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

Steven Julian

Scams, scams, and more scams. We've all got stories of scams. Maybe it's you're on Sesame Street and somebody whispers to you, you want to buy an S? Maybe you go over to a friend's house just for dinner not to realize you've been trapped into hearing about a great business opportunity or... If I get one more email from some Nigerian prince, I think I'm going to pull what little is left of my hair out. We've all got stories of scams, and today Noah's going to share some scam stories in the product development space, and we're going to ask you about your stories too.

Next on Product Genius. Do you want to be a successful inventor entrepreneur? Struggling to get your product from idea to market? Well, you've come to the right place. Welcome to Product Genius. The down-to-earth podcast that explores important topics about inventing and launching new products. Noah McNeely is your trusted guide. With more than 20 years of product launch experience, he's here to help you on your journey to become a product genius. Let's get started. Here's your slightly annoying co-host, Steven Julian. Hey, that's my line. Yes, welcome to another hopefully. award-winning edition of Product Genius.

I am your slightly annoying co-host Steven Julian across the table in the product development lab, also known as the layer of Product Quick Start with the head honcho of Product Quick Start and the host of this show, Product Genius, Noah McNeely. Noah, welcome to your own show.

Noah McNeely

Well, it's as usual, a pleasure to be here.

Steven Julian

It is. It is our pleasure. And by our, I mean myself and Jody Smith, our producer.

Noah McNeely

I have turned off all the 3D printers and all the equipment here in the lab so that they won't interfere. We won't have any AI robots going wild and crazy on us. And hopefully that'll work the rest of the show.

Steven Julian

I just want to state that I did not call it your warehouse. I did on a previous episode. And I thought you were going to come across the table at me for just a brief second.

Noah McNeely

Warehouse, bunker, lab, compound, it all works.

Steven Julian

You said it's a lab, and it is. It is your lab. You are the mad scientist. And this is the lab in the lair. That's what I like. The lab in the lair.

Noah McNeely

Secret hideout.

Steven Julian

That's right. Absolutely. Speaking of hiding out, some people may want to hide out after they realize that they've been scanned as an inventor. And this is a topic we have mentioned many times over the history of this show, dating back to when Tiffany was co-hosting and brought you on as the product genius of product development. And we've kind of talked about the scammy nature of, are you an inventor? And as you've said, Late night TV ads, right?

Noah McNeely

Not exclusively. They show up on the internet. They're everywhere.

Steven Julian

Yeah. On the internet, late night, they also show up probably during your favorite game show occasionally.

Noah McNeely

Wherever there's a cheap advertising space. Exactly.

Steven Julian

So let me just kind of get out of your way. You paint the picture of what specifically we are going to talk about and what these ads are, what they say. And why this is a very, very important topic for us to talk about.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, so the gist of it, you know, we'll go through the actual scenario. They come in of how these scams work, but they come in different flavors. But one thing they have in common is basically. they're preying on people that they want to believe that their idea is amazing and they're going to be this huge success. You know, it's easy to fantasize about all those things before. you've done a whole lot of work. And these companies recognize there are people that just want to hear great things, and then they'll start paying you money to try to move their product forward.

And to be clear, all these companies, they do exactly what they say they're going to. They don't break any walls. They give you a contract.

Steven Julian

Which I kind of pushed back on you pre-show, because I think this is important to bring up. You are not calling them a scam because they take your money and don't do anything or don't do exactly what they say they're going to do. They do. But when it comes to developing a product, when it comes to working on your invention and turning it into a product, the things they're doing. You don't need or you don't need at that point or you don't need to spend as much as you're spending or some variation on that.

Is that correct?

Noah McNeely

Yeah, well, I don't. know Merriam-Webster's definition of scam. This is just the vernacular I use for this whole kind of scuzzy, which is probably not a word, activity that people do in this space. But yeah, they're going to do exactly what they commit to do. But the real scam part is... How they spin all these, what I would call, not quite promises. Because they're not putting anything on those promises in paper. They're just really making what they do seem exactly like what you need. Because they realize most inventors have never done it before.

They maybe have never talked to a real engineer. Or they just don't understand the process. So you see this advertisement. And this advertisement is like, oh, we work with thousands of inventors. Oh, these guys must really know what they're doing. So it's easy to get sucked into that, and that's why I call it a scam.

