Engage plastic manufacturers or full-service prototyping shops early in the process when going to production. Your mechanical engineer and industrial designer can only tell you so much about your product's type of plastic and production method. Working directly with their business development or solution engineers at these manufacturers is the best option to minimize mistakes. They have a wealth of information in terms of material, lead time, cost, etc. They will tell you what to do and what not to do for your application. They are the experts on plastics.
Engage plastic manufacturers or full-service prototyping shops early in the process when going to production. Your mechanical engineer and industrial designer can only tell you so much about your product’s type of plastic and production method. Working directly with their business development or solution engineers at these manufacturers is the best option to minimize mistakes. They have a wealth of information in terms of material, lead time, cost, etc. They will tell you what to do and what not to do for your application. They are the experts on plastics.
You can never be 100% confident in the supply chain for low volume electronics. Our electrical engineer had checked the significant distributors for all our components just one week before we hit the go button for manufacturing. The next week, we received a notice from our manufacturer saying these four components could not be found. So the electrical engineer checked again, and in just one week, someone had bought up all the supply in the market. Every distributor was sold out, just disappeared from the market. Our team then had to scramble and try to find non-authorized resellers to source components from or talk directly to the parts’ manufacturers to twist their arms and see if they had any supply to help us with our build. After many hours of communicating with vendors and searching the market, we finally placed orders. We now had to wait for the components to be delivered for inspection then sent to our manufacturer for delivery. It was an extremely frustrating and drawn out experience. One that was both new for my engineers and me
Trust in the process. Saw this in two ways this week. 1) In October, I hired a new employee. At first, I wasn’t sure they were the right match for the position, but my team, who helped make the decision was confident. In the first two months, I kept beating myself up that this wasn’t the right decision. In parallel, I continued training and engaging them. Then in the past two weeks, they have started to show their true colors. I am impressed repeatedly with their work quality, attention to detail, proactive thinking, and organization. 2) We sometimes engage with undergrad or grad students for capstone projects or semester-long projects. Over this past semester, we worked with the IIT Design masters students on a project. I had no clue what I was getting myself into, but I went to the initial meetings and figured there was nothing to lose. Going into the project, I gave them a simple problem statement and to the point. As we went through the project, the professor asked if it would be okay to go beyond this scope, and I said sure. Boy, am I glad that they went beyond the scope. Today was the final presentation from both teams, and they blew my team and me away. In just ten weeks, they went from knowing nothing about dementia and Alzheimers and nothing about our product or solution to experts in the human-centered experience of dementia. They completed the project with an impressive set of recommendations, slides, and content. Through the leadership of the professor (ex-IDEO designer), they excelled. I am extremely thankful for the opportunity to work with the students. I continue to learn repeatedly to trust in the process, regardless of how hard it may be.
Throw ideas on the paper, and then we can edit it. Over time, I have learned that even if you have no clue what the outcome will be of a grant proposal, you can bring a group of smart people together and just put ideas on paper, then nine times out of 10, something beautiful will come out of it. About one month ago, we started a new collaboration with another startup to apply for a grant around socialization and engagement of people living with dementia. Without knowing where it was going to go, I jumped in and started working with them. Our research manager then found a faculty member from IU’s public health school, and we started all working together. Due to the quick deadline (Jan. 5th), we had to complete our first draft of the grant documents fast. I told my team to start writing, and that’s what they did. We are not there yet, but we are close to a first coherent draft of the entire proposal after just a few revisions. It is incredible to see it come together out of nothing.
Get the vision in your head, then let your unconscious guide you towards that vision. For a while, I have been noodling on an idea for my company that involves licensing our core products in a platform. I hadn’t shared it with anyone entirely until last week when I started to get feedback on the idea. I created a visual representation of the system architecture with each component. This week I debated whether to share this new concept with my team but decided to share as I was excited to talk about it. Boy, am I glad I did share. I didn’t realize it at the time, but sharing the diagram and talking through my vision with my team on Monday helped them think through what they were doing throughout the week and gave them a concrete goal. I could see and hear their motors turning in their head about how they would adjust their behavior or do certain things to make this vision work.