077: Using Prospective Customers to Develop a Product

With West Stringfellow, past executive at Target, Amazon, & TechStars

West Stringfellow rose the ranks in the early days of Amazon emerging as Head of Product. He has also been an executive in innovation at Target, Paypal, Visa, & Rosetta Stone. He even ran a Techstars incubator for a couple years. Now West runs HowDo, a completely free education platform to help anyone become a successful entrepreneur. Today West is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers should focus on understanding the customer to gain strong insight into early product development and marketing planning. He will explain how some of the best customer-facing companies in the world do this, and how you can learn from that to do this for your next hardware product.

Episode Links:

West Stringfellow / HowDo Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weststringfellow/
• Website: https://howdo.com/

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

• Website: https://www.ProductStartup.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ProductStartup/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ProductStartup/
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProductStartup/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ProductStartup/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProductStartup
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent

Mako Design Links:

• Website: https://www.makodesign.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MakoInvent
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MakoInvent/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/MakoDesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MakoInvent/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/MakoInvent/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MakoInvent/

Kevin Mako Links:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Entrepreneurs/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/KevMako/
• Quora: https://www.quora.com/profile/Kevin-Mako
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KevMakoPage/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/KevMako/

Thanks for tuning in! See you next time.

About: 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. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!