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

Steven Julian: Are you prepared for the coming AI apocalypse? Or are you actually really going to use AI to help with your inventing endeavors? You’ll learn one of those two coming up next on Product Genius.

Noah McNeely: Do you want to be a successful inventor entrepreneur struggling to get your product from idea to market?

Steven Julian: Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Zach Rattner: Welcome to Product Genius. The down-to-earth podcast that explores important topics about inventing and launching new products.

Steven Julian: Noah McNeely is your trusted guide. With more than 20 years of product launch experience, he’s here to help you on your journey to become a product genius. Let’s get started.

Zach Rattner: Here’s your slightly annoying co-host, Steven Julian.

Steven Julian: Hey, that’s my line. Yes, it is Product Genius. I am your slightly annoying co-host, Steven Julian. Welcome to another, hopefully one day, award-winning edition of Product Genius. We are broadcasting from the lair of Product Quickstart. With me, as always, is the passive-aggressive producer, Jody Smith. And across the table from me is the man of the hour, the man with the power, the man who makes… The world go round. Well, actually, no.

Noah McNeely: That sounds a lot like I’m an evangelist, a TV. evangelist. I’ll take that back.

Steven Julian: Yeah, I’ll take that back. I’ll take that back. I said, yeah. Well, actually, it’s superstar Billy Graham. He used to say the man of the hour, the man with the power.

Noah McNeely: That’s why I made that connection.

Steven Julian: Exactly. So it is Noah McNeely of Product Quick Start here on Product Genius. Noah, how are you, sir?

Noah McNeely: I’m doing great. I’m also well-known for being passive-aggressive, so we don’t want to let Jody have that title all to himself. We’re getting close to the end of the year. The holidays are coming up, so it seems like things are just getting busier and busier, but I’m glad to take a little break here and record some podcasts.

Steven Julian: We so appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to get with your listeners and just kind of impart some knowledge and also introduce them to some very interesting guests and very interesting business owners. And today, we’ve got a fantastic guest to talk about the topic of AI, a topic that is definitely in the news. And definitely if you talk to 10 non-experts, you would get 15 different opinions about AI. But we’re going. to focus on it when it comes to the entrepreneur, the inventor, and really discuss that.

Noah McNeely: Yes, I’m super excited about having Zach Ratner join us. He’s the author of Grow Up Fast, Lessons from an AI Startup. But Zach, unlike a lot of the AI experts out there, actually has some history developing. Physical products going down sort of the invention startup route. So I think you’ll have some perspectives that are really applicable to our audience more so than just someone coming here and talking about computer code and algorithms and stuff that’s just going to be way over our heads.

Steven Julian: He’s part of the club of product developers first.

Noah McNeely: So I’m looking forward to what he can tell us about. Practical applications here.

Steven Julian: Well, I’m going to passively, aggressively say, let’s stop our banter and let’s get him in the room and start talking about it. Zach Radner from Yembo. Zach, welcome to the studio.

Zach Rattner: Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me.

Steven Julian: Yeah, absolutely. So you are the co-founder and CTO at Yembo. Tell everybody about your current business in Yembo and what you guys do.

Zach Rattner: Sure. So Yembo is a computer vision company and we sell. a product to home service providers. So if you think about… Moving companies, property insurance companies, companies of that nature, they generally have a very labor-intensive quoting process because an expert has to go to the house, identify everything that’s there that needs to be serviced. If you’re moving, that’s everything you own. And if you get something wrong, the quotes can be way off. So we provide computer vision technology where the customer can scan quick videos of each room in their house. Our algorithms identify what’s there. And the quoting process can take just a couple of minutes instead of having to schedule these long and laborious in-home visits. So it’s a product in a nutshell, but a lot of lessons we’ve learned along the way from the seven years or so we’ve been in business.

Steven Julian: Great segue. You’ve done a couple of interviews. So lessons, and I believe those lessons you learned in kind of developing this company also came into kind of the book you wrote and specifically. You know, the book was called Grow Up Fast Lessons from an AI Startup. So I’m just going to ask you, I think almost everybody who listens to. this show is part of some kind of startup or it has done a startup.

Noah McNeely: Whether they realize it or not. Right.

