MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry’s leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Scroll down to learn more about Mako Design + Invent!
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MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry’s leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Scroll down to learn more about Mako Design + Invent!
Mako pioneered the design firm model of providing world-class product development but tailored to early stage companies. If you’re in the early startup phases or in the startup scaling phase for a physical hardware product business, it’s key to work with an end-to-end design firm that can take your product from sketch to scaling, all under one roof.
Working as a design firm for your small product business or manufacturing operation is monumentally different than doing design for Fortune 500 product companies. We specialize in, and were the first design firm tailored to small business clients (from startups to companies under 100 employees). If you’re a small manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, distributor, etc., Mako Design is tailored to you.
Have an invention idea? We have developed hundreds of products for individuals in addition to providing end-to-end solutions, strategy, and connections to help our inventor clients with all elements to get from Idea to Stores Shelves! Simply put, not only were we the first design firm to focus on world-class product design tailored to early stage products, but we also help inventors with many other elements.
Mako is the first firm providing world-class product development exclusively and tailored for small business and startups. In order to best service these innovators, Mako pioneered the S.M.A.R.T. Product Development Model : A highly successful product design model to strategically and cost-effectively develop high quality products from sketch on a napkin to production, all in record time and with high-impact market results – An ideal solution for small product businesses.
This model was forged 20 years ago when all world-class design firms were focusing almost all of their work servicing Fortune 500 product companies through scattered, lengthy and costly design processes. Over 20 years Mako tweaked, refined, and improved the Rapid Development Model on over 1,000 projects with dozens of designers across North America. Now, simplified variants of this model are used all over the world. Founder Kevin Mako now teaches this model to numerous design organizations and companies, as a lecturer at the Masters of Engineering Program at Ryerson University, and of course, to Mako Design clients!
Click Here to get in touch and learn more about our Rapid Product Development model.
Mako, the first firm providing world-class product development exclusively and tailored for small business and startups. In order to best service these innovators, Mako pioneered the S.M.A.R.T. Product Development Model : A highly successful product design model to strategically and cost-effectively develop high quality products from sketch on a napkin to production, all in record time and with high-impact market results – An ideal solution for small product businesses.
This model was forged 20 years ago when all world-class design firms were focussing almost all of their work servicing Fortune 500 product companies through scattered, lengthy and costly design processes. Over 20 years Mako tweaked, refined, and improved the Rapid Development Model on over 1,000 projects with dozens of designers across North America. Now, simplified variants of this model are used all over the world. Founder Kevin Mako now teaches this model to numerous design organizations and companies, as a lecturer at the Masters of Engineering Program at Ryerson University, and of course, to Mako Design clients!
Click Here to get in touch and learn more about how the Rapid Product Development model works.
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Mako was the first firm in North America to provide world-class product development tailored specifically to the small folks – Inventors, Product Startups, & Small Manufacturers. We have been the leader in the high growth space since founding it in 1999. This required majorly improving & modernizing everything about the design business.
Since Mako is by far the most applied-to product design firm in each city that we have an office, we get the pick-of-the-litter hires. Not only do hires need to be top technical designers, but they also need to past the “weekend test” – Is this hire someone you and your family would love to invite to your home for the weekend?
Pioneering an industry also required completely overhauling the archaic product design process of the past. Using state of the art software, top designers, cloud management, and a development library of almost 1,500 products we designed, Mako now makes product development streamlined, logical, efficient, and to a very high calibre, all at startup level costs.
As a result of all of the above categories, our clients receive a high quality product, built to modern standards, in a much quicker development time, at a far lower cost, and with strong trust between all stakeholders. This has kept us at the top of an industry, ensuring that we deliver exceptional value to create winning product after winning product for the inventors, startups, and small businesses that choose Mako.
From a sketch on a napkin to mass manufacturing, and everything in between – Mako is a one stop shop for getting a product off the ground and scaling it to the big leagues, all under one company. Including important peripheral stuff such as business strategy, patent referrals, distributor/wholesaler connections, crowdfunding partners, etc.
Half of Mako’s team is mid to senior designers from Fortune 500 product companies including Dell, Nike, Bose, Boeing, and others. Not just great designers, but specifically the best builder designers – Those who were doing CAD design all day every day for their whole career. A minimum of 5-years full time CAD experience is required just to apply to Mako.
Not only has Mako won over 30 awards, but many of the really prestigious and difficult to win ones such as Red Dot, Inc5000, Growth500, Entrepreneur360, Best Design Firm in North America, and so on. This is even more impressive when you consider that we won all these general industrial design industry awards despite focusing exclusively on small business clients.
Inventor
“I have worked with MAKO from product conception to manufacturing and I know that I would not be where I am today if I had not made the decision to work with them. It has and will always be one of my best decisions ever!”
“I have worked with MAKO from product conception to manufacturing and I know that I would not be where I am today if I had not made the decision to work with them. It has and will always be one of my best decisions ever!”
Inventor
“I have worked with MAKO from product conception to manufacturing and I know that I would not be where I am today if I had not made the decision to work with them. It has and will always be one of my best decisions ever!”
“I have worked with MAKO from product conception to manufacturing and I know that I would not be where I am today if I had not made the decision to work with them. It has and will always be one of my best decisions ever!”
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21 years at Mako Design. Masters of Engineering lecturer. International keynote speaker. Duke of Edinburgh gold. HBA from Ivey & HKU. 6 entrepreneurship & education boards. Host of Product Startup Podcast. Private pilot.
25 years industrial design & mechanical engineering. Senior designer at Nike Golf and Dell. Many awards. Student lecturer. Keynote speaker. NDip 3D Design and BTech in Engineering & Design. 3 years in the military.
20 years of experience exclusively doing industrial design. Lecturer for design students. Designed for Dell, Texas Instruments, Airwalk, & Stryker. Bach in Art Foundations and MDES in Transportation Design.
10 years in electronic design & manufacturing. Past hardware engineer at Flextronics and Freescale. Specializes in embedded low-power consumer electronics. Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, Texas State.
25 years in industrial design. ID instructor at Gemini School. Prior senior designer at Bose & Peterbilt. BSID Design at Auburn, Automotive Design at College for Creative Studies, A.S. Commercial Art at Tampa Tech.
10 years experience in development, manufacturing, and sales & distribution for consumer products. Strategic mentor to product startups succeed in the market. Keynote speaker. King’s University & Brock University.
10 years of exclusively doing industrial design. Specializes in stylish and modernized product design language. Developed over 100 projects for Mako Design. Bachelor of Industrial Design from Humber.
10 years office management and project management. Project Management Professional candidate 2020. 3 years military training. Ensures on time, on budget, & top-notch. Diploma in business admin & management.
5 Years of Industrial Design. Prior product industrial design at Procter & Gamble. Prior designer at Mattel. Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Cleveland Institute of Art with an industrial design designation.
10 years experience doing exclusively industrial design. Focuses on modern, sexy, minimalist design language. Product Design Engineer graduate from Edinburgh University.
10 years of mechanical design and product engineering in the consumer, aerospace, and toy industry. Former senior mechanical designer at Boeing and Moose Toys. Licenced PEng and Bach of Mechanical Engineering.
9 years of experience as a Design Engineer. Lean 6 Sigma designer. Prior Product Engineer at Porocel & Smith-Blair. Prior Manufacturing Supervisor at Cooper Tires. BSc Mechanical Engineering at Arkansas University.
6 years exclusively in industrial design. Specializes in aesthetic and functional physical product design and development. NDip 3D in Design and BTech in Engineering & Design.
15 years of experience in bookkeeping and finance. Specializes in accurate records, budget planning, and resources management.
8 years experience in PCB Design. Masters of Engineering in Electronics and a Bachelor of Technology degree (ECE). Substantial experience in PCB Design & manufacturing, assembling, soldering and In-Circuit Testing (ICT).
9 years of experience in project management in product development. Specializes in project management software, project effectiveness, and project organization. Bachelor’s Degree in Design from OCAD.
10 years of experience in Embedded Hardware design. Bachelor's Engineering in Electronics. Associate at the Indian Institute of Technology. Prior designer at the Indian Army’s Defence’s Simulation Division.
The wonderful person that you first talk to when giving Mako a call and who is keeping the office organized and efficient. B.A. in Environmental Design.
7 years in content curation. Speaks four languages. Specializes in research, education, content curation, and expanding the product development community as a whole. Bachelor of Communications and Philosophy major.
President
President
“It’s extremely exciting to be revolutionizing the incredible industry of industrial design and development. For each project we earn, we are given the responsibility of developing something amazing to disrupt and improve an entire product market segment for the client. Our goal, simply put, is to make our clients’ product businesses hugely successful.”
“It’s extremely exciting to be revolutionizing the incredible industry of industrial design and development. For each project we earn, we are given the responsibility of developing something amazing to disrupt and improve an entire product market segment for the client. Our goal, simply put, is to make our clients’ product businesses hugely successful.”
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