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

Steven Julian

Did you get caught up in all the latest astrological hype around the last eclipse? Maybe somebody found you reading conspiracy theories about it at 2 a.m Well, our show is a little bit like that. I reveal something weird at the opening of the show. Noah reveals his alter ego that I can't wait for you to hear about. And we learn how inventing is like an eclipse. Next on Product Genius.

Noah McNeely

Do you want to be a successful inventor entrepreneur?

Steven Julian

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

Seated across the table is the genius of this show because he is the head of Product Quick. Start and the main host of Product Genius, helping people get their products to market, helping ventures and entrepreneurs walk the road of... Getting their product to market. I just said that already. I'm a little messed up. It's Noah McNeely. Noah, I have a confession.

Noah McNeely

I'm all ears.

Steven Julian

I was a little distracted in my opening because I have this confession. I listened. I re-listened to our intro, which has done so well. Jody did such a great job as our producer.

Noah McNeely

It's amazing how he can make his voice sound that feminine.

Steven Julian

It's so good, isn't it?

Noah McNeely

It's very impressive.

Steven Julian

And as it starts, I was wondering if for the person who finds our show for the first time and that wonderful voice comes on and says, Are you an inventor, entrepreneur, looking to get your product to market? And I'm just imagining something like, yeah, uh-huh, yeah. Are you struggling with it? Uh-huh, yeah. Well, Noah McNeely has a, oh, man. And they get their notepad out, they get their laptop, and they're ready to take notes. I can't wait. This is going to be great. And then they listen to me, and I'm just shocked that. they're still here.

So that's my confession.

Noah McNeely

I really don't know how to respond to that.

Steven Julian

Well, good, because you don't have to, because I gave that confession because we're going to kind of talk about once in a lifetime things. I, once in a lifetime, kind of let everybody behind the curtain of my false bravado and loud, obnoxious, slightly annoying co-hosting skills to tell you my thing. And we are going to talk about the eclipse today.

Noah McNeely

Yeah. So I had the... I was able to go see the Total Eclipse with my family, so I packed the kids up and my wife, and we drove up.

Steven Julian

Did you play Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler?

Noah McNeely

You know, it was being played. Every place we were, we went to eat in this restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky the night before, and yeah, it was on. Where we were actually watching, they were playing it on the speakers. There was no need for us to play it.

Steven Julian

I heard it. I did hear a stat that the streaming of that song went up by 4,000%. Yeah.

Noah McNeely

I'm sure their income has doubled.

Steven Julian

Bonnie is doing well. Thank you. Shout out to Bonnie Tyler. It was a great song for my teenage years. So you went to see The Eclipse.

Noah McNeely

Right.

Steven Julian

And you have a story about it.

Noah McNeely

Well, I'll just... Well, there's more. So we drove from Atlanta up to a little town called Vincennes, Indiana. And I want to give a special shout out to Vincennes. Beautiful town right there on the Wabash River. And it was the home of, not that this has anything to do with our topic today, but the home of William Henry Harrison, who was the shortest lived American president. He was president for 31 days and very elderly by standards of the 1800s. President when he took office.

Steven Julian

This show is just being full of random, rare, weird facts. I like it.

Noah McNeely

If it weren't for random stuff, I would be bored. Yeah, absolutely. So anyway, Vincent's absolutely beautiful town. Kind of out of the way. You probably wouldn't, you know, it's not near an interstate. It's just on the river and it's absolutely gorgeous. We had, I also want to do a call out to a restaurant where we ate. And I don't know how to pronounce this and I'm. a little ashamed of that, but it's. Bobi's Pizza, B-O-B-E. And people that are fantastic. Pizza was good. But one of the things I found interesting is there was actually two.

There's Bill Bobi's Pizza and Bobi's Pizza. And they're like close to each other.

Steven Julian

They're in a split.

Noah McNeely

Yeah. So we were talking to the waitress. Hey, what's the deal here? And she was like, yeah, like 30 years ago, there were these two brothers and they disagreed on the right recipe for the sauce or something. There's a... Very reasonable chance. she made all this up. I don't know. But so they split, but now everybody's friends. So it's all good. So now there's just these two restaurants and the, and the recipes are still different, but we went to Bobie's, just Bobie's and it was great. So we had a good time, special call out to Vincent's and all the people there.

We had a great time.

Steven Julian

I like that. And you are telling us your eclipse story because inventing can sometimes be like an eclipse.

Noah McNeely

Yes, because I analogize everything. That's one of your secret gifts. It is. If I were a Avengers villain, I'd be. the analogizer or something like that. Destroying the universe with the power of analogy.

Steven Julian

And actually, so it's...

Noah McNeely

Thanos is like a glove.

Steven Julian

So instead of... So instead of monologuing as the villain so that the hero can recover, you would just continue to- Analogy after analogy until they just crumpled into a ball. Until they're like, I can't take it anymore. And you're like, you've won. Just like- Okay.

Noah McNeely

Yes. So to get back, or actually to get to the subject of today's podcast- I just want to thank our listeners for hanging with us.

Steven Julian

It will pay off in the end, I swear.

Noah McNeely

I'm going to- It will be like a good lesson. I'm going to relate inventing to an eclipse in a couple of different or three different ways. So one, you know, we had to make some sacrifices to get to the right spot at the right time. You know, there was this, you know, we could drive all the way there. You know, I had to get up early. You know, actually friends of ours, we actually drove up the day before, but some friends of ours actually got up at four o'clock in the. morning.

And drove from Atlanta to Indiana. So they made that sacrifice. So it was like a little vacation for us. So when I'm on vacation, I like to sleep in. I like to have a leisurely, slow breakfast. And who doesn't like to do things like that?

Steven Julian

But we had to get up early.

Noah McNeely

I had to get everything packed, get in the car, go get all set up, drive, hurry, yada, yada, yada. All the sacrifices, drive for hours to get there and set up and be ready. It occurs to me that sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get to the right place at the right time with your invention process as well. And sacrifices can sometimes be what you give up in terms of the invention. So we can all remember the pandemic, I'm sure, unless, you know, that's...

Steven Julian

I don't like to speak of it.

Noah McNeely

Unless you've dug this tape out of some sort of archaeological file thousands of years from now, you remember the pandemic. During the pandemic, I and a lot of people in my industry, we just got inundated with people who had products related to the pandemic. I saw more. ideas for face masks than I can possibly remember. And almost all of them were pretty much just a face mask. But with some unique, it's got this, it's got that.

Steven Julian

It uses spaghetti as the loops, so it's also a food source.

Noah McNeely

Right, right. So you never know. So in any event, having the right idea at the right time was what these ideas were all about. So I want to talk about two separate inventors. I'm not going to say specifically what they came up with. This one lady had this face mask idea, and she wanted all these things on it. And I was like, you know, these types of things. Some of the things you want, they're going to take a long time to develop. But the core of your idea is this part over here.

That's real easy. So we were actually, I was able to convince her that, you know, now's the time to strike. You know, the eclipse is coming. Got to be at the right place at the right time. When that moment of totality occurs, when everything goes, you know, when everything's perfect, everything's lined up and the world goes dark. Bad analogy, but. During the middle of the pandemic, you can get your product out really quick. So we did that in her case, and she was at the right spot at the right time.

Steven Julian

And was willing to make the sacrifices of some of the features that she may have wanted, but she put those aside so she could get it to market at a time when everybody wanted to buy face masks. And of course, she didn't know that a year and a half later, no one would care about, or 99% of the people then would go back to not caring about face masks because they didn't need them.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, well, she actually does, you know. Of course, you do still see people in face masks. So she actually does still sell this product, just in not as many as she sold at first, which she expected. So she's like, yeah, it's a good, healthy little business.

Steven Julian

Yeah, I like that.

Noah McNeely

Good. And she got on the market. She did it quick. Right spot, right time. She was ready for that eclipse. Another gentleman. Okay.

Steven Julian

Same time frame.

Noah McNeely

Same time frame. However, he had this idea for, let's call it a sanitation, a piece of sanitation equipment. And he also wanted all these bells and whistles on it. I'm using examples that aren't really what was there because I don't want him to call me up and yell at me for talking about him on the air. But it's got to have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and this and that and the other.

Steven Julian

And a cheese hammer attached to the side.

Noah McNeely

Everything you want to do, sir, that's a three-year development cycle to do all this stuff. you're trying to put into this thing. The pandemic is going to be over by then. He's like, no, no, it's got to do it. It's got to do it. It's got to do it. I'm not willing to sacrifice any of this stuff. But look, the core of your idea is this. You can get on the market in three months with this and make a big splash. That's still a huge improvement over anything that's out there.

No, no, it's got to have this and this and this and this. So, you know, we went down that path. And sadly, he is still, you know, he's paid tens of. thousands of dollars to get all these patents on all this stuff. Still not on the market, unfortunately, when he could have been there. He could have made the sacrifices to see the Eclipse, to see his product on the market. Instead, it's like he showed up in the zone of totality a day late. So where's the Eclipse? Well, you missed it.

Or he almost got there and you could see a partial Eclipse, which is still kind of okay, but it wasn't what he was shooting for. He's not on the market now. He may someday make it to the market. I don't work with him anymore because... Of a variety of reasons, but perhaps because of my honesty. And some people don't appreciate honesty.

Steven Julian

So I know I clearly get the lesson of possibly needing to make some sacrifices to get your product to market. I think there's another lesson there of kind of paying attention to what's going on around you. Your two references that you gave are in the middle of the pandemic. So that's an extreme example, but every single person who's getting any kind of product needs to kind of know what's going. on in the market. I'll give you a great example. I grew up collecting baseball cards in the early 80s. Baseball cards had this massive spike into the late 80s, early 90s, and then they kind of went away.

They were there. There was always cards, but the collection craze stopped. And they went back to being a small niche until... It kind of came back again almost as an investment idea and there was this huge flood. So you got to pay attention to what's going on in your particular market that you're trying to get into. And sometimes you can see the eclipse happening in your market, right? That's kind of what you're saying.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes it's important to recognize, let's take your baseball card example here. So in that lull period of... What, a couple of decades, right? Yeah. So maybe you had this great idea for the, it's the holy grail of baseball card organizers. Never in the history of the world will there ever be a better product for organizing baseball cards. That may not, probably not have been the best time to release that. Whereas now, I don't know anything about baseball. cards. I'm assuming you're telling the truth here. Boy, the look of cautious.

Well, as I started talking, I began to get a little concerned that, hey, is this really true? Is he pulling my leg with baseball cards?

Steven Julian

Got some trust issues on the show.

Noah McNeely

So a couple of things. One, maybe you did try to launch that idea 20 years ago and got no traction on it. Right. Now the eclipse is here or everything's starting to line back up. Right. Maybe try it again. Maybe now's the right time. Maybe now's when the iron is hot.

Steven Julian

You still have the idea. You kind of shelved it, bring it back out and try again. So yeah, that's absolutely. All right. So that kind of covers the first thing. Be aware that you might have a right time, right place scenario and pay attention to those and be willing to make sometimes sacrifices, sometimes different decisions.

Noah McNeely

Right. And it could be sacrificing a lot of different things. Maybe you sacrifice some of the amount of margin you can make on that product in order to actually make more money by achieving a bigger market share. You know, sometimes it. can be sacrificing those bells and whistles. Sometimes it can be sacrificing, like in the baseball card thing, some patience. Let's wait for the time to be right. You know, it could be any number of things, but just be open to that.

Steven Julian

All right. Second lesson you learned from the Eclipse. that applies to inventing.

Noah McNeely

Yes, so the right advice at the wrong time can still be bad advice. So what did everybody tell you leading up to the event, to the eclipse? It's like, don't look at the sun, right? Okay, so what if they told you that after you've been staring at the sun for 30 minutes? Well, A, still good advice, but now your eyes are already damaged, right? Or what if they told you that with so much emphasis that you're like, You know, you get to the equips and even in that four minutes when it's safe to look at the sun and you can see this wonderful thing that's just remarkable, you still don't look because you're like, oh, they told me not to look at the sun, so I'm not going to do it.

Those can both be bad. And, you know, I see you'd miss out on that experience if you didn't look at the sun because of that. Because that is taking that piece of advice in total isolation. You're missing the except when aspect of the advice. And inventors, I think, will do the same thing, or I don't think, I know, I've seen inventors do the same thing of, you know, they will take a piece of advice. Hey, they may just get it too late or whatever. They listen to it too late. That's, you know, that can happen.

But a lot of times they will take that piece of advice and that will, that one piece, that becomes their driving mantra. It's like, you got to get a patent. Well, that may well be true. And for a lot of inventions, that is true. And that's a good idea. However. That's sort of secondary to developing your product. I mean, you might, you might get, I've met people that they go out and they get that patent like right away and they patented the wrong thing. So yes, it was good advice, but they executed that advice at the wrong time.

You got to have a. great marketing plan, a great brand, et cetera. I've met people that do all that up front before they even really have a product or they know who they can sell that product to or et cetera. So again, great advice, wrong time. You got to find a factory to manufacture this thing. Some people are like, I want to know who I'm going to manufacture this with before we even know what it's going to be made out of. Again, great advice, wrong time. Now, this next one's bad on the other end.

You've got to get product liability insurance. You don't want to be told that after someone is suing you because they misused your product, which is typically what happens. It's not because you made an unsafe product. It's because somebody chose to use it in an incorrect way. You can't design for stupid. It's what I tell people sometimes. And, uh, I don't know if I've told this on the show before or not, but, uh, we got a scoop. We may, I may have, I've told this to a lot of people. So if I've, anyway, I worked with a guy who used to be. a employee of the Electrolux years and years ago.

And they once get Electrolux once got sued because this gentleman decided, you know, he was, he was refurbishing a 1960 something Corvette and he decided it would be great. A great idea. To use the Electrolux vacuum cleaner to pull the gasoline out of the engine of the car.

Steven Julian

No, he did not.

Noah McNeely

He absolutely did. It's a terrible idea because the vacuum cleaner has sparks and et cetera. So, and you're aerosolizing gasoline. So, unfortunately, the gentleman did not survive. Neither did the car. Neither did the garage. Neither did the house. So, in any event, you got to have product liability insurance to cover things like that. that really is not your fault. So, anyway, sidebar. Good advice, but that's the advice you want to take before you start selling product.

Steven Julian

So I think you've committed a podcast sin here. That is a great story to illustrate your point, but I will forget the point because that is such a fantastic story and fantastic in the way of fantastical. Like seriously, that really happened?

Noah McNeely

I'm going to put, well, I will be honest. The person who told me. the story did drink a lot. So it may have been embellished and or slightly untrue, but it sounds – It wasn't the – Sadly, it blew up.

Steven Julian

It was only the garage.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, so the entire state of Ohio is gone. You know, it may have been exaggerated a little bit.

Steven Julian

Well, and also the Electrolex reference does tell us that this probably happened, you know, 80s, 70s, somewhere around. So it's been around.

Noah McNeely

If it happened at all.

Steven Julian

And if you have told that story on this show, then I apologize because I don't remember it. And if one of our listeners can find it and reference it on a show and put it – Get in the contact us form at productquickstart.com.

Noah McNeely

First person who knew that, I'll give you a free t-shirt.

Steven Julian

Yeah. Yes. Yes. Speaking of which, our team t-shirts, which may be in the merch store at some point.

Noah McNeely

Possibly. I was imagining.

Steven Julian

We got to get a good marketing plan and we got to get that in place and a business plan. You're right. Sorry. I was giving the good advice at the bad time.

Noah McNeely

I'm going to correct for the sin, the. podcast. sin there and use another analogy.

Steven Julian

The analogizer strikes again.

Noah McNeely

Good advice at the wrong time. So let's say you got a kid and you tell your kid, you've got to wear pants. Good advice, right? Well, it's too late to tell him if he's walking around McDonald's in his underwear, right? Yes, correct. So you missed it. No shorts, no shoes, no service. That's what the sign says, but pants are implied. So you should be wearing pants. On the other end, you could tell your kid, you got to wear pants all the time. Maybe he takes it a little too literally, a little too strong, and then you find him wearing pants in the shower.

So either side, good advice, wrong time, or too much emphasis. You got to be careful.

Steven Julian

Yeah, we got it. Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes you need to clarify the good advice to make it even more.

Noah McNeely

My son, if you're listening, you never did either of those. So don't think it's about you.

Steven Julian

Right. Okay. So inventing like an eclipse, you got to be at the right place. Sometimes you got to be at the right place at the right time, be. willing to make those sacrifices. Right advice can still be bad advice if it's given at the wrong time. And then. You finished with a car tip, something about alignment. And a cough.

Noah McNeely

Yes, and a cough. So you need to align your air passages with your lungs. Yeah, so what Eclipse is really about? It's really this sort of kind of almost bizarre cosmic coincidence where these things come into alignment. The sun and the moon and where you're standing on the Earth is in a direct line for a brief moment of time, three to four minutes, if you're lucky. It's just perfect. You know, the moon covers up the sun. It's like it's nighttime, except there's this really bright white ring around the moon. You're like, yeah, I can only imagine like, you know, if I were a caveman picturing this. and all of a sudden they're like, what have we done to anger you, son?

Please come back. Please come back. And then four minutes later starts to come back and then, you know, whatever they did to try to appease the sun, that kind of becomes their religion for the next hundred years. So we. killed a rabbit and the sun came back. So now we're killing a rabbit every day.

Steven Julian

I peed behind a different bush and now we have to...

Noah McNeely

Exactly. For us, we ate Skittles and the sun came back. Oh, good. But we're not making that a spiritual custom.

Steven Julian

Well, and remember, if you ate Skittles while the sun was gone and it came back, you'd have to wait for the sun to be gone again to eat those Skittles.

Noah McNeely

To be fair, we ate Skittles all day.

Steven Julian

Oh, okay. Yeah. And Bobo's Pizza.

Noah McNeely

And Bobo's, Bobay, Bobo. I really don't know, but it was good pizza. Yeah. Okay. So things have to be in alignment in your product development process too, in your invention process. And that, that means a lot of different things. So your product cost and features have to align with the size of the property. I once had a, had this non-client that I'm going to give a metaphor instead of telling exactly what they were doing. Yeah, I know.

Steven Julian

Analogies only analogizer.

Noah McNeely

I know. No. Well, I don't even know.

Steven Julian

Can you turn a metaphor into it?

Noah McNeely

I don't even know the difference anymore.

Steven Julian

That's. another show. Go ahead. Give your illustration.

Noah McNeely

So this had absolutely nothing to do with the thing I'm about to say, but imagine basically they wanted to develop a Ferrari for DoorDash drivers to deliver Big Macs with.

Steven Julian

Got it.

Noah McNeely

Yeah. So would that get the Big Mac there? Absolutely. You get it there fast. Would that DoorDash driver have a great time delivering that Big Mac? Absolutely. Are you willing to pay an extra $100 for your Big Mac to supplement the cost of that Ferrari? No way. No, absolutely no.

Steven Julian

Or would the DoorDash driver be willing to take a loss of $70 per delivery to deliver that? It's a great experience, but it doesn't.

Noah McNeely

Either way, yeah. So there's probably a small group of people that would pay that extra $50 or whatever for that Big Mac, but it's not enough to justify it. So anyway. So sometimes, you know, you have to align your product costs and features with what the market really needs in terms of the cost of that product. So, you know, all the bells and whistles, and we talked about this earlier, maybe too many for the product's purpose.

Steven Julian

By the way, just as you're kind of collecting your thoughts there. to finish your point and your analogy, Mr. Analogizer, I don't know if I'd say Mr. Analogizer, but...

Noah McNeely

The Analogizer.

Steven Julian

So I would... I would tweak the idea to align it better. I would pay $50 to be picked up by the Ferrari, driven to McDonald's, get the Big Mac, drive the Big Mac on the way back to my house. That I would pay.

Noah McNeely

See there, now you get into my next point. So what did I tell this guy? is that I told him the truth. It's like, hey, look, I like what you're trying to do. I like your idea. You're trying to solve a problem. Here's the issues with it from a business plan standpoint. You need to solve these problems. And if you can, then let's talk again. So that would have been a solution. So, okay, well, I'm changing the business plan instead of selling the Ferrari. I'm selling the experience and the Ferrari becomes a way to make money.

Okay, well, that could work. That would have been a different discussion. Unfortunately, and if you listen to this show, you know that I always. try to be honest. I tell people, I call it the way I see it. And people that listen to this show. I think by and large, they would appreciate that. And about half the people I have to give this, you know, bad diagnosis about their product to, they're very appreciative. And a lot of them, some of them go off, they fix the problem, they come back and we do business together.

The other half get really pissed off about it. And they tell me, you know, I don't know what I'm talking about, which sometimes I don't. I'll acknowledge that. And then, you know, I never hear from them again or whatever. And this was one of the cases in this particular instance. I did not work with this person because they did not appreciate what I was telling them. And to the best of my knowledge, they never did anything with it. But to be fair, I don't always call things right. There are things that are in that gray area of, I don't know if this can make it or not.

I'm still going to tell you that here's the potential challenges I see here. I'm willing to proceed with you. I'm still willing to work with you, but you need to understand here's the risks that could happen.

Steven Julian

So in the analogy of the alignment, in order to get your product to market and to build a successful business, everything has to line up to create that totality eclipse that you got to experience in Indiana after enjoying Poe Bay's pizza. I don't know why you didn't go to Bobe's Pizza House as well to double up. But anyway, the analogy of the eclipse is that total eclipse, that being in totality, that's like everything lines up perfect. And you bring your product to market and build a successful business. There are also other, there are also, well, we got to a partial, we're getting something.

We got Gen 1 on the market. But if you don't get right alignment for all that kind of stuff, you're going to go, well, the eclipse never happened. You didn't get everything lined up. Right.

Noah McNeely

Or it wasn't that impressive or whatever. So back to the caveman, if it were only a partial eclipse, he might not even notice. There's a big difference between a 50% eclipse. and a totality, but there's not that big a difference between a half eclipse and nothing because it's just a cloudy day and then you go about your business. But I think that totality zone, that zone of totality, that's like everything is perfect. That's your best opportunity. To extend the analogy, you can still have a successful business outside of that zone.

It's just, I think your odds of success, you know, kind of diminish the further from it you get. And there are a lot of, we could talk all day about different things that have to align. So I gave the example of your, really your product cost with what the market can justify for that. Other things, your brand and your target market need to align. You know, you can't have...

Steven Julian

You can't sell cheese hammers to people who are lactose intolerant.

Noah McNeely

Well, there's that. I was going to say, who's going to buy the...

Steven Julian

By the way, that's my quota of cheese hammers references. I'm just trying to keep it in the zeitgeist.

Noah McNeely

So no one's going to buy, probably not many people are going to buy the percussion grenade sippy cup. Now, I wrote. that down earlier, and then I got to thinking about, it's like, actually, that sounds pretty freaking awesome. I would buy... The Percussion Grenade branded sippy cup just because it's awesome. So, you know, that may or may not be a good analogy. On the other end of the spectrum, probably not a lot of people would buy the Care Bears branded jackhammer. Although it would be pretty amusing to go by a construction site and see all these big burly people using Care Bears jackhammers.

That's probably not a big market.

Steven Julian

As the furry population rises and gets into the trades.

Noah McNeely

Well, that, you know, exactly. So again, maybe it's just not the right time like the baseball cards.

Steven Julian

Yeah, getting right. 20 years.

Noah McNeely

Maybe all construction site workers will be wearing furry costumes.

Steven Julian

Yeah. And using CareBear brand.

Noah McNeely

It might even be a mandated law. Yeah. For all we know. Yeah. Who knows? The world can change.

Steven Julian

Not if I can help it.

Noah McNeely

Sorry. So other thing, you know, size of the market to the size of your investment. Now, if you're, you know, invest $100,000 developing something for a very small market, they can't afford it. You. know, you know, it's, there's so many things that have to align. So that's really the, the ultimate analogy of. The Eclipse and product development and invention is, you know, the closer you can get things into. alignment is, and it's more complicated because there are a lot of different ways to slice inventions that have to align. But the more of those you can get in alignment, the greater your chance of success.

Steven Julian

The story behind how this show came about is Noah sent out an email either right before or right after he had had this wonderful experience. He was like, clearly we have to do a show and tie it in with the Eclipse. Because the eclipse doesn't happen all that often. And what's interesting is your experience was in Indiana. We experienced it here in Atlanta and my wife and I and our youngest son, we kind of, and my oldest son was around too. And we were like, you know, hey, it's happening. And so we walked outside.

There was a difference. It wasn't near as much as it had been when we went to the North Georgia mountains a few years ago and experienced. totality. So you're right. It is a different thing. Okay. So I'm glad you took advantage of this, you know, once in a lifetime, once in a...

Noah McNeely

You almost said Blue Moon, didn't you?

Steven Julian

I did, but then, yeah, pre-show, you corrected me. And I'm sure there's an analogy for it, too. But I'm trying to keep the analogizer at bay. So instead, I believe you need to sum up your points today.

Noah McNeely

Yes. So to sum up the invention slash eclipse metaphors, number one, sometimes you have to sacrifice to get to the best opportunity or the best chance of success. Getting to this eclipse, if we missed it, yeah, we'll have other opportunities. I can wait. I think next 20 years is there's going to be another one in Montana, but that's a much bigger sacrifice to drive all the way to Montana. And plus, I might be dead by then. Who knows? Hopefully not, but we'll see. Or I could fly to Europe in three years and see one.

Steven Julian

I do have a good friend who runs a travel company. And they're planning the next one in Egypt. So they are doing a tour. I believe it's. in two years. So yeah, it requires more sacrifice now.

Noah McNeely

For most people, it's much harder to get to Egypt than to get to Indiana. Most people listening to this show, it's probably harder to get to Egypt than to get to Indiana. So number two, good advice is not always good if you don't use it at the right time or you overuse it at the wrong time. Again, I see inventors make that mistake a lot and I have to try to get them back on track. And then last and the most obvious one about eclipses is alignment. The more things you align with, and this is with any business or anything you do, the better your chance of succeeding is.

And you got to think about your business, your invention, your business from all the different angles you can look at it. Am I marketing it to the right people? Is the price point right for that market? And then the functional things, does it work, et cetera. All these things coming into alignment, the closer you are to the perfect alignment, the better your success chance.

Steven Julian

In honor and respect of the Analogizer, your new. alter ego that you've brought on this show, can I try to give an analogy and a story, an allegory, if you will, to sum up the last two points you made?

Noah McNeely

Absolutely. All right.

Steven Julian

There's a great story told of this young lady who's being taught, who's hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the first time. And she's got her mom there to help her. Her grandmother's also there. Her grandmother had hosted Thanksgiving dinner for years. Her mom, of course, had hosted for years. And this is the first time the young daughter is going to be hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the entire family. And her mom is helping her. and she asks her mom about the turkey. and her mom says, well, we cut the turkey in half and then we put it in the...

Pan this way and put it in the oven. And the daughter later is saying, mom, why do we cut the turkey in half? I don't get that. I didn't find that in any of the cookbooks I was doing and referencing. And mom goes, well, that's the way my mom taught me. And so that's the way we've always done it. And so she decided, I don't know if it was a few months later or whatever, but she was talking to her grandmother and she goes, by the way, grandma, I did the turkey and I was so cool to host Thanksgiving dinner and be kind of head of it.

Let me ask you, why did you cut the turkey in half? And her grandma said, well, sweetie, at the time in the house we were in, that was the only way it would fit in the oven. So alignment, there was an alignment there and that alignment was no longer needed. The alignment things changed and that advice became bad advice because you don't need to cut the turkey in half. Anyway, that's a, that's a story. I can't remember where I heard that story, but I was thinking of that as you were summing up.

I'm just trying to steal your thunder and just trying to beat the analogizer at his own game.

Noah McNeely

It does remind me of another joke slash anecdote I heard about Thanksgiving. So you know what a turducken is?

Steven Julian

I do. Thanks to John Madden.

Noah McNeely

It's a, I guess a duck inside a chicken, inside a. turkey and all cooked. And so apparently this. Family was cooking that, but they didn't tell the youngest daughter who was actually preparing the meal. And then she goes to serve it and then the chicken kind of plops out of the turkey. And then the grandma goes and says, Sally, you cooked a pregnant turkey. And I'm sure that's just a joke, but it's a pretty funny one.

Steven Julian

Nice.

Noah McNeely

For those who don't know anatomy, turkeys do lay eggs. They do not give. Live birth to chicken.

Steven Julian

And now we're on this contest to see who's going to get the last word. because if you're going to do that, one of my favorite jokes is, and I'll butcher it, I'm sorry, but an old Norm MacDonald joke that he had about Thanksgiving. He goes, in Thanksgiving, I need glasses to see my family, specifically two glasses of scotch. So anyway, so great show about the eclipses. If people want to hear your analogy of the day or your analogy of the week or see if the analogizer can help you bring your product to market, where can they go and what can they do?

Noah McNeely

Best to go to productquickstart.com. and you can use the contact us form. Just tell me a little bit about what you want to talk about. There is also a self-assessment form, which actually gives me a lot more information to prepare for a call with you. And, you know, we'll get on the phone and we'll talk about it.

Steven Julian

Fantastic. The other thing people can do is, of course, listen to all these episodes. Noah does these episodes as an educational tool, as a give back to the inventor entrepreneur community. Check out past episodes, learn more about bringing your product to market, avoid some of the pitfalls. Get some good advice. It's all on there for you. We also encourage you to check out JodySmith.com if you want to get into podcasting for yourself. Maybe one day you can take on the analogizer himself. Go to JodySmith.com. He helps people podcast. And me, I'm just a slightly annoying co-host.

I'm also an independent financial advisor, but that's all compliance will allow me to say. So for all of us around the table, we hope you enjoy your journey and get farther in your journey of bringing your product to market here. On Product. Genius.

Noah McNeely

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Steven Julian

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