The Engineering Entrepreneur Podcast

The Wheelchair Mountain Bike – Bowhead Corp (Chris Bagg and Will Gill) – Ep67

The Wheelchair Mountain Bike – Bowhead Corp (Chris Bagg and Will Gill) – Ep67 23 years ago, Chris Bagg broke his back snow boarding. Chris was very into outdoor sports and wanted to continue his activities as a parapalegic. Chris built his own custom wheelchair first. He needed this because all the stock chairs were too small for his 6 foot 8 inch size. Next, he started working on his off-road wheelchair bike. He “modeled” the bike first using paper and foam, just to work on the concept. Then he started getting prototypes made from using Solidworks and creating waterjet cut parts. Chris later brought in a Solidworks expert and engineer Will Gill. This is when their company Bowhead Corp was born. They now have a few products such as the Bowhead Reach and the Bowhead Traveler. You should go to their website and check out their pictures and videos in action. You can reach them at: https://bowheadcorp.com/ https://www.instagram.com/bowheadcorp/     The Engineering Entrepreneur Podcast is produced by Scott Tarcy, President of CADdesignhelp.com. You can reach me at info@caddesignhelp.com

The Wonder Wallet Invention – Alan Beckley– Ep66

The Wonder Wallet Invention – Alan Beckley– Ep66 Alan Beckley is an entrepreneur, inventor, and podcaster. His degree is in aerospace engineering but worked a lot of his career in project management. In 2012, he hit it big with an invention of his, the Wonder Wallet. Today he continues to invent but also but also focuses on helping other inventors to succeed with his website alanbeckley.com, which has webinars for inventors, online courses, and his podcast, called Inventors Helping Inventors.  Alan and I discussed in detail exactly how he went about inventing his product, from initial idea to the final licensing deals with As Seen on TV and Direct TV and retail sales. Alan’s number one tip: Do you due diligence. Inventors often don’t do enough patent searching and Google searching to see if their product already exists   You can contact Alan at: Alanbeckley.com 972-989-1002 Alan-beckley@msn.com --------------------------------- This week’s show is sponsored by Gusto Everyone loves payday, especially engineers. But loving a payroll provider? That’s a little weird. Still, small businesses across the country love running payroll with Gusto. Gusto automatically files and pays your taxes, it’s super easy to use, and you can add benefits and HR support to help take care of your engineering team and keep your business safe. It’s loyal, it’s modern — you might fall in love yourself.  Listeners get three months free when they run their first payroll. Try a demo and test it out at gusto.com/ee. That’s gusto.com/ee  

Serial Inventor, Entrepreneur and Daymond John Business Partner – Mike Watts– Ep65

Serial Inventor, Entrepreneur and Daymond John Business Partner – Mike Watts– Ep65 Mike Watts is a serial entrepreneur who has started 6 product-based companies totaling over $50million in total sales. Mike is currently serving as Founder and CEO of LoveHandle, who manufactures patented custom-printed smartphone accessories and is a partner of Daymond John from Shark Tank. Many listeners of this show are inventors and Mike took a slightly different approach than many inventors. Mike started out by partnering with an inventor of a lawn/garden product and manufacturing that inventor’s product, in return for giving the inventor a royalty. After that product, Mike has created a smart phone accessory that makes it easier to hold your phone. The brand name is called Lovehandle (www.lovehandle.com). Daymond John (from Shark Tank) discovered his product and was so impressed with it that he contacted Mike and they have since partnered up to do business together. Mike’s number one tip: Seek out wisdom from those that have done it before   You can contact Mike at: Mike@lovehandle.com Instagram: @mikewattsceo

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) – John Laslavic– Ep64

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) – John Laslavic– Ep64 If you are an engineer at a mid to large company, you are well aware what PLM is. But if not, hopefully this episode will teach you a few things. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is how companies organize the process of creating and modifying products. Traditionally this applied to just the CAD data itself. This is important because if multiple engineers are working on a file, the system will keep the data organized so that everyone knows what the latest revision is and the status of the project (is the CAD in process, under review, or ready for tooling, and so on). John is the CEO and founder of Upchain.com. Upchain is changing PLM by organizing the entire supply chain, not just the CAD data. This makes the entire product management smoother. After the CAD is done, other departments still have work to do like getting quotes for tooling. Upchain organizes this process.   Contact info http://www.upchain.com

The Business of Bioscience – Susan Goebel – Ep63

The Business of Bioscience – Susan Goebel – Ep63 Susan is what I call a Bioscience Entrepreneur. She went to college for Biology and her first job out of school involved creating displays in museums, but these aren’t your average displays. One display she worked on was the structure of the human heart, using an actual heart! She then worked for a while in the animal health industry. But this type of work was not for her, so she moved onto entrepreneurship.  Using her experience in animal health, she started her own company for animal health. Some advice from me hearing this story is that if you want to start your own business, one of the best ways is to get a job/apprenticeship and learn while working for someone else, as she did. My story is the same, I worked for 10 years for large corporations before starting my own business as a design engineer. One of her top products she helped make was a vaccine for cattle for Ecoli, but the purpose of the vaccine was to prevent Ecoli from affecting humans further down the food chain. This is a fascinating series of cause and effect that makes you really appreciate how everything is so connected. Susan’s company also has worked on immunotheraputics for cancer, specifically bladder cancer. Her company also works with companies as a strategic partner to get government funding, get VC capital, and help with the regulatory (FDA) process. Susan’s top tips are: Check your assumptions. Make sure you know what your assumptions are and make sure they are correct Business planning – don’t dismiss it You can contact Susan by email at s.goebel@bell.net  The Engineering Entrepreneur Podcast is produced by Scott Tarcy, President of CADdesignhelp.com. You can reach me at info@caddesignhelp.com

From Aerospace Engineer to Entrepreneur– Amy Simpkins – Ep62

From Aerospace Engineer to Entrepreneur– Amy Simpkins – Ep62 Amy Simpkins is a speaker, author, and thought leader in innovation and the CEO of renewable energy startup, muGrid Analytics. She's an MIT-trained aerospace engineer who caught the entrepreneurship bug and loves facilitating massive leaps forward for individuals and organizations.  She's recently published her book, Spiral: A Catalyst for Innovation and Expansion and believes that innovation is for everyone and holds the key to both personal fulfillment and lasting global change. We discuss Amy’s journey from her days as an engineer with Lockheed Martin to her current role as CEO of muGrid. At Lockheed, Amy worked on projects like low earth orbit satellites and acoustic vibration issues in astronauts’ ears. Amy wanted to move into entrepreneurship, so she left Lockheed. She had a few failures, as most entrepreneurs do when they first get started. But now she has a book published and is successfully running muGrid Analytics. MuGrid is a renewable energy business that creates custom energy storage solutions for private companies and municipalities. You can contact Amy at: www.Amysimpkins.com www.mugrid.com TheSpiralBook.com This week’s show is sponsored by Gusto Everyone loves payday, especially engineers. But loving a payroll provider? That’s a little weird. Still, small businesses across the country love running payroll with Gusto. Gusto automatically files and pays your taxes, it’s super easy to use, and you can add benefits and HR support to help take care of your engineering team and keep your business safe. It’s loyal, it’s modern — you might fall in love yourself.  Listeners get three months free when they run their first payroll. Try a demo and test it out at gusto.com/ee. That’s gusto.com/ee

Asset protection for entrepreneurs – Scott Smith – Ep61

Asset protection for entrepreneurs – Scott Smith – Ep61 This episode focuses on some important business aspects of being an engineering entrepreneur: things like asset protection, insurance, and tax strategies. Scott is the founder of Royal legal solutions. His company specializes in asset protection for entrepreneurs. This includes what insurance to get, how to best structure your business for tax savings, and what to do when you get sued. Scott and I discuss these 3 topics. Starting with liability, a good option for entrepreneurs is to set up 2 companies: Asset holding company – separate LLC that holds everything Shell company –runs operations of the business Then we discuss retirement savings, specifically the details of a Solo 401k Finally, we talk about lawsuits and what to do if you get sued. Scott’s top tips are: Use a 2-company structure Set up a solo 401k wrap up everything in estate plan (living trust and will)   You can contact Scott at: Royallegalsolutions.com Real estate nerds podcast 512-757-3994  ----- The Engineering Entrepreneur Podcast is produced by Scott Tarcy, President of CADdesignhelp.com. You can reach me at info@caddesignhelp.com

Lean Manufacturing and Lean Startups – Jason Burt – Ep60

Lean Manufacturing and Lean Startups – Jason Burt – Ep60 Jason Burt is the owner of Evolve Holdings, which is a consultancy that focuses on teaching and applying the principles of Lean Manufacturing. Lean Manufacturing started off as the Toyota production system and centers around a continuous improvement culture and taking waste out of the manufacturing process. The first half of our conversation is about lean manufacturing and some examples. The second half of our talk is about the lean startup philosophy. The lean startup is about not wasting time adding features to a product without first testing to see if anyone wants those features. What you want to do is create a MVP (minimum viable product) and test with customers before putting more work into it. And when you get feedback from customers, you want to revise the product accordingly and test again. This is where 3D printing can be helpful, as it is very cost effective to edit and create a new version of a product. Contact info Linkedin profile Website ehiipconsulting.com/engineeringentrepreneur

From Gear Head to Group Head – Paresh Shaw– Ep59

From Gear Head to Group Head – Paresh Shaw– Ep59 Paresh is a mechanical engineer who founded Enginpreneur Academy, which is a course to transform engineers into innovators, entrepreneurs, and inspiring leaders. He also runs the nonobviouscompany.com, which is a training company that addresses the 6 biggest challenges companies face today, like disruption and innovation, believability crisis, and passive loyalty. Our talk focuses mainly on how engineers can improve their people skills to move up in their jobs. Most engineers have pretty good technical skills, but often lack in their ability to lead others and communicate effectively. You could throw me into that group up until a few years ago when I started my own company and had to learn how to manage people. We joke that before I was simply a “grunt” (my words, not Paresh). But it was true, I simply did whatever job my boss told me to do. I didn’t act as a leader or show much initiative. We talk about many ways to improve these skills. Paresh says there are “7 deadly blind spots” that engineers have that become career limiters. We discuss these and ways to overcome them. To learn more and contact Paresh, please see links below: Enginpreneur Academy nonobviouscompany.com

Finance your Inventions – Matt King– Ep58

Finance your Inventions – Matt King– Ep58 One of the most important things to take care of in the invention process is figuring out how to pay for all the steps needed to get your product to market. Unless you have a trust fund or a high paying job, you will likely need help getting your product to market. It will take thousands (if not more) dollars to go from idea to final product. Costs will include CAD design, prototyping, market testing, advertising, production and so on. Matt King is an expert in helping entrepreneurs get the funding needed to start their business. He runs Titan Consulting, located in my home city of Charlotte, NC. In this week’s podcast, Matt and I talk about the right way to go about getting funding. To put simply, you should not go from your napkin sketch to trying to raise $20M. There are many steps before that and we discuss how to do it with practical examples. You can contact Matt at: Email mking@titan-industries.com Phone number 704-231-8152