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

Steven Julian: Yes, Virginia, there are bad ideas. And we’re going to be talking about bad ideas and bad ideas out of brainstorming for inventors and entrepreneurs. And also, we want to apologize to all the Franks out there. Although Frank of Frank’s Cheese Hammers, you can go to hell. 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. Greetings and salutations, everybody. It is your slightly annoying co-host, Steven Julian. Welcome to another what might be, hopefully, maybe one day, an award-winning edition of Product Genius coming to you semi-live. Well, we’re live. You’re not listening to this live. Anyway, we’re coming to you from the lair inside Product Quick Start. With me, as always, is our intrepid producer, Jody Smith. And. across the table from me is the man you all came to listen to, he who is known as Noah McNeely. of Product Genius.

Noah McNeely: Hello.

Steven Julian: Hello. Happy day. We have had a fantastic pre-show meeting where we have just sat around talking about life, talking about our kids. Talking about other things that we’re not going to bring up on air, but they’re just for us, right?

Noah McNeely: It was the kind of conversation you might have in a bar, but we haven’t even been drinking.

Steven Julian: No, just coffee from your wonderful machine. I had the Southern Pecan, I believe. Yes. And Jody had the same. I think you had the same.

Noah McNeely: We all did Southern Pecan.

Steven Julian: The one thing we didn’t do is pumpkin spice. And that’s a topic for another show.

Noah McNeely: Yeah, that’s on the bad ideas show.

Steven Julian: That’s right. And this is the bad idea show.

Noah McNeely: Which I know is a polarizing thing to say. Exactly.

Steven Julian: But so is saying someone’s idea is a bad idea. I believe the working title of this show is Yes, Virginia. There are bad ideas. So we have… We’re going to talk about brainstorming and we’re going to talk about when you’re. an inventor, entrepreneur, and you’re kind of doing some brainstorming and people brainstorm with you, Noah, all the time. That’s kind of part of your job is to help them through their brainstorming. They bring their brainstorms to you. And we phrased it as sometimes you have to call the baby ugly. Sometimes you have to call the idea a bad idea. So we’re going to kind of talk about that. And I think we have a fictitious sponsor for this show.

Noah McNeely: Well, we don’t know that they’re fictitious for sure. They might be out there. And if you’re listening, we would love you to sponsor this show.

Steven Julian: We’re already giving you free marketing.

Noah McNeely: That’s right. So, yeah, today’s show is brought to you by Frank’s Cheese Hammers. And, of course, therefore, those very special occasion when cutting the cheese is simply not enough.

Steven Julian: And just to kind of recover that bad idea. We are actually sponsored by a real product. You guys that know Tiffany know that she has gone off and has been launching Opu Probiotics. And Opu actually is a legit product.

Noah McNeely: It is a legit product. And from personal experience, I don’t think it’s too far. for me to go to say that Opu really helps avoid the need to cut cheese.

Steven Julian: Tiffany, that’s free marketing for you. From Noah’s idea, but I fully support it and wish I had come up with it myself because it’s pretty darn funny. Okay. Brainstorming. You know, when people talk about brainstorming and you kind of wrote that, you kind of sent me this as we were discussing notes back and forth.

Noah McNeely: And this is part two of two. Yeah. The last time we talked about all the good stuff with brainstorming. Right. Now we’re on the other side. We’re going to talk about the dark stuff.

Steven Julian: The dark side of brainstorming. So when you’ve talked about brainstorming, there are books and gurus who will say, hey, there’s no such thing as a bad idea in brainstorming. And you say to that, well, that’s stupid.

Noah McNeely: And which, you know, to be fair, you don’t want to say that during brainstorming when people do throw out bad ideas. If you say that’s stupid. Well, that’s not going to go well.

Steven Julian: It shuts down the creative process, too.

Noah McNeely: They’re not going to throw out any other ideas, whether they’re good or. bad. And I think the point there is, yes, there are bad ideas, but in a brainstorm, we want those bad ideas, too. And that’s really the point that those books are trying to make. They just make it in a weird way. I think people that have had bad brainstorming experiences, they’ve latched onto that, and they just end up with this long list of bad ideas, and they don’t know what to do with them.

