At the beginning of February, Rachel Gogos, invited Kevin Mako on her podcast, The Business of You. On the show, Kevin goes in-depth into branding for product startups. In addition, he also shares his thoughts on why branding is a huge part of what makes MAKO a successful product design company.
Rachel is the Founder of brandiD, a marketing agency that helps businesses connect their business goals, brand, and purpose to increase their impact across communication channels. Rachel and her team help with the branding for product startups and other clients by refining their stories and messaging. Using this information her team then builds their website as a platform to amplify their voice. Since 2007, they’ve been using a four-step process to help businesses that want to take the next step towards success:
- Discovery: Research what makes their client, product, and business unique to define goals.
- Creation: Develop impactful and consistent messaging as the foundation of the client’s future content.
- Implementation: Harnessing the power of WordPress, they’ll build a website with salient content.
- Amplification: Use PR, social media, and other channels to expand reach.
About Rachel Gogos
In addition to running operations at brandiD to help product startups and other clients, Rachel is also a serial entrepreneur with a passion for people, the web, and creating strong personal brands. She also has over 15 years of communications and marketing experience. Indeed, she’s worked for incredible organizations including the United Nations, The Wall Street Journal, and DowJones.com. Along with brandiD, she’s founded two other companies including MyPath101.
Rachel’s podcast, The Business of You, is dedicated to helping listeners learn about branding for product startups. Specifically, how to use your personal brand to help turn an idea into a business. Every week she chats with experienced entrepreneurs to help product startups and other aspiring entrepreneurs on their path to success. Listen as they share their candid stories about their brand growth from launch to where they are today.
The Business of You | Epsiode 005: From Idea to Product Launch
Episode five features our President and Founder, Kevin Mako. Listen as he uncovers important details for aspiring inventors and startup leaders on why personal branding goes hand-in-hand with success. One of the key points he talks about is that innovation really starts with people and not corporations. More and more, we see home inventors finding success in the product hardware industry because of their passion for inventing a product to help other people solve problems that they themselves have. It’s this combination of authentic passion and a brilliantly simple design that helps build a product startup brand that people can trust.
In this episode, you’ll also learn about:
- Kevin’s first invention – which will surely surprise you!
- How Kevin started his company from the ground up – growing from one part-time employee to the world-class 30 person team we have today.
- Why it’s a great time to be an inventor or startup in the hardware space thanks to additive manufacturing, incubators, and other support systems, and the fact that larger companies are more interested in purchasing small businesses or their products rather than developing the product themselves.
- How to land your first client by navigating your specific niche and learning how to deliver value better than your competitors by providing the best customer service experience.
- How detailed and complex the product development process is, even for ideas that you may think are simple.
- The power of authenticity and passion in your marketing messages.
To listen to the full episode, click here!
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!
1-888-806-6256
info@makodesign.com