Skills

11 Quick Tips for Rapid Prototyping + 1 Reading Suggestion

Just wanted to share 11 quick Prototyping Tips to help in your next project.

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

Product Development Often Takes 3x Longer Than Planned Speed to market is a critical competitive advantage. But product development is a...

Save $$$ on product development costs in Q1

If you're not slightly embarrassed to show your first prototype build, then you waited too long to build it. Show it early. Figure out...

Quick heads up....

I generally recommend the following: What if you sold a product and someone 'ripped it off' It might be Amazon ripping off the Everyday...

Surveillance drone powered by children's laughter

I'm thinking of filing a patent application for a surveillance drone that's powered by children's laughter. Assuming it's approved, the...

Beware of feature creep

Don't dilute your product's true value by stuffing too many creative ideas into one release.

Falling in love with your IP; escaping the sunk cost trap

Focus on the customer and usability.

Don't build an app

Don't 'build an app'. Create a solution. Then use technology to scale it. Knowing this in my 20s would have saved me 5+ years of wasted work

Why are you building prototypes?

This is the first step in testing the requirements of your design.

Start over.

Whether this is in design, engineering, or building a prototype Sometimes it's best to just Start Over.

Design for X - Right to Repair

Design for X (DfX, DFX) or Design for Excellence where "X" is a variable that can have many different values.

Prototype Everything

Done is better than perfect.

20 Questions: a Design Strategy Guide

I've been in product design and development (R&D) for almost 10 years. I've seen a lot of successful projects, and I've also seen a lot...

You don't WANT an injection mold; you WANT profits. Focus on that.

Frequently, inventors come to me asking for help with design for injection molding. Usually, it's a molding company that has told them to...

Stages of Success

How do you start a profitable $100M business? By growing a profitable $100k business. Success isn't a step function It's a series of...

Done is better than perfect

I’ve seen too many design projects stall out in the pursuit of perfection. I like to say, done is better than perfect. Get to a MVP...

Random Questions

When I'm stuck on a challenging problem, I like to ask unrelated/random questions. Questions that force me to think about the problem...

Creative Work vs Critical Work

I've heard it said that there few creatives and millions of critics. A critic sees what IS, and asks questions: Why did they do it this...

Climbing without a guide

Let me know if you want help navigating your next product development program.

Klondike Donut Bars

I see product innovation everywhere.