Steven Julian: Right. So let’s talk about what we can do with some of those bad ideas. So the first piece of advice Noah gives you is if you’re in a brainstorming session, don’t say in the middle of the session, hey, that’s a horrible idea.

Noah McNeely: No, don’t criticize the idea. Don’t criticize the person. No personal attacks. You’re an idiot. That’s a stupid idea. Shut up. That’s a bad thing to say.

Steven Julian: Because it’s going to ruin what might then follow as a better idea or a good idea. So after the brainstorming session is over, So now is there anything to be done with bad ideas? Is it just they’re worthless? or can you turn bad ideas good? Is there any value at? all in the stack of notes that you’ve created?

Noah McNeely: Yeah. So is there hope for these bad ideas? Can we find any value in the stack of scribbles and notes? Or are these ideas, are they just destined to a life of petty crime? Are they always going to be bad or can we make them useful and valuable?

Steven Julian: I don’t know. Are you?

Noah McNeely: Well, I have some stuff written on my sheet here.

Steven Julian: Well, let’s start talking. Well, and yeah, so I think you came up with four things to kind of walk us through to clean up after the storm. Right.

Noah McNeely: So before I reveal the four things, which are not in the book anywhere, so people might disagree with them, but they’re my four things. I’m going to tell. There used to be, and I’m not going to mention the name of the company or the person, but they’re reasonably famous, especially in this industry. They would do these brainstorming camps. It was like a two-day thing, and they would sell them to these big companies, and these big companies would go in, write a big check to send 20 of his people up to this camp. in a secluded area, and they’d spend two days brainstorming. And I’ve seen some of the reports that came out of that, and it was really just that big long list of mostly bad ideas. You have a few good ones in there, but I’m pretty sure most of those reports went promptly into a folder and were forgotten because nobody took the time or went through a process of dealing with the post-brainstorm activity of cleaning up after the storm. They left all the limbs. It’s like a hurricane came through and they left all the trees down. They didn’t go in and clean up. There was no positive result in a lot of cases. So those were bad brainstorms because they only did half of it. They didn’t do the back half. And that’s digesting and doing these four things and other things that we’ll talk about.

Steven Julian: All right. So number one, I believe probably based on what you just said, probably the first thing is to get a little. To organize or to categorize.

Noah McNeely: Yeah, and I don’t mean to have two buckets, one for good ideas and one for bad ideas. We’re not going to put. all Frank’s ideas in the bad idea bucket. Let’s just move on. That’s not what we mean. But oftentimes, when you are brainstorming, you’ve had a problem statement. We talked about this in the last show, I think, where the brainstorm had a purpose. Okay, we’re going to brainstorm ways to… Break cheese into crumbles, you know, so you’re going to come up with all.

Steven Julian: Well, that’s already been solved with Frank’s cheese hammer.

Noah McNeely: This is what we call hypothetical, you know, it’s not a real example. So it may have been for Frank once upon a time. By the way, I lost my train of thought.

Steven Julian: Dozens of listeners right now are Googling Frank’s Cheese Hammers to see. Is there a Christmas after Christmas special on those?

Noah McNeely: Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you need to break cheese into randomly sized crumbles, there’s no better way.

Steven Julian: So here’s what your slightly annoying co-host does. Categorize and sort. Yes.

Noah McNeely: So for breaking cheese up, maybe you’ve got… The categories are, okay, I’m going to have physical, you know, mechanical solutions, you know, then maybe I’m going to have a bucket that’s electric solutions and then maybe a bucket of, you know, chemical solutions or whatever it is, you know, it could be any number of things, depending on the problem you’re trying to solve. Maybe it’s solutions for homeowners or, you know, individual people in their kitchen. Maybe there’s also a bucket of solutions for commercial cheese breaking, you know, whatever that is, but you break everything up into these different. Kind of buckets and categories. Then you can start to sort things and then you’ll start to see, okay, well, these two ideas, they’re really kind of two versions of the same idea. So you start to merge those together and that makes the task of taking all these, you know, what was hopefully several dozen ideas and really consolidated them. So you can attack that analysis a little bit easier.

Steven Julian: So once you’ve organized, I think your step two then is you kind of have to bring in. An outside criteria that you’ve got to rank it against something. So talk about, okay, I got these ideas. Now, I guess it’s the first step of kind of being, now I got to get into the real world.

Noah McNeely: Yes. Go for it. Yeah. So it’s important to be objective in. how you critique these ideas. And by objective, I don’t mean. I don’t like that idea because it was Frank’s.

Steven Julian: Poor Frank is really getting beat up in this show.

Noah McNeely: Yeah, we had to pick on somebody.

Steven Julian: So why not a fictitious cheese hammer inventor?

Noah McNeely: If there’s a Frank out there crying about this, we’re not picking on you. It’s a different Frank. So you need objective criteria. And some people actually have trouble with this. Inventors I’ve worked with, it’s like, they’re just, I like this one, I don’t like that one. They don’t really necessarily think about why. So one of the things I advise them to do, Okay, you really love this idea. Maybe it’s the first idea you came up with, and that’s fine. Take a step back and try to figure out what are the things you like about it. And it can’t be, oh, because I came up with it. That’s not an objective reason. Do you like it because it’s the right size? Do you like it because, hey, it’s really cool looking? Well, maybe those become your criteria. Maybe my product has to be really cool looking. That’s okay. That can be. a criteria. Maybe it’s… My product has to be really small so kids can use it. Well, that becomes a criteria. So try to boil down what it is you like about something. Even if that’s kind of nebulous, try to turn that into really concrete things because then you can take that and then filter all the other ideas through that and then say, okay, well, I didn’t like this one because it’s not cool looking. Okay. And, you know, we’ll move on to step three in a minute. I’ll talk about what to do then.

Steven Julian: Well, I think this might be a good point after step two here. You gave some good ideas of what it might look like. I would imagine you’ve got a couple of real-life stories. Names can be changed to protect the innocent other than Frank. We’re just berating him this entire show.

Noah McNeely: Frank’s going to take all the abuse.

Steven Julian: Yeah, but I believe, you know, so is there a specific example you can give? Last few years that, you know, maybe you help someone kind of create that success criteria, objective criteria, objectively, you know, kind of look at their idea in the. real world.

Noah McNeely: Yeah. So this is actually going to be an example, not from my work with inventor entrepreneurs, but I’m going to go a little bit further back in my career. This was actually, you know, even large companies. Have trouble with this in many cases, especially if they don’t do a lot of brainstorming. These are the type of companies that will go and hire that brainstorming retreat coach I mentioned earlier just to check off a box.

Steven Julian: Create a folder. Woo, I did it.

Noah McNeely: The CEO says, you guys got to do a brainstorming of this thing. All right, go find someone to do a brainstorm for us. Check out the box and then you can tell the CEO, who’s also named Frank, that we did it. But then you don’t get a whole lot of value out of that. Companies sometimes don’t understand brainstorming if they’re not doing it a lot. So even big companies, and this is a case with a large company, we did this, this is a much bigger team I was working with. We had probably a dozen people in this brainstorm. We had all sorts of ideas in all sorts of. different directions. It was a fairly complicated challenge in a consumer product industry. And we came up with a bunch of ideas and it got to the CEO’s desk. We kind of rated them based on the criteria that we were told coming in. It got to the CEO’s desk and he hated all the ones that rated well. And he liked a couple of the ones that did not rate well against the criteria we were told early on. I can’t really say what those criteria are because that might be crossing the confidentiality line. But what it turned out, it helped us realize, helped him realize, okay. I’ve got criteria that I didn’t even know I had until I saw these ideas. Now I know what those criteria are. So then we were able to go back, rewrite the ideas. We actually did another brainstorm based on that. We came out with some fantastic things that went on to be a good product.