Steven Julian: Whether they’re willing to acknowledge it or not. Welcome to the club. We’re here for you. But I wanted to just ask you and kind of talking about the book. Start with the term of AI startup. How would you define what makes a startup an AI startup?

Zach Rattner: Sure. So I think there’s a lot of hype here, but my view as an engineer is that an AI startup has some fundamentally proprietary technology at its core. So it’s really easy to use somebody else’s technology. I rely on macOS for my machine. For my work, I don’t call myself a macOS startup. So I would say an AI company has AI kind of in its core, not like around the ancillary sides of it. And I feel like an AI startup is fundamentally advancing the direction of an industry by leveraging things that AI does particularly well. It’s a flashy name, and it’s someone that has a lot of attention right now. But at the end of the day… It’s just an algorithm and it follows instructions. and just like any other piece of computer code. But I would say the outcome that comes from that is what’s really important. And it’s really more about enabling somebody to do something that they couldn’t have done before, just like any other kind of traditional product sense where AI is a flashy means to an end, but the end is really still what matters.

Steven Julian: Do you have a really good and simple example? That our listeners could grab onto and go, because by the way, that was a great definition. Now, can there be a picture and an example that a listener and a slightly annoying co-host who raises his hand at times of going, hey, slow it down for me, explain it to me so I understand. But a good example in your own startup and maybe even the startup of Yembo of just what that looked like or something that AI was able to do.

Zach Rattner: Sure. So let’s zoom in on a day in the life of a move estimator. So if you are a move estimator, you work at a moving company and your job is predominantly sales. Your goal is to explain the value of. the product that you’re offering, which is relocation services. But to be able to do a good job at that, you need to really understand everything that somebody owns. Part of the job is building rapport with the client, understanding what their real needs are, kind of counseling them through this complicated relocation process. But the other part of it is, frankly, kind of tedious. You need to also count how many cartons you’re going to need to pack up everything that they own and make sure the truck is loaded with the right equipment. So the historical way to do that would be to ring the person’s doorbell, walk around with a clipboard, use your years of experience to kind of look at what’s there. Identify what materials will be needed and write it all down. And that can take like 60 to 90 minutes for a typical home. But what our product does is it still allows the sales agent to build rapport with the client and do things that are uniquely human, but it allows the tedious part to be accelerated and it allows an algorithm to do it so the person doesn’t have to. I’m sorry, go ahead. Yes, I think I’ll wrap the thought up. But the idea being that… The workflow is very similar. Like I’m still going to somebody’s home before they have agreed to buy the job for me and estimating what’s there. But I’m using technology in a novel way that makes it easier and simpler and faster to get to that outcome that allows the person to make the sale.

Noah McNeely: So I think Yimbo is a fantastic example of what… Us AI novices kind of view AI as those of us who kind of, I think, view it correctly. Maybe not. But it takes tasks that are tedious and laborious, and it automates those in a way using, you mentioned computer vision, which is machine learning. We don’t need to go into all the, we can, but that gets into some pretty esoteric.

Steven Julian: Okay, sorry. Sorry. Apologies.

Zach Rattner: Six years later, we’ll come out of that rabbit hole.

Noah McNeely: Yeah, but my point was, it’s using some fairly sophisticated, like I said, algorithms and things like that to really take what can be repetitive tasks. Like in most cases, you go in, you’re probably in the old days, you go in, you. go, there’s a bedroom suit, it’s going to take this much time to move that, yada, yada. Now, the technology kind of understands all that and it puts it all together and it builds that. Automates the tedious tasks so that you or your client, as the person going in and selling the moving service or whatever the service is, you can spend more time on that customer side, the human side. that cannot be automated as well or as easily. And it seems, again, from my viewpoint of AI, that’s really where AI plays in a lot of useful ways and different things. Kind of earlier when we were talking off air, you talked about AI is kind of in the space that computers were in back in the 80s, whereas you go back to the 70s, you know, unless you were in the Department of Defense or NASA or university campus, you probably never touched a computer. But then in the 80s, all that changed. And I think the point you were making is that AI is kind of in a similar spot right now. Did I understand that correctly?