Steven Julian

Okay, so before we really dig into this, I believe, as the slightly annoying co-host, I should probably say a couple things to protect the show.

Noah McNeely

Yes, we're not talking about any specific company.

Steven Julian

So for legal reasons, we're not going to mention any company by name. They. come and they go.

Noah McNeely

Other than Product Quickstart, which is not a scam. Exactly.

Steven Julian

Exactly. ProductQuickstart.com. Fill out the contact form today. So the other companies that we're talking about, they come and they go, they rebrand, they evolve with the times, and they do offer some services, and they do those services, but they make you feel like if you just use our services, Everything's going to be roses and you're going to be making millions

Noah McNeely

of dollars.

Steven Julian

And that is where they kind of get you. So I realized I was protecting the show to that last statement, which really sounds accusatory. But anyway, that's just me. That's my opinion. Not necessarily a fact. OK, so let me start it by this. Walk us through the process. Walk us through what's it like, you know, so that somebody goes, wait a minute, I think I know what Noah's talking about because I may have done this or I started this. Talk about what the process is.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, so again, there are a lot of variations. There are a lot of flavors of this. And these companies come and go and they rebrand themselves over time. They pop back. up under new names. And their process evolves as technology and society evolves too. But the general process is kind of the same, at least as I know it. First thing you're going to do, you're going to respond to that ad. You're going to fill out their form. You're going to call their number, you know, whatever it is. And they're going to put you on a call or in a meeting with somebody, a Zoom meeting.

They're going to get you on the phone with somebody that is super slick. And you're going to be like, hey, this guy's my best friend because he's just that slick. And it doesn't really matter what your idea is. I mean, your idea could be the stupidest thing in the world. And I'm sure your idea, listener, is not stupid. But if it were. It's still going to be the best thing this guy's ever heard. This guy's going to say things like, oh, that's amazing. I can't believe this isn't on the market already.

I'd be surprised if this doesn't sell millions or whatever platitudes they're going to put together. So because you're an inventor and you haven't done this before, and this is a company that works with thousands of inventors, you're going to walk away from that meeting and think, wow, I really got something. You're going to be pumped up. So that's step one. And then yada, yada, yada. They're going to keep telling you how great you are. I'm sorry, you can go ahead. No, no.

Steven Julian

So obviously with that, that causes you to, they want to build your excitement or prey upon your excitement and keep your excitement high. And again, everything's a little bit different, but when does, what's the first time where they kind of part you from your money? What does that normally look like? in these scenarios? that also should cause your antenna to go up? Right.

Noah McNeely

So the next thing that's going to happen, maybe it's in the same call. Maybe it's another call they set up. Maybe they send you a proposal, an email. It could be any number of ways. Whatever it is, it's going to be very professional. If they send you a document, it's going to look really, really nice, very well-drafted. They're going to, not in the document, but they're going to verbally tell you, oh, your idea is awesome. And, you know, we really just need $6,000 or $10,000 or whatever to shape it up and make it where it's presentable.

I mean, you've got a great idea, but, you know, it needs to be polished up. So we can do that for you. It's just going to cost several thousand dollars to do it. And that's a bargain. We're doing you. I mean, you go to an engineering college, they're going to charge you $30,000 to do this. We're going to do it for $6,000. And, you know, because we can do it because we do so much volume. We can help you out here. Just send it to us. Send us the money and we'll, you know, we'll take care of this presentation for you.

Steven Julian

And just for a little bit of comparison, for also a little bit of, hey, let me let you guys in on the way this can be done ethically and correctly and the best way. When someone reaches out to Product Quickstart, they are offered the ability to fill out a one-page form to tell you about their idea. And then you, your offer is to say, here's what my time costs and let's have a one-hour meeting. And it's just the cost of your, I mean, it's really kind of a lost leader of the cost of your time.

So that, I mean, you kind of say, let's have an initial just conversation. And in that conversation, your number one job is to go, This is not, I don't think this is viable. or here are the three things I think you absolutely have to change if you even want to remotely go down this road and paint a picture of what the road is going to look like. And you're almost trying to talk people out of going down this road, right?

Noah McNeely

Well, yeah. I mean, I've done this long enough to know that one of my key benefits I can bring to people is to try to poke holes in their idea or their business plan or whatever it is. At the end of that conversation, if we can patch all those holes up, then yeah, maybe we can work together and move forward. Sometimes people really don't like to hear that because they're the people that really, really, really want to believe. and they don't want to know that the laws of physics prevent what they want to do from happening or whatever it is.

Other people, they love that and they're able to solve those little problems right away. Oh, but we can change this, we can change that. Other people, and I've had people that I've told, you know, here's your problems. And they go away. And then two years later, they'll show up. Hey, I thought about it. I fixed these problems. Can we work together? So the key difference there is I'm going to be honest. And the other company, again, doesn't matter how good your idea is or how impractical it is. It's going to be fantastic as far as they're concerned.

Steven Julian

So they're doing what they say they're going to do, which is no matter what you give them money, they will give you a presentation or a prototype or whatever it is. They have put no investment of their time or their quote-unquote expertise into helping you get to the real end goal, which is a minimum viable product that can produce a business of selling a product.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, so what they're going to deliver typically, and it's going to be... Work that I look at and it looks like it was done by an intern. It's probably work. they paid somebody $800 to do and you paid them $6,000, $10,000, whatever it is to have it done. You're going to get what the contract said. You're going to get these renderings. They may not be really nice, but they're renderings and you're going to get illustrations. You might have an animation of your product because they built your product in some very basic 3D CAD.

You'll probably get what is often called a sales sheet, like it describes your product. For someone who's never seen any of this, you're going to be like, yeah, this is great because this is probably the first time you've seen your idea in a 3D form or in a CAD form or whatever, but nothing's really thought out. There's no matter behind what they've done. Is the mechanism even work? Is the concept even work? No, they've just shown you sort of an outer picture. They've taken what you've shown them, which might have been a sketch, and they've just made it a prettier sketch.

They put kind of. lipstick on a pig is what we in the South would say. And again, it's work that if I were to do that work, I would charge like $1,500 to do it. But I would never do that work because it's crap. It's useless.

Steven Julian

Well, and you would never do that work because the first work that must be done is to help them see what needs to be seen before you start. Creating a presentation because if you don't do that first, then it's crap because, oh, great, you got an animation of something that's never going to work. Before we continue down this road, I want to do something that I don't think we've ever done this specifically on this show.

Noah McNeely

I'm terrified.

Steven Julian

You should be. You've worked with me enough now, right, that you're terrified. But you've also worked with me enough. When I get done, I think you're going to go, hey, that's a pretty good idea. Or you're going to say, Jody, cut that out, and no one will ever hear this. This is a topic I think more than a couple of our listeners could give some stories.

Noah McNeely

Oh, my gosh.

Steven Julian

Yeah? So I'm. going to challenge everyone listening to this episode. Sitting there cursing because you've had an experience or you know of someone or you almost went down this road. We would love to hear these stories.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, absolutely.

Steven Julian

Noah's got a hundred of them from his clients, but let's add to the, you know what? We can, we can publish it in a book. And we could find someone who will give us a 3D rendering of what that book would look like. And for $5,000, I'll pay for it. I'm sorry. I'm just thinking everybody's got a story. So stay tuned to the end of the episode. If you've listened to the episode, you can know. Go to Product Quick Start. Tell us your story in the Contact Us form. And maybe we'll even, you know.

Kind of do letters from the audience or PDFs from the audience because nobody writes letters anymore.

Noah McNeely

Right. And if you've gotten, let's say you went down this path and you got discouraged because you got ripped off and you're just, there might be something I can do to help you. Even if you're out of resources, I might be able to point you. to some things you can do for lower costs than you think that actually move you forward. But yeah, this is one of the saddest parts of my job is running into people and meeting people that have been scammed this way.

Steven Julian

And I think you've said this already. I'm going to ask you to really clarify it. The weapon that they use to hurt people is keeping them excited and pumping them up unnecessarily or improperly, I guess would be the way to say. It's a bad sales tactic.

Noah McNeely

Well, it works out for them. I mean, they get a lot of money out of it. That's how they can afford all those advertisements.

Steven Julian

And so you kind of mentioned that a lot of times. it's people who this is their first time. I guess most people don't use them.

Noah McNeely

I've never met a second-time user of any of these companies. I've also never met anyone that invented a product one way and then went. And then started the second time with one of these companies.

Steven Julian

Yeah. So we don't say it. I don't say it a ton on the show. I've got compliance. I'm an independent financial advisor. I help people with investments. There are a couple of things I'm thinking about in my world. Nobody has ever bought two. I won't even say them because I'd have to run this by compliance. There's a couple of products that people only buy once and it's just because it wasn't sold right or it was oversold or whatever.

Noah McNeely

How many people do you know? There are some and usually alcohol is involved when they do this, but go to the carnival and they go to those games on the midway and the guy behind the, you know, running the game is like, hey, you look like a winner, sir. Come up, throw, you know, $10, you get five balls, you throw them in the basket and then. Yeah, you do that, and you don't win. Almost no one wins ever. Now, if you're drunk enough, you might try again and again and again, but most people realize after the first time that, oh, it's a scam.

I'm going to move on.

Steven Julian

Yeah, or, hey, match wits with me because clearly you can be smarter than me in something, and it's the guess the weight or guess the age or. things like that.

Noah McNeely

So the process, back to the scam. We're midway through the scam, by the way. This is only step one. Oh, really? You are still on the hook at this point. At this point, they've given you this sales sheet. They've given you these renderings, these animations. They might even build a website for you. They do all sorts of stuff.

Steven Julian

And I've given them money already. All right.

Noah McNeely

That's cheap and free.

Steven Julian

I'm not even. Oh, wait. Whoa, whoa. It's cheap and free to them.

Noah McNeely

It's cheap and free to them. Ah. But you're in. You think they're doing everything right for you. And then the next pitch comes along. It's like, okay, you saw how great this was. I mean, you see now that we've reduced your idea to renderings, animations, we've got your website up. You can see how awesome it is. We can hand all that stuff to you and you can go out and you can try to pitch companies on it. But I should let you know, we also have a database of hundreds and hundreds of companies.

We could do that pitching for you. Now, we charge like $5,000 to. do that or whatever. So it's only $50 a company. I mean, you can't go pitch a company for $50. It's going to cost you that much just to get in touch with the right person. So if you send us another $5,000 or $10,000 or whatever it is, we'll do that next step for you too. So this is kind of part two of the scam. And at least the people I've met that have been scammed go this far. There may be parts three and four that I don't know about.

But this is sort of the last part of the scam. So you pay them that money. And then what basically happens is they do have – they're honest. They have a database of all these companies and et cetera. that's hundreds of companies long. And they're basically spamming all those companies with your substandard presentation. And I'd be surprised if any one of those companies ever looks at them. Or, you know, maybe they've got an intern that's like, hey, it's your job to look through these. And if you happen to see something mildly interesting, come get me.

That kind of stuff.

Steven Julian

And I would. imagine one of the things these companies that we won't name stand on is they've probably got a very small handful. They've got a couple of things they can point to and say, oh, look, we were part of XYZ. We were part of the Fred drink reinvigorator.

Noah McNeely

For those of you who listened to the Flash of Genius, you know who Fred is and what Fred's all about.

Steven Julian

Last or upcoming, Jody now has to make sure.

Noah McNeely

We're currently in a timeless void outside of regular space time, so we don't know if this is the present or future.

Steven Julian

Because we're in the lab layer. We're in the lab layer.

Noah McNeely

We are. Things work differently here. I'm sorry, I lost the whole train of thought.

Steven Julian

Yes, I got you off topic finally for once. It's always me that does it. So, oh crap, now I'm off topic too. No, so we were basically saying that they've got some examples. Oh, right, right, right.

Noah McNeely

So they've got examples. So they do because they've been doing this for a very long time, maybe in different forms and whatnot. And once in a while, lightning strikes. That happens. Suggest in a lot. of those cases it's probably despite what they did versus because of what they did. But, you know, I don't know all the details. So this is just my assessment from the outside. But read the fine print. In fact, there were, I think, some class action lawsuits maybe a decade or two ago against companies like this. And because of that, whatever government agency, you would know this, you're in.

Finance, FTC, or whatever, require them to start listing what their success rate is. If you read that fine print, it's like less than 1%. And in some cases, it might be even lower than that. So yes, they have an odd success case here and there. They're really going to talk about that one a lot. They're not going to tell you about the 99% that failed.

Steven Julian

And much like the 3D rendering and the presentation that they created when they go out and go to these companies, I would imagine. $999,999 times out of a million, they come to the company, they come to the person and say, well, here's what we did, right? Do they say, oh, we talked to this many?

Noah McNeely

Yeah, so you're going. to get, typically you're going to get a report of what they did, and then the guy, maybe it's a different person at this point, but someone's going to reach out to you and talk to you and say, you know, look, I am really surprised we're not getting any traction with your presentation, with your project. I'm shocked, really. But, you know, we did everything we knew how to do or we did everything we could and we're just not getting there. And at that point, I wonder if there's a phase three and four of the scam that I don't know about just because, you know, the people that I meet have been through phase two and that's as far as they go.

Steven Julian

Well, I was thinking, well, we do have this very short list of 10 people or 10 companies and we'll actually go and we've got an annual meeting coming up and we're going to include yours with... With a face-to-face presentation. and all it takes is another, you know, this is the televangelism, the televangelists of inventors. I mean, they are, just send me a little more, just do this one thing.

Noah McNeely

I think it's. almost more like a Nigerian prince of inventors.

Steven Julian

There you go.

Noah McNeely

The scam of, send me money and I can send you more.

Steven Julian

If you're contacting us with your story through productquickstart.com in the contact us form and telling your story. Give us your analogy. We've got the Nigerian Prince televangelist. I know one of our listeners can top those questions.

Noah McNeely

Oh my gosh, is there a Nigerian Prince televangelist combined together? That would be amazing. The Nigerian Prince pastor.

Steven Julian

Oh man, goodness gracious.

Noah McNeely

So you might wonder, how do I even know this?

Steven Julian

Oh, now he's asking his own questions of himself. He really is getting rid of me after this show.

Noah McNeely

I need you to challenge the questions I'm asking myself like you just did. That was fantastic. That was absolutely perfect.

Steven Julian

Hey Noah, what should I do? No, I'm not there yet.

Noah McNeely

How do I know this stuff? And it's like, again, I meet at least a half dozen, probably closer to a dozen people every year. that's been scanned this way. And some of them have no resources left. And again, I can just give them the best advice I can. So you could try this, try this, try this. Some of them. They pulled out of this scam early enough that they can still start over and move forward. And I see these presentations like, hey, I paid such and such, $8,000, and here's the report.

It's good, right? No. No, it's not good. It's not good at all.

Steven Julian

Physics will not allow me to make this.

Noah McNeely

Exactly. So, no, I'm sorry. I interrupted the question you were going to ask.

Steven Julian

No, that's okay. Which I interrupted. Which was redundant. Yes, that I interrupted you to make sure. Please proceed. If anyone is looking at any, you know, as someone is starting their first invention, as someone is going through their product and they start to talk to outside people and they start to, because they may approach a company, you know, help arm us with some tips. Give us some ideas that we need to do as we start talking. And this might apply to more than just the, we're going to make this great presentation, but.

What are some steps they could take? at the very beginning? that would kind of show, maybe I don't need to work with this company? I think. the first and most obvious one, like you said, is looking at success. I mean, that's a fair question. Sure. So lead us through some tips. Yeah.

Noah McNeely

So the stuff you can do pretty easy is read that fine print. I mean, if you do go to their website or, well, I mean, even flashes on the screen on TV, but you... It's too small for you to even read it, even if you have a giant TV. So go to the website. You'll find their fine print. You'll find their terms. You'll find something that has that success rate listed. Beyond that, maybe you do that, and it is a higher success rate than what I said. There may be other companies out there that kind of look like these companies.

Maybe they're legit. I don't know. I don't know why a legit company would want to look like one of these companies, but who knows? You can ask for those success stories. You're probably, with some of these scam artists, they're probably going to have a page on their website that kind of walks you through some of their wonderful successes from the past. You'll have no way. of contacting those people. Again, it's just marketing fluff at that point. I think one of the most important things is just remember. if it's too good to be true, it's probably not true.

You need to learn to tell. Are they just telling you what you want to hear to pump you up, to turn you into a good client? I say, hey, sir, talking to someone who's not particularly attractive, sir, you would be amazing in this convertible. Think of how good you would look in this convertible. No, you're still not attractive. It's just a convertible. So these are used car salespeople type. There's good used car salespeople out there. My dad was a used car salesperson. He was great. So don't be offended if you're a used car salesman.

But you see my point. They're going to tell you what you want to hear to push you over the edge to do business with them.

Steven Julian

If I may add, I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to understand clearly when they're asking you to commit money and what are you paying for. Yes. Understanding what you're getting for your money.

Noah McNeely

From the first time.

Steven Julian

I met you years ago, one of the things that I have never forgotten is when someone first engages with you in product quick start, they are paying for your time as an expert. Yes. And they are paying for your wealth of knowledge and experience. And you can draw on saying. Here's all the products I've helped bring to market. And by the way, for every one of these, there's tons that I helped not waste their money. Yes. And that's a very easy value proposition of what I'm buying.

Noah McNeely

It is. But again, be careful with that particular question. with companies like this, because again, they're very slick. They know what they're doing. They are going to tell you exactly what they're going to do. Hey, you're going to get a presentation. It's going to be rendering, animation, website, sales sheet, et cetera, et cetera. But again, that's not necessarily and usually not what you need, at least at this stage. It's just not. So they're going to be honest in a very dishonest way.

Steven Julian

Well, because they're presenting to inventors, and inventors don't need that until they've actually got their product to prototype, really. I mean, it. really gotten through the problems.

Noah McNeely

Right, exactly. You know, companies, they make their money off of inventors. They don't make their money with inventors. And I think that's a key distinction there. And, you know, myself and others that are legit, yeah, we get paid to develop a product for you and et cetera. But really what, you know, at this point in my career, I love success stories because they help me find other great clients. So if you were to come to my office, you know, I've got shelves full of products that have actually launched and people have actually bought in stores and on Amazon, et cetera.

Then I've helped my clients get to the market, and I have a much higher percentage than a 1% success rate. So I think that's key. One other thing, just to answer your question, what else can you do? Two things. Do your due diligence. Check out, if you can find anyone that has anything to say about these companies, do searches on the internet for people that talk about them. And something that you really should do is check out some of the inventor organizations. I'll give an example. that just because I know them well, the Chicago Inventors Organization, which you don't have to be in Chicago to be a member of or to participate in, you can talk to people there and say, hey, what do you think about unnamed companies?

And they're going to tell you, we don't think much of them. Right.

Steven Julian

And not only that organization, I was, as you were talking about that and you said, you know, You kind of talked about due diligence. I think one of people's due diligence, and you've said this in past episodes, because of social media, because of our connectivity globally through platforms and all the different ways we connect, finding online groups. I mean, Tiffany Crumans, former host of the show, still sponsored through Opu Probiotics, she created a whole LinkedIn group of product. I'm sure you can help people connect with. With online communities where that, instead of asking the company X and saying, you know, unnamed company X and saying, oh, give me a couple of your success stories, going to just the online community, hey, anybody had any experience?

And I bet it wouldn't take long for people to go stay away. from that company. I wasted a ton of money.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, and one, just off of that, one infuriating thing, kind of an add-on to these scams that actually came up. With a client a couple years ago, one of these companies, you know, he was upset. He was pissed about what they didn't do for all the money he paid them. And they were like, okay, we will give you half your money back if you sign this saying you will not publicly say anything bad about us. That's pretty low. But that happens too. And I've seen this particular company, I've seen it twice now.

Wow. So it's...

Steven Julian

When that's part of your protocol?

Noah McNeely

They're shady. Very shady.

Steven Julian

I was thinking of a different word that started with SH, but, you know, we, and I could say it on the podcast.

Noah McNeely

Exactly.

Steven Julian

Exactly. Now I'm hungry. Okay. So in, so, and, and it's funny, we, we've, we've done a couple of shows here recently where I think one of the growing themes of the message you're trying to get across is, is we need, there's a community, there's a good community. And then there's a. A community that preys, P-R-E-Y-S, on the inventor community and the entrepreneurial community. So, you know, protect each other and look out for each other. And we're stronger together, you know, helping each other learn from our mistakes, learn from potential mistakes.

Hey, avoid this.

Noah McNeely

Ask around. I mean, even someone like me, if you want to do business with me, ask around. Hey, I have no problem with you doing that because... You know, I'm not a scam artist. Get as many different viewpoints as you can. And I understand nobody's going to have 100%. everybody loves them, because I piss a lot of people off telling them that their baby's ugly, you know? But ask around. I think that's one of the keys.

Steven Julian

We'd much rather hear stories of people not doing business with you or someone else, some other very... You know, strong person of integrity because, hey, it's just we didn't mesh right or I didn't necessarily agree with his, you know, total evaluation on my product. I'd much rather have that than they scammed me out of. they scammed me out of money and I paid for something that I really I paid that I really didn't need or. I certainly didn't need to pay that much for what I got. Right. So we and I'm I'm going to come to the end of the show and assume that we didn't cut out my part before.

So we've given our listeners some homework potentially. So if anyone listening has got a good story or a bad story or a story period about unnamed company, insert here, they can go to, why don't you tell them? I did the last show. You tell everybody how they can get in touch with you, not just with their story, but also with their product idea and how you can help them bring that product to market.

Noah McNeely

Yeah. So the best way is productweekstart.com. There's a contact us form where you can just say whatever you want, but please give me some information other than just, hey, call me. I want to talk to you because I'm not going to do it. And there's also, if you are interested in actually pursuing a product development program with us, you want more information about that, there is a self-assessment form that asks you some basic questions just to help me understand how far along. you are before we, you know, so I can prepare for that call that we'll set up.

Steven Julian

Has anyone contact, has anyone filled out your contact us form in the years past? Where they say, I have this wonderful rendering and animation that I got made and I want you to see it.

Noah McNeely

They haven't put that in the contact us form, but I have received that via email after making contact with them. And it's like, they're so proud and excited about it.

Steven Julian

And you go, great, I get to tell them that it's crap.

Noah McNeely

I'm the bearer of bad news sometimes. I always try to be nice about it. It's like, this is a starting point. And we can move forward from here.

Steven Julian

Noah's business card says, Noah McNeely, product quick start, bearer of bad news. And finder and help you finding the good.

Noah McNeely

And your baby's ugly, by the way.

Steven Julian

If you don't know what he means by that, you need to listen to past episodes because we covered that many times. Noah McNeely, productquickstart.com and the host of Product Genius. Thank you so much for. Hosting your own show in your own lair and letting us. drink some wonderful soda, which I gave a shout out before. I'm not giving it again because they haven't paid us yet. So we're looking for sponsors. Speaking of sponsors, we do want to give a quick shout out to Tiffany Crumans, Opu Probiotics. If you are not following her on LinkedIn or social media, you need to follow her.

There's some cool new developments coming with her product. And also want to shout out our producer, Jody Smith, who's sitting right here. You know, Noah, one of the things I love about Jody is he has never, ever interrupted this show. That's amazing. That fascinates me. And Noah's not listening to me because he's looking at his phone.

Noah McNeely

I am adjusting the environmental controls of the layer.

Steven Julian

Oh, stop. Wow. Was that a product you developed?

Noah McNeely

No. I did not invent the HVAC system.

Steven Julian

Or the smartphone app that allows you to adjust it. Oh, it's already cooler and more pleasant in here. Thank you so much for doing that. So Jody Smith, our producer, if you want a podcast, you can go to jodysmith.com. He helps people podcast. You can go to productquickstart.com and fill out the contact. us form, as Noah said. If you want to get to know an independent financial advisor, you can search my name, Steven Julian, and you'll find out more about me. But that's all I can say without compliance coming in, barreling into this layer.

And drag me away, not in handcuffs, but more in making me fill out forms and triplicates. So for Noah and for Jody, this is your slightly annoying host, Steven Julian. I've taken up too much of your time at the end of the show, but the rest of the show was fantastic. Thank you so much for being here. And we will catch you next time on Product Genius.