Steven Julian: I think not only that, your anecdote kind of segues into your third point because your third point is you talk about reverse brainstorming. So what do you mean by that phrase?

Noah McNeely: So reverse brainstorming. is a way to salvage. The one way to salvage bad ideas, ideas that don’t rate well. So one thing, if an idea doesn’t rate well and you thought it was going to rate well, that may kind of help you identify a negative criteria that you didn’t realize you had until you got to that point. The other thing, if an idea rates poorly, dig deep into it. Does that address a problem that’s not addressed somewhere else? And is that a problem that we need to think about addressing somewhere else? It’s a rechargeable Frank’s cheese hammer that somebody came up with in the brainstorming. You’re like, huh, we didn’t think about that. We don’t want people to have to change batteries in their cheese hammer. So maybe that becomes something that leads to other ideas. That idea gets more robust. And you maybe take that element of that bad idea and you put it into one of the good ideas. So ideas continue to evolve. I think one of the fun things, or for nerdy people like me, or one of the things that can be useful is to force yourself to take every one of the. bad ideas and make it as good as you can. So, all right, you know, levitating cheese hammer, what can I do with this? Why would anyone want a levitating cheese hammer? You know, another one of Frank’s stupid ideas. These are all things to say in my head. Don’t say to Frank out loud. Right, right.

Steven Julian: Not during the brainstorming session.

Noah McNeely: No, certainly not. So then you think, all right, what was he getting at there? And then you go down a path. Okay, what’s the best I can do with that? Okay, maybe it’s a cheese hammer on a stand and you push a button and it does its thing without you having to touch it. That’s kind of a levitating cheese hammer and I can see some value there. Sure. That may lead to better and better ideas down the road.

Steven Julian: I like it. Now, I guess in that, maybe you need to set a little bit of a time limit because if you’re on the worst idea of all time, And you’re like, I literally can’t think of anything. Or I thought of something to make it better, but it’s still so far from it. Okay, I did it. And then you might be checking a box a little bit, but it does keep you from just throwing all the quote unquote bad ideas away.

Noah McNeely: Yeah, you certainly don’t want to kill yourself with analysis paralysis there either, which is, I think we did a whole other show on that maybe once upon a time. I’m sure we did. Yeah, you do set a timeline. If you’re spending three weeks analyzing your brainstorm, you’re not doing it right. You should spend a day or two.

Steven Julian: We did do that analysis paralysis show, but I believe it was four hours of recording, and Jody’s still trying to trim that down to where we can produce it and put it out.

Noah McNeely: We’re going over every single word to make sure it’s right.

Steven Julian: Absolutely. So your fourth point, I’m going to warn our listeners. Noah always says he’s not an engineer, but he plays one on the podcast.

Noah McNeely: I’m a recovering engineer.

Steven Julian: He’s a recovering engineer. Sorry, wrong.

Noah McNeely: That’s okay.

Steven Julian: Wrong sarcastic phrase. I apologize. That’s your line, apparently. So I’m warning our listeners, we’re about to get into engineering acronyms. Yes. So you want to talk about what? it could get bogged down or so everybody take a sip of your favorite beverage, hopefully coffee. Stay awake a little bit. We’re going to get into acronyms. being an engineer. By the way. You had a funny one. You had a great one, I thought. Engineer is actually an acronym.

Noah McNeely: I didn’t know that. It is. If you take the letters to engineer, you work it out. It’s eccentric nerd generating innovative, novel, excellent experimental research. And that describes a lot of engineers I’ve known in my career.

Steven Julian: Including yourself, probably.

Noah McNeely: Some days, yes. Absolutely.

Steven Julian: So you had an acronym talking about leading ideas. Tell everybody what you mean by that.

Noah McNeely: This kind of goes with reverse brainstorming, a process that engineers use, and there’s books written on it. And because engineers love acronyms, people just walk around and they say DFMEA. And I think when you’re a new hire or fresh out of college engineer and somebody says that, go do a DFMEA, you have no idea what that even stands for, but you know what it is. And what it stands for is design failure mode and effect analysis. And which probably means about as much as. the acronym by itself. But what it is, is you take your leading ideas out of the brainstorm and maybe some that you’ve improved, some of the bad ideas you’ve improved. And what you do, it’s another type of reverse brainstorming where you start brainstorming. How does this idea fail? You know, let’s say we make this product or make the system this way. Where is it going to fail first? So, you know, the. Cheese hammer stand. Okay, where is it going to fail? What’s going to be the failure mode for that in terms of getting it on the market or in terms of whatever? Okay, well, somebody could turn it on and hit their hand. Okay, that’s a failure mode. Then you brainstorm, how do I prevent that from happening? And then the idea gets a little bit better. Maybe the failure mode, one of the failure modes you come up with there, oh, it’s going to be too heavy. People don’t want to move it around.

Steven Julian: Levitating. Make it levitate. That was one of the ideas.

Noah McNeely: Yes. At this point, we are trying to not throw out as many, quote, science fiction or bad ideas.

Steven Julian: Got. it.

Noah McNeely: Got it. We are trying to connect with the real world.

Steven Julian: Yeah. So if it’s too heavy, then we have to pay attention to the weight and make sure that it’s lighter.

Noah McNeely: So that’s not so much an engineering failure mode, but that would be a product failure mode there because it’s too heavy. People aren’t going to buy it. They’re not going to use it. Then you attack that and say, you brainstorm. How do I? Get rid of that. So, okay, well, instead of making it heavy, let’s make it have a wide base. that’s lightweight material like plastic. You go through this process on all your best ideas and some of the ones that are kind of mid-level. And oftentimes you find that the idea gets stronger and stronger and stronger. And, you know, this is a process. I’ll sit down with clients when they first come in that have not gone through this type of process. They just had their great idea, which is typical of inventors. It is, in many cases, a good idea. In many cases, it’s not. But in many cases, it’s a good idea. But they haven’t done this and they. haven’t asked themselves, okay, how can I make it better? How can I brainstorm making it better? But almost more importantly, how does this idea fail and how do I brainstorm ways to prevent that failure? And by fail, I mean fail as a product.

Steven Julian: Why didn’t they call it WMGW? What might go wrong?

Noah McNeely: Because those are really simple words.

Steven Julian: Right, right.

Noah McNeely: It doesn’t let engineers feel superior.

Steven Julian: Eccentric, nerd generating.

Noah McNeely: Engineers need to put big words in their acronyms to make other people feel like they can’t possibly understand what engineers do.

Steven Julian: So give us one more time, DFMEA, design fail.

Noah McNeely: Design failure mode and effect analysis. And there’s really formal ways to do that. If you’re really bored, there’s probably books with hundreds of pages that talk about it. I skimmed some of those books, and I took the gist of it, and that’s what I do, and that’s what’s useful.

Steven Julian: Well, in the process at the end of the effect analysis, you come out of it. You don’t just say what could go wrong. There’s an analysis. Because of that, therefore this. Because of that, we should look at this.

Noah McNeely: It’s putting the way I do. it. and the way I think. Most good product developers do it is they put the analysis into an actionable way of making the idea better. They don’t just come up with, oh, here’s the ways it’ll fail. They come up with, okay, for each way it can fail, how do we overcome that? Right.

Steven Julian: So four steps coming out of your brainstorms. First of all, before you get into any of the four steps, recognize that. You’re going to have good ideas and there are going to be some bad ideas. We need to at least acknowledge that. Categorize and sort them. Rank against your success criteria. Do some reverse brainstorming with what you consider a bad idea. Can you make it better? Try to improve on the bad idea because you might actually find a good idea in the midst of it. or at least improve your other good ideas and then get into those acronyms. Be an eccentric, nerd-generating, innovative novel. Excellent experimental research person or at least try to play one and design for failure with an effect. analysis and work from that. So bottom line it for us, Noah. We’re coming to the end. Give. us something we can practically take with us. Boy, that sure sounds like a sermon illustration, but go ahead. Preach it. Preach, brother.

Noah McNeely: So bottom line is brainstorms are really only as valuable as the follow-up activity. I mean, if you brainstorm it and put it in a drawer, You know, you’ve wasted your time. It’s about cleaning up after the storm. You know, kind of the analogy I put earlier about the hurricane comes through. You got to go in, you got to clean up the limbs and, you know, tidy up the street and then you can find value in, you know, you can actually find value in the brainstorm that way. Brainstorms do generate bad ideas. That’s okay because bad ideas can lead to good ideas if you try. And another thing is doing the sort of, Brainstorm post-op activities, that may help you make your ideas even better. And even the ones that you thought were great coming out of the brainstorm, that doesn’t mean they can’t get better. And this is a process that helps you do that.

Steven Julian: So I’ll put it in an anecdote in terms of this podcast. We had a great idea. when we started doing this show from here, just off of the offices of Product Quickstart in the lair. Great idea of having a coffee machine, a wonderful little Keurig or a version of a Keurig maker that allowed us to make this great coffee. But there was a design for failure in that I put my coffee in a cup with no top on it. And so sitting at this table, which is a wonderful table, but does kind of shake sometimes, I spilled. So I had to clean up after the storm and get up. Paper towel. Am I missing the point of the show? Is this a little deeper than that?

Noah McNeely: It’s possible. I don’t know what you’re talking about. We had other failures with that coffee machine too. Once I offered Steven a cup of coffee and I used a cup that was a little too small. So we ended up with coffee overflowing the cup.

Steven Julian: But you know what happens after every storm? Right. We clean up, we work at it.

Noah McNeely: And we made the coffee experience better by saying, okay, we’ll just use a beer cup.

Steven Julian: Exactly, exactly. And Noah has moved the creamer. and… The froofy stuff to make the coffee taste better into the fridge. And so, yeah, we continue to clean up after the storm and it’s getting better every time.

Noah McNeely: So I should point out this shaky table is, you know, it’s an innovation table. Countless great ideas have been developed and broken and put back together on this table. So give the table a break.

Steven Julian: Yeah. Listen, I was not dissing the table. I was working very hard not to diss the table.

Noah McNeely: The table seems a little offended to me. No, boy.

Steven Julian: Well, you know what? I will get it a redemptive gift. I will buy it a Frank’s cheese hammer. That’ll be perfect. Yeah, that would be great. So stream of consciousness continues here at the end of the show.

Noah McNeely: We need to wrap this up. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Steven Julian: Absolutely. So for those people who want to brainstorm with you, Noah, they can go to productquickstart.com. There is a contact us form. All he asks is that you don’t say, I want to talk to you about something. Please tell them what they need to do.

Noah McNeely: Yeah, I’d love for you to fill out the form or. where there’s questions there. Or if you’re going to send me just to contact us for them, tell me a little bit about it. And even though it’s probably not great for my business, you’ll find that on the first phone call, I’ll probably brainstorm with you a little bit. I’m not going to charge you for that. But it’s just, you know, I’m kind of a creative guy and that’s what I do. Yeah, I’d love to hear from you, and I might not like your idea, so don’t be offended if I try to make it better.

Steven Julian: If you’re listening to this show also and you go, I know I could do a better podcast than that doofus, annoying co-host, I could do a better show than him, then you need to go to JodySmith.com. He helps people podcast, and he’ll even… Probably tell you, oh yeah, of course you could do better than the slightly annoying co-host Steven Julian. Not as good as Noah, but I’ll help you get close. So go to jodysmith.com if you want a podcast. Go to productquickstart.com. Find out more about how you can work with Noah. And if you’re looking for an independent financial advisor, you can search my name. Unfortunately, compliance won’t let me say any more than that on this show. And I don’t know if Noah will either or not. Anyway, I’ve wasted enough time, but we thank you for being here. And remember, if you’re looking for that perfect gift, Frank’s Cheese Hammer. So for Noah, for Jody, this is Steven. We will catch you next time on Product Genius.

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: