid question every show. I had it written in my contract that I’m allowed to do that and face no consequences other than being told that’s a stupid question, which I can handle. So this is potentially my stupid question. I say all that as a backdrop for this. So here’s the question. You’ve done such a great job, again, of painting the picture. I think everybody’s got a kind of a good idea of what prelaunch.com does. Is there anything maybe on the outskirts or anything that’s a… Something you haven’t talked about, an additional, hey, there’s a whole nother step or there’s this other section where people may want, you know, people, I haven’t been able to talk about this yet that pre-launch would help people with. Is there anything kind of additional that pre-launch would do? Maybe after somebody’s run a couple of campaigns, got a pretty good idea, and they’re starting to actually do the prototype. Is there some other level that you want to mention about? pre-launch?

Narek Vardanyan: That’s one of the best questions, actually.

Steven Julian: Yes, I get to save it for the next show. I love it.

Narek Vardanyan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I want to underline a nuance here because pretty much everybody is very much interested about, you know, the viability of the product itself. But it’s a really interesting consumer validation tool as well. So like the going outside and asking around and asking neighbors and mom. Like the one main danger that it has is that you definitely don’t know whether they are your target customers or not, right? If you’re sure, you can ask them. Like there are some right questions where you can ask and you could get like really good answers, but you really don’t know. And Prelaunch helps you kind of validate the right customers as well. So it’s a kind of puts a filter where like you can drive anybody on the page and whoever pulls out their credit cards and gives you actual money. Even one dollar, they are kind of validated as a customer. And then you can dig deeper and get them on board and ask them all kinds of questions to understand who they really. are. Like we create a lot of like fancy AI type of stuff where we create these segmentations, you know, combine customers and then with the AI, like, you know, summarize all what they say in their surveys, their focus group type of discussion, et cetera. But essentially, at the end of the day, you’re getting to know who your customers are at a very deep level. So this is one thing that, at first of all, some of our customers don’t realize, but then they understand how important it is to just know who are some people who are interested to buy their products.

Noah McNeely: It reminds me, in a good way, a little bit about the so-called betting markets, where you can go and you can place a bet on who you think is going to win an election. And there’s some people that look at that even stronger than polls because people are actually putting money down based on what they believe. But in your case, it’s actually useful for a company because people are, you know, it’s not a lot of money, but if you’re going to put $2 down or $3 down, you’re not going to. do that just because you want to be nice. You’re going to do that because you have an interest in that product. And that’s a legitimate and powerful data point, especially when you get a lot of data points behind it.

Steven Julian: I was waiting for a question. Yeah, absolutely.

Noah McNeely: It was more of an extemporaneous speech, not a question.

Steven Julian: Sorry, I’m sorry. You were being the product genius that you are. You almost got some of your first customers. You got some of your first clients. And then as you bring the product to market and they become your first purchasers of your products, they can also give you testimonials. And you’ve got this community that can go with you into launching the product. So I like that. Narek Vardanian of prelaunch.com. If people want to engage, if people want to either, so first of all, we know if anyone’s interested kind of in product development or finding out about some of the newest, hottest ideas, things like that, they can obviously go to prelaunch.com and there’s a way for them to join just as part of the community. But how specifically do people potentially start a campaign? With a? new product, what should they do when they go to the website?

Narek Vardanyan: They can just go to the website, register, create an account, and create a project. And it’s very intuitive, simple, and I think they can even do experiments and they will end up with having a landing page. And the next step would be to just go and put some data, like the price of the product, et cetera, and then they submit and the product will be live in our marketplace in a very short period of time. It will start getting traction, it will start getting traffic, and they will see some data on their dashboard.

Steven Julian: I don’t think it’s a stretch to think that listeners of our show, people who’ve worked with Noah and who’ve just listened to our show, aren’t going to become members because this sounds like a fantastic opportunity.

Noah McNeely: I wish I’d known about it years ago. This is great.

Steven Julian: But we know about it now. So Narek, thank you very much for being here today.

Narek Vardanyan: Thank you, guys. This has been amazing.

Steven Julian: Absolutely. Noah, let me wrap the show up with you and just kind of get your final thoughts, let. you kind of put a bow on this because this isn’t like something you’ve been hiding. This is a brand new relationship.

Noah McNeely: Yeah, Narek and I got connected fairly recently and it started like, oh, it’s just another contact. And then I did a little digging and I was like, wow, this sounds pretty amazing. And so I got really excited about talking to Narek and getting him on the show. Yeah, I would suggest a lot of the people I’ve worked with in the last 25 years, frankly, if this had been available, they’d be a lot further along than they got in some cases, or a lot further along, a lot faster than they got in some cases. So, no, I’m excited about what PreLaunch is and what it’s done and what the future of it is.

Steven Julian: Everybody can go to prelaunch.com, become a member. No cost to become a member of the community and then start working on your project if you want. In addition to that, people can go to productquickstart.com. There’s a contact us page. And if you want to do your own podcast, you need to see Jody Smith. Jodysmith.com. He helps people podcast. I am, you can come, you can search me, but I can’t give you my website because I didn’t pass it through compliance. So for Noah, for Jody, this is your Slightly Annoying co-host, Steven Julian saying we’ll catch you next time from deep in the lair. Product Juice.

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: