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

Steven Julian

What the actual F? We're going to talk about both Fs in tariffs. Noah and I are actually going to have a fight on the air, and we're going to talk about the topic of tariffs without taking either political side. Sounds impossible? Well, it might be, but we do it. 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. Welcome to another award-winning edition of Product Genius. I just went for it. I was not pulling the pin on that. I'm going to see how long I could go. And I could have gone longer. That's what she said. Okay, maybe we should start the show over. I don't know. I am hopped up on pumpkin spice coffee that Noah hates.

But with French. vanilla creamer, it's very good. I am seated next to the intrepid producer, Jody. And Noah has his mouth agape.

Noah McNeely

Did you use the special creamer?

Steven Julian

I did. I did. Where'd you get it from? You got it on April 20th. I know that.

Noah McNeely

The supplier.

Steven Julian

It was wonderful. It was wonderful. I just went for it. You know what? We record these a few at a time. We had a great other recording. I don't know if you've listened to it first or it's about to come out. That's all up to Jody. All I know is I said, I've got to bring the energy. I've got to ramp it up. I felt it and I went for it.

Noah McNeely

Hey, man, you do you.

Steven Julian

Thank you. And also because we're going to talk about a topic that might make people want to just run to the exits. We're going to tackle something. We're going to talk something that's political, it's economical, and it is very, very important in the terms of product design and bringing products to market, right? Yeah. Sure. Great. I've got Noah so off his game.

Noah McNeely

I'm just recovering from that long opening. note still. It.

Steven Julian

was good.

Noah McNeely

It's still ringing around in my head.

Steven Julian

You were leaning one way. Okay. I apologize.

Noah McNeely

Then I realized I was wearing headphones, so I couldn't escape it even by leaning away from the microphone.

Steven Julian

Like it was coming from the microphone.

Noah McNeely

Exactly.

Steven Julian

So you were trying to avoid unpleasant and uncomfortable things. And we're going to talk about an unpleasant and uncomfortable topic because we are in the midst, as we're recording this in the middle of 2025, we're in the midst of everybody's talking about tariffs. Right. And your working title of this show was What the Actual F? So we don't know which F in tariffs it is, if it's the first or the second, or it's all of a sudden added a third.

Noah McNeely

Well, I think it's an F that bears repeating.

Steven Julian

Yeah, exactly. Whenever you are listening to this, we have no idea what the actual numbers are. We don't know how many deals have been done or not done. We don't know if it's a year later and we're still freaking out about it. But at the time of this recording, the numbers are changing almost daily. There were the United States. They. increased their tariffs almost across the board. They then increased others even more as retaliatory tariffs were announced. Then they pulled back. Then there were 30-day freezes, 60-day freezes, 90-day freezes. If I were to try and say what's actually happening, I'd sound like a fool.

Noah McNeely

Right. It's retaliatory. It's preemptive strikes. It's retaliating against something that never happened. Who knows?

Steven Julian

10% on everyone, 20% on a few countries. It got up to 145% on China, 90% on Vietnam. 25% on Canada, Mexico, blah, blah, blah. There's all kinds of uncertainty. Noah, in your world of dealing with your clients, what, if anything, has been talked about with tariffs?

Noah McNeely

Well, there was, I think most people know. most of my clients are small businesses, smaller companies. I do work with a couple of big companies and they're less, I mean, everybody's affected. They're less concerned because they've got workarounds. But all the small to mid-sized companies, inventors, entrepreneurs, this is a really big deal. If you do manufacture overseas, which a lot of small companies do, and we can talk about that later in the program as to why, but even those that don't, the concern, even those that do. produce here, the concern became, okay, is all the capacity going to dry up suddenly?

And then now my factory, my supplier is going to tell me, I can't get your product to you on time because I've got all this other work that I have to do now. So everybody was concerned.

Steven Julian

It is concerned. It still is. And I think one of the most important things I could do as the slightly annoying co-host is to say, I'd like to try and have you lay some ground rules about what we want to talk about. Because four minutes into the show, some people may be going, oh, tariffs, I don't want to talk about this. They're going to get political, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you and I talked before the show, and I think there's some very important things to point out. First of all, It would be safe for me to say we are not on here to give any, any political view whatsoever, if at all.

Okay. We simply want to talk about the topic of tariffs and how it affects the product market design world, bringing products to market. We are not here. to say who's right and who's wrong. We are, we do want to talk about. What might it look like if tariffs continue, if they get worse before they get better? What does it look like to bring more manufacturing to the United States? Yada, yada, yada. We are not making any political points. I think we don't want to be overly simplistic about this either because it's not a simple topic.

Noah McNeely

And I think it's also fair to say that we don't know what's going to happen. And even the things that we're going to throw out is, hey, here's what it could look like. That's just a theory at this point. You know, this is such a complex topic and tariffs are just one kind of cog in a very complex international wheel of intrigue and mystery. No, of things that affect each other.

Steven Julian

And the other thing, and I don't know if this will actually come to fruition. I've said, and sometimes I say it as a joke, even though it's a true statement, I am an independent financial advisor. I watch the stock market. I pay attention to the economy overall. And I look at companies. and their valuations and things like that. The joke is that I can't say my firm name. I can't give my website because I don't have it approved by compliance. That rule is I can't. I'm not supposed to say anything about particular stocks that could be perceived as advice.

Noah McNeely

Isn't it absolutely always right, financialadvice.com? No.

Steven Julian

No, that's not it at all. And it's not run by AI. And that's how AI is going to kill us all is have people make dumb investments. Anyway, I can talk about economy. I can talk. And so I may. Interject a couple economic points in the middle of it. And so we'll just we're kind of get we. you had some great questions and some great things around this topic of tariffs that we want to just kind of tackle. I do want to start with. anyone who's listening to the show for any amount of time knows that a lot of people, a lot of products, either parts of it or completely get made in countries like China.

And China is one of the leading providers of product design or product manufacturing, I guess would be.

Noah McNeely

And when we say countries like China, we pretty much mean China. Okay.

Steven Julian

So one of the things that we're in the middle of right now is in the middle of this whole thing is, okay, well, if the trade with China slows or stops for any period of time, what can we do? What can a product provider do?

Noah McNeely

I don't know.

Steven Julian

Are there any? Yeah, we don't know what the alternatives are, right?

Noah McNeely

So let me talk about how some of my clients handled this recent situation where it suddenly went to 145%. Now it's dropped back down to 30% for 90 days. And who knows what it's going to look like 90 days from now. Maybe it'll be 5,000%. Maybe it'll be 0% most likely.

Steven Julian

Somewhere in between.

Noah McNeely

If I had to guess, it's going to stay in the 30% range. But we'll see because there are a lot of reasons why. The U.S. and Chinese economies are kind of coupled, good, bad, or indifferent, whether you like it, don't like it. It is the reality of the situation. But in any event, some of my clients kind of went through a period of panic and didn't know what to do. They're like, you know, I've got all this product that's already in production. I've got stuff in China right now. that's, you know, do I even have them ship it?

So some clients just put everything on pause, which is actually in some ways the best advice I could give them is like, I don't think this is this. 145% is permanent, which it turned out not to be. Let's just see what happens. Unless you've absolutely got to have product in your hand tomorrow, put everything on pause. Let's take a break. Even my clients that were quoting you things, I was like, let's not quote anything right now because we don't know how accurate those quotes are going to be because on the other side of the ocean, the Chinese factors are freaking out too because they don't know, do I need to?

To undercut my quotes, to get any business I can, do I overquote? So anything we get right now is not going to be the long-term numbers.

Steven Julian

We have talked about this on past shows, but it's been a while. And given what's happening right now in tariffs, I think it's very important to ask. you this question. Why is China, why has it been so attractive for the last few years especially, but for a while now? As a manufacturing location for inventors, startups, and small companies.

Noah McNeely

So without going into the really long history, China started becoming an industrial manufacturing power back after Nixon kind of opened it up, starting in the 70s. And most of the stuff that came out of China, 70s, 80s, really 90s, was really considered poor quality. Over time, the quality of their factories improved dramatically. In a lot of industries, frankly, they have quality factories that outdo a lot of U.S. factories for what I call contract manufacturing, which is what inventor entrepreneurs and small companies use. Those are people that do not own their own factories or do not own a share of the factory.

Now, if you go to a company like... You know, Procter & Gamble or Black & Decker or whatever. You may own a factory in China, in the U.S. or wherever that you control it. You control the costs. You don't have to worry about a lot of the things that we're talking about here. You do have to worry about. tariffs if you have a factory that you own in China that you're importing stuff from, but you have a lot more flexibility because you're making so much stuff versus a startup that may make 5,000 units in an order, and they do that twice a year.

Maybe that's all they're doing. They don't have a lot of clout or a lot of buying power that they can use with either domestic factories, which tend to look for much bigger, more profitable clients, or with factories that are in other parts of the world, like Mexico, which has great factories, but a lot of that capacity is gobbled up by the bigger Customers that really import a massive amount of product from Mexico. So you're kind of stuck as an inventor entrepreneur. You can try to create your own factory, which is very expensive.

You can do that domestically. You can go to a domestic manufacturer and there are some, don't get me wrong, they do exist, but they tend to be more expensive. Oftentimes as a startup, you're more of a nuisance to them than anything else because you're not doing enough to turn their dial, their profit dial. So they end up giving you a very high price. Sometimes they give you what I call the go-away price. Now, I'm saying that understanding full well. Someone out there owns a factory is going to listen to this and say, that's not me.

I would love to talk to any inventor. Please reach out to me. If that's you, I want to talk to you because I've got people I would connect you with. But back to your question, what I tell people is if I go to China, and I've been, I can throw a rock in the air and I'm going to hit a factory. It's going to hit a factory in some parts of China. So there's a lot of capacity. And those are factories that range from the really small, you know, like basically what I would call garage factories, which are about the size of the- Of the lair?

Steven Julian

Of the lair.

Noah McNeely

And they may have six or seven employees. And you're like, that sounds terrible. Why would I want to make my stuff there? But that's an ideal factory for certain types of things. All the way up to factories. I've been in. factories that have two, three, and 4,000 employees. And that's an ideal factory for certain things. Then there's everything in the middle. There's so much different options, so many different levels of capacity that it's much easier to build that supply chain for a startup. Even if they have a product that's got plastic and metal and rubber and all sorts of stuff in it, I can find a factory or multiple factories that can do all of that for them.

Steven Julian

And the reason why it's been so attractive in China for so long, there's a lot of reasons. Labor costs less, even though the labor costs have grown as the middle class has grown and that, it's still cheaper.

Noah McNeely

Regulation— But that's becoming the lesser reason. I'll come back to that.

Steven Julian

Regulation of government intervention, the number of hoops you have to jump through to get a building built, it's totally different in China than it is here in the United States. It's almost like China is where the United States was when every major town had a major factory. Or more that, you know, my dad grew up right outside of Pittsburgh, that steel town, you know, all. that kind of, you know, there were steel mills all over Western PA. So there's a little bit of China has figured out that that's a major way for them to put their people to work.

Noah McNeely

In that sort of same level of development, I guess is the right way to say it. I would say you have a much larger percentage of the population that is interested and eager to work in a factory environment than you do in the United States. And listen, there are a lot of great factory workers in the United States. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.

Steven Julian

There's more in China.

Noah McNeely

It's just on a percentage level, more people in China grow up aspiring to work in factories than... Then they do here in the United States.

Steven Julian

I think you said that perfectly. I think you said that fairly and perfectly and truthfully. Yes.

Noah McNeely

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Steven Julian

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Steven Julian

So let's talk about growing manufacturing in the United States, which is one of the publicly stated reasons for these tariffs. We don't want to get into the politics of that. I've got my own thoughts and I'm not going to share them publicly.

Noah McNeely

Let me jump back just a second to the thing I teased about answering just a second ago. It's like, it's not... Don't be offended. I'm sorry. It's my fault. It's my brain jumps around like popcorn in the microwave.

Steven Julian

I was jumping. I was trying to jump ahead and I did it.

Noah McNeely

I think he saw my... I've never seen you look so offended. Okay. So I'm going to go back one step and I apologize for interrupting your train there. I suggested that, you know, the cost of labor is not really the primary driver. It is a driver. However, for me, it's really... The more important driver is capacity across a wide array of processes and project sizes. So in China, and starting in a few other countries, but in China, I can find a factory that can do a very small project. eagerly, willingly, profitably.

That's very hard to do in the U.S. and in most other countries. Can I find a factory that can do it? Yes. Can I find a factory that will do it eagerly and inexpensively and profitably? Probably not. So yeah, I can get it made here, but it's going to cost three, four times as much. Not because they're trying to take advantage of you, but just because it's a very different business model. If you're going in, you're going to make $80,000 of something, that's much more feasible to do in the U.S. or in Europe or wherever.

Okay. Now, I'm going to let you get me back on track.

Steven Julian

That's right. I had not forgotten about that labor cost thing, and we may even touch on that again. So if one of the stated goals of this whole tariff scenario is to bring more manufacturing, to continue to grow manufacturing, then let me, again, in the context of inventors and startups, What could manufacturing look like? In your opinion, and this is 100% your opinion and your dream, what could or should manufacturing look like in the United States to support more inventors and? startups?

Noah McNeely

So I'm going to answer that question in two different ways. One, I'm going to say, what should it look like? And I would argue... There are certain types of products where it really doesn't make sense for us to even want to manufacture here. These are going to be lower value commodity level products. Why do we want to corner the market on making plastic coat hangers here? I don't think we do. But if I just go back a step and accept the premise of the question that we want to manufacture everything here.

Steven Julian

No, that's not what I said.

Noah McNeely

I know it's not, but there's some people who may be thinking that way. So I'm going to approach the answer from that perspective that we want to just manufacture everything. Okay. But I don't agree that we do. And in fact, my line of what we do want to manufacture here is significantly higher than the plastic coat hanger example I gave. It goes all the way to more commodity products like sippy cups or baseline, you know. Yes, you can make a very expensive sippy cup. that's, you know, bespoke and all that.

That's different. That's not what I'm talking about. Okay. Stop rambling, Noah. Stop rambling.

Steven Julian

I'm just letting it go. All right.

Noah McNeely

Thank you. Just give me enough rope. Okay. So if I accept the premise that we want to manufacture everything here for the sake of this argument, what we really have to do is seek to replicate a lot of what China has done, either intentionally or they backed into or it just sort out. Organically grew and that is. we need to have an infrastructure that will support small businesses, startups, which we really don't have that right now on a manufacturing level. We certainly have it for more profitable things like medical device where there's a ton of margin, that infrastructure exists.

Funded programs that are ready to right out the bat, right off the bat, make a hundred thousand or something, that infrastructure exists. Or the startup, the small business that's just trying to break into the market that needs to make $3,000 of something, $5,000 of something, $1,000 of something to start their business on Amazon or wherever, that infrastructure really does not exist for most items. Now, there are exceptions.

Steven Julian

Give us, give the listener just. a couple of examples because I'm sure there's $5,000 of what an infrastructure looks like that would support that type of. Startup and run of 3,000, 5,000.

Noah McNeely

So to me, that infrastructure looks like a collection of small to mid-sized contract manufacturers that touch a lot of different processes. So it's very rare to find a product that's just one material. I gave the plastic coat hanger example. Sure, that's easy because You have a mold and then you just start pumping out plastic coat hangers. But usually for most products or for a lot of products that I work on, you have more complexity. So you have a metal component. You may have a circuit board. You may have plastic components.

You may have a rubber seal or gasket or whatever type of component. And all that has to go together. So it doesn't do you any good to just have a plastics factory if you don't have all those other bits and pieces. So what we really need is an infrastructure that can supply all these elements. And put it all together. Now in China, oftentimes the way that works is you'll have a factory that's got all. those different processes under one roof. Maybe they're missing one element, but they know a guy down the street that does that, you know, so they still kind of bring it in-house.

So it's very easy. In China and in some other countries, I can send out three emails and I'll get back three complete quotes on a full product production. In the U.S., I have to go find a plastics factory. Or three or five. I have to go find a metal working factory. I have to go find a rubber casting factory. I've got to go find an assembler. And it's just a much more complex supply chain to put together. And that gets very expensive.

Steven Julian

Is there anything the government or is there anything regulation-wise that could be loosened? Because I do believe in our own economy. Co-opetition is a real thing. So I don't think it's the manufacturers or the factories going, I don't want to work with that steel factory up in Pennsylvania. I want to do, you know, we don't care about them. Is it their lack of communication? Is it their lack of learning how to partner together? Or is there something else? you know about that. you see that go, this is happening in China. that's not happening here?

Noah McNeely

So I think there are a lot of governments here, the federal government, of course, all the way down to state, local, county governments that do have an interest in growing jobs and in growing businesses in their jurisdictions. What I always see is a huge focus on really big businesses. So like here in Georgia, there's always an effort to let's get, which they did years ago, let's woo NCR to move their headquarters here. Let's woo this company. That's all great. I don't have anything, I don't have any problem with that. What that does not do, however, is create new businesses that can grow into big businesses.

You can't have a big business unless you start with a small business. And that's what I think. A lot of these governments miss out on is they don't have any focus on. how do we incubate early businesses, understanding that some of them are going to fail so that we get that. Maybe it's one out of 10 that becomes a big employer for that state. But if you do it right, I actually think that'll generate more jobs than luring a big company here. Because when you do that, you're just taking those jobs from a different state anyway.

It's not helping the country as a whole.

Steven Julian

One of the past questions, I thought, you know, I think the American economy has certain sectors, especially in the tech sector, we're very good at incubation of thought business.

Noah McNeely

Software.

Steven Julian

Yeah. But how can we incubate more manufacturing? How can we be a manufacturing incubator or a group of manufacturing incubators that work together to do small orders that become larger orders? I think that's something to think about. This might be a very unfair question, and if it is, you will sternly correct me and say, boy, you gave me that look before, now I'm going to give you a look. Can you think of anything that a government, state, county, local, city, federal, a practical step or two, which saying a government taking a practical step, I realize that's an oxymoron to a lot of people, not you.

But can you think of anything that the government could do, a concrete step? Boy, if a local government would do this, this, or this, one of those might work to help more incubation and more manufacturing for startups.

Noah McNeely

Yes. I don't work in government, so I don't understand what the mechanics behind making these things happen would be. But I would see things along the lines of building. Super incubators. So, you know, they're incubators. A lot of times, sometimes they are government funded. that, you know, they go in as a small business and they'll help you put your finances together and figure out how to do all the, all the stuff small businesses need to learn how to do. That's all great. And you get a lot of, you know, dog grooming businesses out of that.

And you get a lot of forest out of that and that all of which we need. Correct. You don't get a lot of manufacturing business. You don't get a lot of new product businesses out of those things. You do get software businesses. There are incubators that focus on software. That's a whole different thing. People like investing in software because there's very little upfront capital and, you know, there's a whole reason for that. But that doesn't help us solve the move. manufacturing to the U.S. problem. So what I would view a super incubator as, or a manufacturing incubator, it's not just a building with some advisors.

Maybe it's an entire small technology park where you've got... That plastics motor, you've got that rubber caster, you've got that PC manufacturer, PC board manufacturer, you've got all these sheet metal work. You've got all this in an accessible way. Maybe it's not all in one part, maybe it's spread around the city. It doesn't matter, just so long as it's all available. And the problem is, I think the government's going to look at that as, okay, that's going to be expensive. None of these businesses are going to be profitable for three years.

You're right. None of these businesses are going to be profitable for a period of years. It is a longer-term investment. But you're not going to get to a bigger, broader manufacturing base that meets the needs of the 21st century without that long-term investment. It's not going to be like flipping a switch like it can be with software. It just takes time. And this small molder, it's going to take them a while and a lot. of clients to get to the point where they're out of the red into the black. And the companies that they support, it's going to take them a while to get out of the red and black as well.

But if governments are serious about building a manufacturing base, they've got to find a way to support that transition.

Steven Julian

I'm going to give an answer that is incredibly impractical, but it clearly would work. Because you would have to look at the history of the last 50 years and you would have to start with the premise and the argument that, The government has not helped build manufacturing very much, if at all, in this country.

Noah McNeely

I agree for small manufacturing. Yes. I mean, there's certainly a big industry that's already there. Correct. They will support that. Correct. It's getting it to there. Correct. Is the problem.

Steven Julian

So here's what I would say. If you wanted to do that, I think you raise a good point. You have to be longer term than, hey, this is going to, in a tech incubator or a thought business incubator, you get one good idea and, oh, look at what we generated. It's. going to take time. But here's what I would say. The government assistance needs to be as unhindered as possible. Because one thing about government assistance is the 97 pounds of paperwork you have to fill out to get a light bulb.

And so they have to allow themselves to possibly only help with It's stimulus. or we're getting a tax break. We're offering the tax break and we're taking our hands off. And the blood is not on our hands. All we're doing is trying to spur and get out of the way because the more government gets in the way, the more they slow things down.

Noah McNeely

Simply giving these new businesses a five-year waiver on regulations and maybe a five-year waiver on taxes to get them to the point where they can be profitable. That alone might be sufficient. Correct. And what you'd find after that, of course, they start following the regulations when they get to a certain size, but you'd find that there's much more tax revenue down the road.

Steven Julian

Because they're still around.

Noah McNeely

And you're giving up in those five years of incubation.

Steven Julian

Absolutely. So let's pivot to the private sector.

Noah McNeely

Oh. Hold on.

Steven Julian

I. jumped the gun again.

Noah McNeely

We're not going to talk politics, but philosophically, I think this actually, this may be a challenge. Okay. Democratic Republic, that's the best kind of government in the world. Don't get me wrong, but this may be a challenge. Go ahead. This may be a challenge that representative republics innately have because our politicians have to be rehired, revoted in every couple of years.

Steven Julian

They don't have to, but they want to.

Noah McNeely

They want to. So it's hard to have that long-term strategy stick. So the question then becomes, you know, who does that? That's why I would look kind of more at local governments and city councils, things like that might be a better fit for this. I'm not a fan of authoritarianism, but that's almost an advantage. more authoritarian governments do have is they can have that plan. And I think you see that maybe in China. I don't think it was a plan. I think a lot of it just sort of happened in terms of the small manufacturing, et cetera, there.

That is an advantage certain other types of political systems have. And I don't advocate any of those. Ours is still. the best political system in the world.

Steven Julian

So Noah is not advocating for an authoritarian system.

Noah McNeely

I don't want to get on any lists. Right.

Steven Julian

And by the way, when you're under an authoritarian government like they have been in China, granted that has dipped their toe in capitalist waters, but it's still an authoritarian government. You don't have as many choices as you're growing up. That's another part of it, too. Which, by the way, there's a skills gap. There's a trade gap.

Noah McNeely

There's an innovation gap when you do that. So there's a drawback to that as well. Correct.

Steven Julian

And so therefore, why not?

Noah McNeely

No one innovates as well as we do in the United States.

Steven Julian

Well, and I was thinking this. I'll say one last thing about government before moving on to the private sector. So right now, one of the big advertising slogans of the U.S. military is build submarines. Buildsubmarines.com. And so, hey, come in and you'll learn tech and you'll do this and you'll build submarines. Can't the government say, we're going to build products, build stuff in the USA? And the idea is from high school, you're going to go learn a trade. You're going to go learn skills in a factory that can apply to other jobs or if nothing else, get a good pain.

You're going to help build entrepreneurial products.

Noah McNeely

Well, I think there's a very slow and hopefully persistent transition of thought among some leaders that Economic security is national security. I think you start to see that working its way into some discussions and articles about, okay, national security about having all these submarines and et cetera, that's all great, but you have to be able to afford to buy the submarines. And to do that, you have to have a very large... And to do that, you have to have a very successful industry. And to do that, you've got to keep growing new industries.

So hopefully that's going to work its way all the way down to, and to do that, we have to get small businesses started so they can grow into big businesses.

Steven Julian

And not making a political statement, but that comment was made in the early 80s in various forms, and it's what ended the Cold War by the end of the 80s. So we won through economic. Economic security is national security. I like that. All right. Private sector. So we talked about government. Private sector, which I would argue from a 50,000-foot view, all they care about is profit, all they care – conglomeration more and more. We are giving – they are giving – the American private sector is giving the American consumer on a big scale fewer and fewer choices.

So what can the private sector do? How can venture capitalists, how can larger companies or even people with money –

Noah McNeely

See, I think that's one of the great things about capitalism is that as the private sector as it exists now gives people fewer and fewer choices, that opens up opportunities for other elements of private sector to step up to the plate to give more choices because that's eventually what people are going to demand. So we talked about the weaknesses or the challenges that elected representatives have in terms of long-term strategies and vision. That could be an advantage that certain types of private sector entities have, like venture capitalists and similar equity play type organizations that can take a longer term view.

Some can't. I think probably most can't. But you look at someone like. Berkshire Hathaway, they take a very long term view on things. So if there were an organization in the private sector that had enough funding behind it, And enough patience and long-term view to say, okay, we want to do these things to start all these small businesses. And then maybe they create that manufacturing incubator. And then not only do they own the factories there, but they get a piece of every startup that goes through there. I think there is some potential for that to work, but you've got to have that long-term vision.

It can't be, I got to do my profit next year. It's got to be, we're going to 10X our profit, but it's going to take Ten years to get there.

Steven Julian

The Shark Tank Manufacturing Center.

Noah McNeely

Hey, if it works, I don't care what they call it. I don't care who's involved, but it's got to be so wonderful.

Steven Julian

There's Mr. Producer. No, not a producer. There's Mr. Manufacturer.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, whatever. That was not very creative. It fell. Yeah. It fell flat. Sorry. We all have bad days.

Steven Julian

I need more coffee. I need that special creamer. Bring it back.

Noah McNeely

But yeah, so if? there were. Again, a well-funded private sector entity that could look at the long term. I think there is a play there. I'm not that, you know, I don't have that kind of funding or anything. So I don't, you know, and there's a lot that venture capitalists know that I have no idea about. But to me, as a product developer, product designer, it looks like to me that could be something that would work.

Steven Julian

And I would make an argument that. Okay, so I'm going to get on my soapbox for a second. I think one of the things that would have to happen, I said government needs to potentially look at less regulation and kind of get out of the way, even though they're involved. I think from the private sector point of view, you almost have to go into a project. You talked about, oh, 10X, or it's not going to happen right away. You almost have to, as a capitalist, come in and go, Of course, I want to be profitable.

Maybe it's not always about maximizing as much profit all the time or maybe ever, but if I can make it profitable, it's not. all about the profit. When you want to improve manufacturing options for entrepreneurs and startups or midsize scenarios, you can't always be about maximum profit. You can be about profit, but... And I'll tell a story. Well, I won't tell that story from history. I think there's more than just profit. Hey, I'm bringing manufacturing back. I'm lowering the trade skills gap by bringing in more internships from kids out of high school and kids out of college.

I don't know. I'm thinking big. Noah is disagreeing.

Noah McNeely

I am disagreeing sharply with that. I think those are all great things for companies and venture capitalists to put in their brochures and on their little commercials they run on Sunday morning. I think it is all about profit. I think the difference is it needs to be about long-term profit rather than immediate profit.

Steven Julian

But if you're going to say it's long-term profit, you may never get there. But was it worth the journey? if you may get there, you may get 10 years down the road and you go, I didn't get to 10x, but we're at 7x, and I want to keep improving it, but we're doing it.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, but I think just like with sustainable technologies, I think unless it's profitable, it's very hard to get the private sector in a capitalist society to embrace it and to really attack it with full... Full force. And I think that's what ultimately we need is they need to have enough of a clear path to profit, even if it's a longer term path, for it to work and be reproduced and reproduced. Yeah. Are there some altruistic companies out there that would just do it? A few, but not enough to make as big of a difference as if it can be fully profitable.

But you have to look at it more like a company that's building a power plant. It's going to take 10 years before that generates any profit.

Steven Julian

But when you're doing an incubator with small startups and entrepreneurs, you can't guarantee anything that any of those products. So that's, you're like, oh, I want to get it to 10X. Who knows?

Noah McNeely

But here's the thing. It is a riskier investment. Power plant, you know, it's going to, you can plan that a lot. It's going to take me this many years to build it.

Steven Julian

And. I know people need power.

Noah McNeely

And then I'm going to be able to charge this much per kilowatt, et cetera. You can map that out and it's very clear. It's also got a cap on it. You know, you're not going to make more than this much profit. So this, I look at more as, okay, we're going to have a hundred small businesses come through this or a thousand or whatever it is through this period of time. You're going to have to get to the point where you have a reasonable expectation. Okay, 20% are just going to fail.

They're going to lose me money. The next 40%, they're going to break even. The next 20%, they're going to make a little bit of money. Then the next 15%, I may not add up to 100 by the time I'm done here. The next 15%, they're going to make a little bit more, but it's that 5% that are going to really break out. That's where all the profit is. You've got to have that model to make it work.

Steven Julian

I've got to ask you the last big question. We're getting on in time, and we can do. a four-parter on this topic, depending on how long this tariff stays on top of the news. If you had the resources, if you had unlimited resources, what would Noah McNeely do specifically for the entrepreneur and startup? And pairing with that, this has been a good conversation. Can this actually work?

Noah McNeely

So if I had unlimited resources, I'd find the right senators to bribe. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Just a joke. Maybe. No, I'd find the right governments to work with, to say governments in areas around the country that do want. And desperately want to bring more jobs in their space. Kind of like the place where I grew up. I grew up in a very small town here in Georgia. There are places all around the country that would love to have a way to grow their revenues, their tax bases. And this would be a good way to do that if they have that long-term vision.

I think communities like that can have that long-term vision because they've been sitting on a very static tax base for years and they've got all this land. It's like, okay, we don't have to tax that land for. 10 years or whatever it is. I'd work with those. I'd find those governments. I'd work with them. And I would build out one of these manufacturing incubators. I would create a scenario where companies, startups could apply to be a part of that. And part of that is that the organization overall owns 10% or whatever percent, whatever math works out.

Of that company in perpetuity or for whatever period of time makes sense. So that company gets off the ground, it grows and grows and grows. And at some point, it's going to be very profitable and that's going to start to fund this whole thing on the back end.

Steven Julian

Can it work?

Noah McNeely

I think it can. I think that, I think there's, again, there's certain elements that are not going to work. There's certain products that are just so low value, low commodity. It's just never going to make sense. It's those sort of mid-level products, which I think would work in this country. Again, something like small electronics or vacuum cleaners, things that have some complexity to them.

Steven Julian

It's not going to work with every single product and there certainly would be obstacles, but there are. plenty of opportunities and plenty of chances. And we could do it differently than it's being done now and possibly better. So I'm thinking of that rural community and whatever state that is trying to increase their increase. Employment attract employees and build that manufacturing incubator to help, you know, so that Frank's Cheese Hammers could be produced here in the United States. And the Secret of NIMH nude Blu-ray DVDs.

Noah McNeely

I'm sorry, what?

Steven Julian

Yeah. What Blu-ray DVDs? The Legend of NIMH? Which one is it? I always forget.

Noah McNeely

It's the Secret of NIMH. Did you say nude Blu-ray?

Steven Julian

No.

Noah McNeely

No. I hope not.

Steven Julian

No, I did not say nude Blu-ray. No, that's a whole other genre of film that we're not talking about here.

Noah McNeely

That doesn't have any profitability problems.

Steven Julian

Somewhere that might be a bad design audibly only. No, The Secret of NIMH Blu-ray DVD. Right.

Noah McNeely

Yeah. What's the DVD again?

Steven Julian

Exactly. But we need to bring it back in manufacturing. No, we don't. I'm just kidding. All right. So what the actual F? I don't know what the F stands for, except this was fun.

Noah McNeely

Stands for frustration for a lot of my clients at the moment. But it's getting better.

Steven Julian

Well, and.

Noah McNeely

Kind of.

Steven Julian

Yeah. Listen, if there's one thing the American economy does and if there's one thing American entrepreneurs and those who are currently involved in manufacturing, we pivot, we adjust, we innovate, we get to work and fix the problem.

Noah McNeely

Yeah. I think I'm going to go back to something I said earlier that no one innovates as good as. The United States does. And I think that there's an opportunity here for someone with a long-term enough vision and the right funding to innovate a new way to do these small-scale manufacturing and grow some really good big businesses this way. And hopefully someone will do that.

Steven Julian

But not the new version of Secret of Nem. We definitely don't want to do that.

Noah McNeely

We're going to have to do another show on that.

Steven Julian

Yeah, I don't think I said that if I do.

Noah McNeely

Product genius after dark.

Steven Julian

There's a guest that probably would want to come back and talk about that. So, Noah, thank you so much for being willing to tackle a potentially political topic. I think you did a great job. I think you raised great points. I think there's. a lot of people, and we live in a society that people don't want to talk about politics, and it's okay.

Noah McNeely

We can— A whole other topic, but politics gets in the way of this kind of stuff. Exactly. Picking sides gets in the way of good solutions because you're like, oh, they said it, so it's got to be a bad idea because they're not on my side. We've got to get past that.

Steven Julian

Speaking of good solutions, you can go to productquickstart.com. Noah can help you bring your product to market. Go to his website, fill out his form. If you want to get your podcast on the air, you need to go to jodiesmith.com. He'll help you do that. And I can't say anything else about financial advising and the music's over, so we'll catch you next time on Product Genius.