Zach Rattner: Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. It’s certainly. very early days. When a new fundamental technology comes out, it’s usually the geeks that created it that are the initial set of users. And then as time goes on and it gets adopted in more directions, the user interfaces get better. People learn what kinds of workflows it does and does not play well with. And it gets kind of more integrated into everyday life. So I feel that AI is going to get more and more prevalent. And there won’t be as much stigma around adopting it where when we started the company in 2016, there wasn’t a whole lot of activity around leveraging computer vision outside of people who were already engineers in that space. But now I feel like with things like ChatGPT and Claude and image generation, that it’s just becoming so much more accessible. So people are able to leverage its power without having to be the person who created it. The personal computer, the smartphone, the iPod, they all kind of like went through this route where when it reached that mass market appeal, most people who were using it probably had no clue how it works or how it’s made. And I. feel like that’s kind of where we’re at with AI right now.

Noah McNeely: Most of us still have no idea how iPhones work and I’m just glad they do. The magic. And I’m an engineer and I still don’t really understand half of it.

Steven Julian: The magic. The magic. We’re speaking with Zach Radner. He is the co-founder and CTO at Yembo. And I guess I wanted to ask one other thing just kind of about Yembo and your startup. When you started it back in 2016, did you start it with the idea of AI is going to play a big part? Because, you know, AI is still in its… In its infancy. now, back then, I’m wondering, was there, okay, we’re going to do this moving company and we’re going to use technology to make the tedious part easier or quicker and kind of, you know, look through that. Was it AI from day one? or were there some other things you were using that were just kind of ancillary to AI, that AI is doing better? Talk me through that at the very beginning.

Zach Rattner: Sure. I would say we started with AI at the core looking for a problem. So there was a fundamental shift that happened in 2015 where there was a popular academic benchmark called ImageNet, where you could think of it like a multiple choice test where there were a bunch of images and people would have to write algorithms and compete to identify what’s in that image. And it’s something that a human can do relatively easily. Like if I hold up a photo and say what’s in here, you probably won’t struggle too much to give me an answer. But for code, that’s much more challenging. And what happened in 2015 was the best submission that won. that competition for Microsoft actually beat out a college-educated human. So for the first time in human history, computers had demonstrated that they were better than people at identifying objects and images. But it seemed like most people outside of a relatively niche group of researchers didn’t really seem to pay a bunch of attention. And then you saw things like self-driving car companies were starting to take off after that. Things like identifying traffic lights and pedestrians and crosswalks were taking advantage of that deep learning technology. But the more I learned about the algorithms and the space… I realized like it wasn’t just self-driving cars and last mile drone delivery and these kinds of big buzzy industries. It was anything where humans were inspecting anything that was kind of ripe for improvement. And my wife was actually working at a moving company at the time. So that was like my in to understanding this particular industry that I otherwise wouldn’t have had any background in. And it’s interesting. I mean, we were, she worked at a larger moving company based out of the DC area. Like high-ranking government officials they were moving. And they had a certain set of challenges around identifying the right items for a move. Like things like bringing the right equipment, the right size crew, the right size truck. And then we were buying our first house and our real estate agent owned a local moving company, much smaller. I think it was like two or three trucks and that’s it. And then they both realized that they kind of worked in the same industry. So they were talking shop and like… They both had the exact same problems. So from huge moving company, moving government officials, all the way down. to a guy with two or three moving trucks, everybody seemed to have issues with them. It’s just really hard to give an accurate estimate because there’s so many things you got to look out for. If the person’s not trained, they’ll overlook things. You might forget to go. look in the garage where maybe 40% of the weight of the move is sitting. So the more I learned about the space, it’s like there are these two thoughts in my head. I just couldn’t. Couldn’t reconcile. Computers are better than people at identifying objects and images. And everybody’s got this issue where it’s really hard to identify objects and give an accurate moving quote. So the more we learned about the space, it almost felt, I’d say, kind of inevitable at some point. But in the beginning, it was just kind of straddling these two different worlds and bringing it together that I feel like was the inventive step that made the company exist.

Noah McNeely: Steven has another question, but I’m going to jump in here. And then I’m going to give it back to Steven.

Steven Julian: Just to point out that they’re going to be passive-aggressive. Good job.

Noah McNeely: I do. my best.

Steven Julian: That was actually aggressive-aggressive. Go ahead.

Noah McNeely: There are two fundamental things that you touched on, which I think are kind of universal across the successful inventor entrepreneurs that we’ve seen, that I’ve seen in my career, regardless of what they’re working on. I mean, it could be a new way to hang clothes in your closet. You touched on two things. One, you found a good problem to solve. It’s a problem that, hey, more than one person has. This is probably a universal problem. And then, two, you found multiple things that you were kind of putting together in a novel way to solve that problem. Now, most of the people that listen to this podcast are probably not thinking about machine learning and AI to solve problems, but it’s still interesting that you put dissimilar things together to solve what you perceived as a great problem. That’s where the best inventions often start. Okay, that was my sidebar, Steven. I’ll give it back.

Steven Julian: Can I go now? You can. That was my passive aggressive comment. So now all three of us around this table and Zach, you have to figure out when you’re going to be. passive aggressive. Actually, you don’t have to be. You’re the guest. All right. So here’s my, so Zach, what I was going to say was a lot of our listeners that Noah was kind of talking about have, I’m sure are very fascinated with all the things you said. I appreciate all the stories and what you’ve pointed out, but they’re sitting there. I’d say more than 50% of them are sitting there going. That’s all great. What does this have to do with me and my journey and my product and my startup? So I’m going to ask for the non-experts in the room, and I raise my hand, chief among them. Give us a primer. Give us your thoughts. Give us some step one, two, and three of AI tools that non-experts can use. If those of us that have been hesitant to look. Where should we start? And what are some of those tedious and laborious tasks that we might want to consider? utilizing AI for our business?

Noah McNeely: Yeah, particularly for people starting a new business or inventing something or not even knowing where to go to start a business.

Zach Rattner: Sure. So I will stay on brand. here. I mentioned in the Yembo story, starting with a need and a problem and then going from there. If you try to just list all the AI tools out there. I don’t think you’ll ever get to the end because so many new ones come out that it’ll be hard to keep up. But AI is buzzy and flashy, but at the end of the day, it is able to do certain things well and certain things not well. And we talked about the kind of more mundane, tedious aspects of work and the promise of AI. I think part of the reason why it has so much buzz is it brings the cost to do these tedious things down by orders of magnitude. So if yesterday you had to parse through tons of spreadsheets and look for anomalies or look at outliers, things like that, it’s relatively easy to go to ChatGPT. They have the data analysis mode. If you pay 20 bucks a month, you can upload a spreadsheet. You can ask it questions about it. I’ve heard stories of folks who upload their bank statement from the previous month and say, hey, ChatGPT, what subscriptions do? I have? I might want to cancel them and consolidate my bills, things like that. Cancel your Amazon Prime. Exactly. But like looking at these large reams of data, I think a lot of companies are sitting on it. A lot of workflows have been built kind of assuming that the cost of analyzing these things are really high. And the promise of AI is it allows that to come down and become much more accessible. So I think a few areas that I’ve seen folks get good successes on are if you have lots of spreadsheets that are really kind of tedious to look through. Try playing around with ChatGPT. I think it does a good job there. On the creative side, there’s a lot of mistakes that AI makes because it’s not a person. So I think we’re a long way off before we’ll watch a feature-length movie that’s entirely generated by AI. But if you want help, maybe putting a storyboard together, if you’re making an explainer video, or if you want to brainstorm some ideas for a presentation, having… Tools like Stable Diffusion or MidJourney generating those images, I found a helpful creative step along the. way. And also, I feel like a lot of people focus on asking AI to do things for it. Like, hey, can you write me 10 blog headlines or write a whole article about this? But I feel like another really interesting use case I don’t hear as much about is asking for feedback. And this is one thing. if you can even use the free version of ChatGPT. But one of the things we’ve done and I’ve seen a lot of success with is you can kind of get feedback on an idea. So if you have maybe a big presentation coming up, you can put in an outline and role play with it. You can say, hey, ChatGPT, pretend that you are a critic and you are complaining after this talk that I’m about to give. And give me a one-star review. Here’s the outline of what I gave. What are some helpful pieces of feedback that can make me better based on the feedback you’d give? And you can run through a bunch of different scenarios. You love it. Give me five-star ratings. You hate it. Give me one-star ratings. What are other angles I could go? take with it? And what I feel like AI can do is it can play the role of a peer that’s listening to you or evaluating whatever you’re proposing and giving you feedback. And it brings the cost down. The time it takes to do that way down. So what that means is as practitioners, you can have a much more refined idea and a much more refined presentation, report, whatever it is you’re working on. But you don’t have to like have as a humbling of the first experience of showing it to a real person that I put things in chat GPT that are like super unrefined because I don’t have to worry about like the other person judging me harshly or kind of complaining about it. And it lets you kind of like go back and forth and debate it a little bit more.

Noah McNeely: I think that’s a fantastic, I’ve never even considered using chat GPD that way, but I think about, you know, inventors, they could use that to, you know, if they’re going to do an investor presentation, they put the presentation into the system and say, okay, you hated it, critique it, and okay, you loved it, tell me what I did. well. I mean, variations of that, that’s fantastic.

Steven Julian: I think I was going to make a point and then let you ask the next question, but you made a point. So now I have to make a point and ask a question.

Noah McNeely: Do what you have to do.

Steven Julian: Do what I got to do. I found it interesting. I think some of the people who talk badly about AI or who are scared of it or who are just cautious about it are thinking, well, AI is going to replace human. Right. That’s obviously the buzzy negative. Oh, AI is going to replace human. When is Skynet going to come online? All that kind of stuff. And I think one of the things that’s realistically stated is, is AI going to take away our ability to think? But here, Zach has said, I think a lot of people go to AI and like you said, hey, write me 10 articles or write me 10 headlines or asking AI to just do the job. But instead, if you’re thoughtful and think about how you want AI to help you, you can get the. most out of AI by figuring out And like you said, the idea of feedback is very interesting. So, Zach, let me ask you this question. We’ve kind of talked about AI tools and we’ve talked about how AI was a central part of the startup of Yembo. I do want to ask, you’ve got a room full of entrepreneurs and product developers and other startup captains. What would be… The best piece of advice or what’s some of the top one, two, three, you know, you pick or favorite or most entertaining piece of advice that you got as you started and or that you would tell someone now that you’re seven years into this part of the journey with Yumbo.

Zach Rattner: Sure. I think the number one piece is know why you’re doing what you’re doing. I think a lot of entrepreneurship, especially now, is done in open. People post on LinkedIn, building in public, sharing what they’re doing. So it can be easy to maybe get caught in going through the motions and like, oh, I see so-and-so doing this. I’m going to go do this too. But I feel like a good founder, a good entrepreneur is. laser focused on what is the problem that they’re solving. And that’s the filter that they look at evaluating an opportunity, deciding what to do next, not kind of performative looking left and looking right. We have historically not been a very flashy company. We’re companies half engineers. We build products. We focus on making it easier to use, easier to adopt, kind of obsessing over little details and making sure that people are being able to be more effective at their jobs. We don’t sponsor a bunch of big flashy events and things like that. And I feel like it’s worked for us because we know who our target audience is. We know what they’re interested in doing. And we feel like we can do a better job serving them. Without taking out Super Bowl ads and doing other things that you may see louder companies doing. But I think knowing your why, there’s not really a one-size-fits-all answer. I read a bunch of books before I started Yembo. I don’t think there’s a course you can take that makes you really ready because there’s not one-size-fits-all. Every company is a little bit different. So you can read a. lot and learn about techniques. You can learn what other people did. But what’s right for you in your startup right now? Is something that nobody else is in the exact same situation. So knowing your why I think is really key.

Noah McNeely: Yeah, I think that’s great advice. Everyone’s different. I’ve met hundreds of inventor entrepreneurs in my career and maybe someday I’ll write a book about how different they are. But speaking of books, one of the main reasons we were excited about having you on was your book, Grow Up Fast, Lessons from an AI Startup. I was hoping you would tell us, kind of give our audience a little bit, what are some things they could look forward to reading in that book and learning from that book? And one of the things I liked about the book is it’s not just about AI. It’s really about a startup journey. You even talk about your experience with the hard product company, the Volo hairdryer and that startup experience and then how that. It was part of your journey going into the Yenbo experience and everything along the way. I think it’s a very, there’s a lot in. the book. And bearing in mind who our audience is, it’s inventor entrepreneurs, potentially people forming startups. What are some key takeaways that they would want to go to that book to learn more about?

Zach Rattner: Sure. So the book in a nutshell is, I call it the highlights of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned from starting Yenbo. The main takeaways, just to hit on a few highlights here in the time that we have, are breaking down big problems into small ones. I feel like there’s a misconception out there where if you read a news article about some cool tech product, you’re seeing the end result, but you’re not seeing what it took to get there. And I feel like the best founders that I know, that I’ve seen, Are really good at taking a big problem, breaking it down into small ones, having the right people work on each one. And then as a result of that, you accomplish something that looks impossible from the outside. You mentioned the Volo story. So I didn’t immediately just jump in and start Yembo. I was kind of consulting and helping out a couple of different startups before Yembo was. mature enough to have our first few paying customers. And I had an opportunity to work with this company that was aiming to make a battery-powered hairdryer. So I know this podcast is audio only, but I have a short haircut. I’ve had the same short haircut since I was a teenager. I’m probably the worst person if you’re looking for a beauty supply expert to talk to. But what we did was we just analyzed and looked at what are the reasons why a battery-powered hairdryer doesn’t exist right now. Turns out that the heat that you need to put out to dry hair is about 85-90% of the power that’s required. And to provide that much heat, you need a battery that would weigh like tens of pounds, like maybe 10 to 20. So that’s what’s historically prevented us from being able to have battery-powered hair dryers. But what happened was the company has maybe seven or eight different patents now on different things that they’ve done. And the cool thing about patents is they… They are publicly available to view, so I can talk about them now here. But the main idea is that by innovating around. that heating element and bringing the power requirements down, then you’re able to get it into the threshold where a battery can work. But the heating element we ended up using was an infrared bulb that historically had been used if you go to a convenience store to keep the cheese on the nachos warm. It’s like totally different from what the beauty industry was traditionally using, which was nichrome wire, which is more commonly found in hair dryers and things like toasters. But that idea of like not having a background in the beauty industry, but being able to go in from first principles and understand here are the constraints that this industry is under. Here’s like what’s non-negotiable, like a hair dryer must have heat, but how you get that heat is up for grabs. And then trying a bunch of different experiments along the way to kind of move that progress forward kind of ended up in us making this product that when we started out, wasn’t sure if we’d even be able to exist yet. Again, it has nothing to do with AI, but I feel like the thought process and that methodology, I’ve seen successful. founders go through this again and again and again, is that there’s this notion that entrepreneurs are like magicians and they can come in and they take big risks and they make bold bets and they do cool things. But I feel like the best entrepreneurs I actually know are really good at de-risking things. How do you make a bet not existential? How do you try something small before you go step on the gas? And by breaking down the problem that you’re focusing on into multiple smaller tests along the way, then you can be more realistic around how you’re going to get to these big audacious goals. I think that’s one thing. It’s just breaking big problems down into small ones.

Noah McNeely: When I read that section of your book, I saw that methodology come through very clearly. And I think, you know, it’s a brilliant way to look at it. I mean, you didn’t start at, well, you may have started out that way, but you didn’t end up necessarily solving the problem of a cordless hairdryer. You solved, you know, you talked about, well, there’s a regulation issue we have to solve. There’s the fan issue. we have to solve. And you narrowed down on the, you know, the heating element as an issue to solve. And I think. I think it’s a really good read and I’d recommend it to the audience.

Steven Julian: So I’m going to ask the question partially for entertainment comedic purposes, just trying to bring a little smile in the midst of a discussion about AI and all that kind of stuff. And also for the conspiratorial element of our fan base. And we do appreciate them.

Noah McNeely: It does exist.

Steven Julian: It do exist and we appreciate them and we’re so glad you listen for whatever reason you listen for. Zach, can you state here officially on Product Genius for the record and for all time that the book Grow Up Fast was not written by AI?

Zach Rattner: It was not. If you look at the back, I think I gave you a copy. There’s actually this labeling process that we came up with at Yembo. So it’s not a Yembo product per se, but it’s like something that we saw the industry needs. And I have nothing against using AI. Like I mentioned, we enable people to do it in our job. I. just talked to you about use cases. But what I do have an issue with is being dishonest and being opaque. And in my view, if you’re going to use AI, that’s fine. As long as you’re open and honest around what you’re using, what you’re using it for, and what the humans are actually do

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: