The Valuepreneur Blueprint: How to Build, Test, and Launch Products Customers Actually Want

Today, we sit down with Steve Waddell, award-winning author of Valuepreneurs and the inventor behind the innovative Nasoni fountain faucet. Steve shares a complete roadmap for transforming an idea into a viable, profitable product, while avoiding the common pitfalls that cause 90% of startups and 95% of new products to fail.

In this episode, Steve breaks down his Value Driven Product Development (VDPD) system, a proven 5-stage, 15-step framework designed to reduce risk, validate your customer, and ensure your product is truly ready for launch. From early concept development to funding strategies, including how Steve personally secured over $5 million in grants. This conversation is a masterclass for inventors, founders, and product creators at any stage.

You’ll also hear the story behind Nasoni’s creation, how Steve handled three major “black swan events,” and why starting with your customer is far more important than starting with why.

Whether you're developing your first prototype, considering licensing, or preparing for a full launch, this episode offers the insights you need to move forward with confidence.

In today’s episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, you’ll learn:

• A killer strategy that helps you create products with immediate demand.
• When to file a provisional patent to protect your idea without wasting money.
• How to determine whether licensing or launching is the best path for your product.
• Why adaptability and creativity are just as critical as capital in early-stage entrepreneurship.
• How shifting your target customer can unlock entirely new funding and market opportunities.
• And so much more!

Want to learn more? Explore Steve’s book, resources, and frameworks at www.valuepreneurs.com. 

You can also find Valuepreneurs on Amazon in four formats: audiobook, Kindle, paperback, and hardcover here.

To be a guest on our next podcast, contact us today!

Do you have a brand that you’d like to launch or grow? Do you want help from a partner that has successfully launched hundreds of brands totaling over $2 billion in revenues? Visit HarvestGrowth.com and set up a free consultation with us today! 

Transcript

Jon LaClare [00:00:00]:
Today's episode is all about turning big ideas into profitable real world businesses. My guest shares smart, creative ways to fund your business without giving up control and the critical steps you need to take before you launch your marketing to make sure your product is truly ready for success. He also walks through a detailed yet easy to follow framework that can guide you every step of the way on your entrepreneurial journey. If you're preparing to launch or grow your business, this conversation is packed with insights you won't want to miss a new dive in.

Announcer [00:00:31]:
Are you looking for new ways to make your sales grow? You've tried other podcasts, but they don't seem to know. Harvest the growth potential of your product or service as we share stories and strategies that'll make your competitors nervous. Now here's the host of the Harvest growth podcast, Jon LaClare.

Jon LaClare [00:00:52]:
Welcome back to the show. Today I'm really excited to be speaking with Steve Waddell. He, he's the award winning author of Valuepreneurs. We're going to talk a lot about that book here in a few minutes. And also he's the EOS visionary behind Nasoni and he'll talk a little bit about that product that he developed. So today we're going to get a little bit into the product to talk about Steve's experience, but also what he's learned along the way and he shares in his book that really couples together nicely with the perfect launch system. Our book, so we're going to talk about his is kind of the prequel to mine. So those early stages, what do you do when you're really just getting started with product development, et cetera, we're going to dive into, into great detail. But before we do, Steve, welcome to the show.

Steve Waddell [00:01:33]:
Thanks, Jon. I have to say I'm honored to be here. Anybody that worked with the infamous Billy Mays and, and launched one of the most famous products in history, infomercial history, you know that you were being a part of that. I'm flattered to be here. Honored to be here.

Jon LaClare [00:01:47]:
Oh, thank you. Yeah, I mean, I can't take much credit. Billy was an a gem on his own and certainly helped create OxiClean, the product that it is today, as well as the Apple family that was the, the marketing team or the owners behind that journey, they're phenomenal and it really was able to learn at their feet. It was a great journey and I can't be gracious or grateful enough for what I went through.

Steve Waddell [00:02:10]:
Yeah, sure. I was just going to say, you know, you do so much good Though, with your podcast. And I'm a big believer in Automobile University, according to Zig Ziglar. Right. And so I listen to your podcast when I'm walking my dogs or driving the car, and I enjoy your stories you put into it as well, like walking with your briefcase to kindergarten. It's just awesome.

Jon LaClare [00:02:33]:
It's funny. In some ways, my story started young. I had no idea what I wanted to do at that age, of course, but I knew I wanted to do something in the business world, follow my dad's footsteps. He was not an entrepreneur, but he was a 100% commission salesman his entire life, pretty much at least my entire life, his career, since I was born. And what an example that was. To me, that's very similar to being an entrepreneur. And it's kind of as close as you can get without owning your own company in many ways. So thanks for bringing that up. So let's talk about valuepreneurs, your book. So first of all, tell us a little bit about it at a high level. We're going to dive into detail, but, you know, what's the topic? What does it really talk about, and what inspired you to write it in the first place?

Steve Waddell [00:03:09]:
So, yeah, thank you for that. ValuePreneurs is all about how you go from initial idea and you go all the way to selling your product. Right. Because what happened was when I started Nasoni, it was all about reinventing the bathroom faucet because I got tired of craning my neck at the bathroom sink. Right. To rinse after you brush. If I were to ask you this, Jon, when you go to rinse after you brush, do you tilt your head, cup your hand, or use a cup to rinse?

Jon LaClare [00:03:36]:
Yeah. I mean, yeah, generally I put my hand under the sink, get my hand down or my head down in the sink, and splash everywhere. Like, look, it's amazing. My wife makes fun of me for the splash all over the mirror, of course, and everywhere else, and it's always a mess.

Steve Waddell [00:03:49]:
So I live with that all my life, just like everybody else. And, you know, you watch Shark Tank and you get inspired, right? And you think, if they can do something like that, why can't I? And I've always been the kind of person that questions the status quo, right. That something could be done better. And so I happen to see the Nasoni street fountains of Rome. One day, they take water that flow from the Apennini Mountains down through the Roman aqueducts, up through the streets of Rome through a little thing that looks like a fire hydrant, and it has a tube hanging down the side. When you plug the bottom, water popped out the top like a water fountain. I'm like, why isn't that in the bathroom? It's a simple concept. And I decided to reinvent the bathroom faucet. Now when I did that, you know, I had no background in plumbing at all. Zero. Although I will say my grandfather, being an entrepreneur, started his own plumbing company, Bolton Brothers Plumbing in Tennessee years ago. Never thought I would have any, you know, insight into that industry. But to reinvent a faucet, there is no steps. How do you go from the initial concept idea to a proof of concept to, to a prototype, to an MVP to selling? Right. And so I decided, you know, after I got went through that whole journey, I kept being told by others, Steve, you've learned so many things along this journey, both good and bad, right? Your failures, which you learn from and you recover and the things that you did good, that expedited your progress. And so I was told I need to write that down. And it kind of started Teaching a class of students in middle school in North Carolina. When they asked me to come down and be a guest speaker to their honor student class of about 120 students and three different classes of about 40 each, the principal invited me down and so I wrote the process down into a graphic. And then that graphic, the VDPD process, Value Driven Product Development, became the foundation for the book. So that's kind of how it got started to answer your question.

Jon LaClare [00:05:46]:
And we're going to share that graphic and for those of you who are watching this in a video feed, we'll walk through it in detail for those that are listening in a few minutes and some other graphics as well. It's a fantastic book that I can't recommend highly enough. There's. I'm a visual person, Steve. I know you are as well. And it's just great to digest it. I'll read through the book and I can go back to these graphics and refer to them and just helps me remember these topics, these principles in a very easy, simple, simple way that I can apply to our own business or as we help early stage entrepreneurs, et cetera. So you've done a great job with these graphics and again we'll share some of those in a couple of minutes. The first one I want to talk about, we'll show the graphic in a second, but is specifically what is a valuepreneur? So before we get into the specific graphic side of that, can you introduce that topic? What does it mean? To be a valuepreneur as opposed to, you know, an entrepreneur.

Steve Waddell [00:06:35]:
Absolutely. So I thought if you're going to write a book on valuepreneurs called Valuepreneurs, you're going to have to define what that means. Right. And I thought perhaps the best way to define it would be to say what it is and what it isn't. Right. So what it isn't is we start with, let's say we're running a race, right? And there's a starting line. And at the start of that race we have what Mark Cuban on Shark Tank always calls a wantrepreneur. Right. What's a wantrepreneur? So in the book, we depict the wantrepreneur standing there holding a light bulb at the starting line. Now, the light bulb is a metaphor for an idea, right. And how many friends, Jon, have you ever come across that always talk about their idea but never do anything with it? Right. They always talk about how great it's going to be and then sometime later on, somebody else takes that idea and does something with it and they go, I had that idea first. But they never did anything. That's the wantrepre nour. Right? So they're at the top of the race and they stay stuck at the starting line. The next down, next level down in that race. Now, this is a three lane race and it starts with wantrepreneur. Then we get to entrepreneur. Right? So what's different about the entrepreneur? Well, the entrepreneur is that person that has an idea and they really want to get it to market. They really want to jump out and make it happen. They have a lot of conviction about it, they believe in it, and they believe so hard they're going to jump out and start right off the bat running that race. Now, like you point out in your book and I point out in mine, Forbes will tell you 99 out of 10 startups fail. And Harvard professor Clayton Christensen will tell you 95% of new products fail. So what happens is they jump out and start running this race. And we depict this as hurdles. They're having to jump and they start tripping over these hurdles and it's causing them to fail. And there's many different reasons why they fail. But the bottom line is when you hear 95% of new products fail and nine out of 10 new startups fail, that means one gets across the finish line out of 10. Right. So the entrepreneurs tend to fail most of the time, unfortunately. Well, why is that? That's what we try to solve with the valuepreneurs. So when you look at the valuepreneur in the bottom lane, what you see is that straight lane. But then you see really there's a path to the bottom that they take. And that path is curvilinear. And it's five stages and 15 steps. So they're following the value driven product development process. But what's different is in the center of that curvilinear path is a customer representing the myriad of customers you will talk to along that journey. But the point is, every step of the way, for every stage, all five stages, you're going to talk to customers. That's hugely important. That's your who, right? I gave a ted talk a TEDx talk. And Simon Sinek is one of the most famous TED talks ever. And his thesis is start with why. And he says people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And at some point for big companies, that's good, right? You may buy an Apple product because you believe in their mission. Okay, that's fine. But for entrepreneurs, we can't start at the why level. We have to start with who. And in starting with who, we have to solve. There's a difference between a vitamin and a painkiller. This is a great question for my students when I teach as a guest speaker at various schools and colleges is which do you think is better, having a product that's a vitamin or a painkiller? I'll have them raise their hand, right? Invariably when I say vitamin, most of the students hands will go up, right? Because a vitamin sounds good for you, right? So everybody think, oh, it's something good for you. That's what people need, okay? But the answer is it's a painkiller. And I'll tell you why. The why behind that is painkillers solve a problem for people. And the bigger that pain is, the better your chance your product is going to be successful, right? Because people are willing to spend money on it immediately. That's a big deal.

Steve Waddell [00:10:51]:
If you have a choice. If you have a splitting headache and you go in the store and there's an aspirin sitting there, that's going to solve your problem. Maybe it's not aspirin, it's a goodies powder. Because that's what I tend to like, right? And they seem to work fast for me. But I'll definitely want to buy that right off the bat immediately. With a vitamin, you're not going to immediately see a benefit.

Steve Waddell [00:11:12]:
So you don't even know if it's going to work or do you any good. Right. So you need that painkiller product. So you start with who, find the painkiller and all along that journey of those five stages, you're going to continue to refine that product. Does it solve their problem? Does it meet it at a price point they can endure and so on. And then in that process, we encourage them to begin building their business model canvas. Pretty simple document, right. It starts with a customer, the who and what's the value proposition that you have for that customer? And so conversely, when you follow that value driven product development process now, you're going to see a lot more people crossing the finish line of success.

Jon LaClare [00:11:56]:
And as I look at that diagram, you can see the curve down below, right. As opposed to the sprinting lane along a track. And it feels like visually it takes longer. Right. But in reality, having gone through this with our clients over the years and you as well, Right. It's, it, it's actually faster. It's a faster journey. If you slow down in the beginning to do it the right way. It doesn't mean we need to build labor or, you know, sit on one problem I just can't solve too long until it's perfected. And we'll talk more about that later on as, as how to not get stuck in the process. But the process can actually help you go faster because you're not failing at the end and trying to figure out why and then failing again and trying to figure out why, but you figure out along the way what that journey should be. So you end up with the right product that speaks to the right audience that's willing to pay the most money for your product, etc and get all those really the value behind your business. It helps you move a little faster. So I just want to add that in there. You know, it looks like a longer trail because you're kind of going off it, but it's because it goes faster at the end of the day.

Steve Waddell [00:12:58]:
That's a great observation, Jonathan. You're spot on because what's been built into the process is the lessons learned from this journey before. Right. And it makes a big difference. And then the talking to customers is the biggest part. It's not about focusing on your why at this point. You know, and another great example I like to use. You remember Jamie Siminoff? Do you know who he is? Ring doorbell, right? He's one of my favorite Shark Tank stories. And he didn't start off with a why. His mission was to solve his own problem. Right. Who's at the front door when I'm in the garage working. You know, simple. Why now? I mean, simple.

Steve Waddell [00:13:34]:
Solving the who problem. Right. Solving his own problem. His why actually now is greater than that. It's making safer neighborhoods. Right. But if you started out with making safer neighborhoods, you might not have landed on a ring doorbell.

Jon LaClare [00:13:48]:
Yeah. And being able to adjust over time to. I like that analysis, like find the who in the beginning that's going to make product successful out the gates. You can always adjust it and grow the potential audience. So often it's, it's tempting. Like, let me find a bigger problem that everybody has across the entire country, maybe world. And well, how do you compete in that space? Right. Everyone's trying to go for that. At the same time, if you can niche down to a who, that's going to get your specific problem in the very beginning and be something that's super unique. Right. In. In the beginning, you can grow that who and the why over time. If I'm saying that correctly.

Steve Waddell [00:14:23]:
Exactly. No, you're spot on. Find that niche, right? Who's that niche customer that you can get to market to and then grow from there. Otherwise, you're trying to tackle the world problem and you're competing in a much bigger space with all the other competitors. You have no differentiator and you're going to fail.

Jon LaClare [00:14:40]:
Yeah, well said. So let's show another diagram on here. This one's a bit more complex. So as I put this up here, it's going to be a bit of a word chart for some, but we're going to dive into some of these details. Probably maybe not everything in this interview, but of course the book dives into great detail on all these 15 steps. It's the value driven product development diagram. Steve, first of all, can you explain what that is overall, what this diagram is that we're looking at? And then let's get into the details of. You know, walk us through the process of what it means.

Steve Waddell [00:15:09]:
Yeah. So the first process, there's five stages, right? And so in the concept development stage, what's the concept and the idea stage, you're trying to get to market. And what you'll notice is there's a center ring in the graphic and it starts full of risk. And as you go through each of the steps and stages, that risk is reduced and then at the end to where risk is all the way eliminated. And now it's all value. And why is that? Well, have you ever heard the phrase ideas are a dime a dozen?

Jon LaClare [00:15:41]:
For sure.

Steve Waddell [00:15:42]:
Yeah. So that Comes back to its execution. That counts, right? And when I first started this book, do you know Jason Pfeiffer is.

Jon LaClare [00:15:52]:
I've heard the name.

Steve Waddell [00:15:54]:
So Jason is the head of Entrepreneur Magazine and Entrepreneur.com. and I was actually on a zoom call when I was writing this book. And I told Jason I was going to write the name, the book Legends Execute. And it was because it's all about execution, right? That counts. And Jason tells me, because, you know, everybody knows that these days. And so, you know, he tells me about another book, and he goes down a path of an example of why I should change the name. And so I racked my brain trying to figure out what I could call the book. And I was actually at the Outer Banks with another couple. We were on vacation, my wife and I, watching a movie. And I'm trying to think of what I could call it. And what I really remembered, though, is the fact that the VDPD process is all about reducing risk and adding value through the steps that we take to go from idea to selling. And so that's when I merged two words together, entrepreneur and value, and that became valuepreneurs. Right? And so we start in that idea phase, and we progress from the idea phase to the concept development phase, and then we go into building our mvp, and then we do the launch and market introduction stage. And all along the path, again, we are taking steps that reduce risk. Now, one risk may be that you don't know how to do all the steps involved in building an MVP and launching and marketing that mvp. And you may realize, you know, I'm better off licensing this idea. So just before that step where you have that decision point, we recommend you file a provisional patent. Now, I made the mistake when I was taking a Sony to market because, and this is a common mistake so many entrepreneurs make is as soon as we have that idea and we figure out a design that works, we immediately think, I've got to protect that. And we go file for a patent, a utility patent, not just a design patent. And there's a difference, right? Utility patent is all about how the idea functions and how it's engineered, whereas. And how. And it teaches how to make that. Right. But a design patent is just about the aesthetics. And so the utility patent is where the real values are. And I applied for both a utility and a design patent when I was still in that concept development stage. I had not even done enough customer discovery yet, things like that. And the mistake I made was filing that patent. It cost me $8,000 with a patent Attorney I found in India because it was going to be even more expensive here in the US And I was using a freelancer attorney who had great reviews. So I tried to make it affordable. I got the patent, the patent was granted. The problem is, by the time I got to the point where we had designed for manufacture, my design, my engineered solution totally changed, the whole entire approach to how we created that fountain effect had changed. So a much simpler, more cost effective solution and the design, therefore the patent had to change. So the first patent I filed, filed for that $8,000 just went down the toilet. So again, I'll go back to before we make that decision, if we can go through all the rest of the process, we file for a provisional patent instead. Now, provisional patent is a lot cheaper because one reason is they don't even review it at the patent office. They don't review a provisional patent. It's just a stake in the ground right now. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do a good job filing the provisional patent. It needs to have good claim language and things like that in it. But you file that and it's a placeholder and it gives you one year to further develop your idea and flush out your MVP design. But if you, again, if you can't go that route, you take that provisional patent and now you can talk to other companies that can do a better job at building your and selling your product on your behalf. And in the book, I give a great example of Dennis Clayton. He did both. He went and he built it in the US but he also licensed it to a manufacturer in China that could do a much cheaper version. And it's called the Stow and Spin. And there's a case study with Dennis Clayton and his Stow and Spin product. I actually used two of them in my house. Have you ever heard of it?

Jon LaClare [00:20:05]:
I have, yeah, I have. I don't have one, but I've heard of it.

Steve Waddell [00:20:09]:
For your listeners, think of this. You know, finding the spices in your spice. I like to cook, by the way. And so when you need spices out of your spice cabinet, right, they're all always stacked in the wrong place to find, hard to get to and all that. And so what he came up with, think of this as it's a double stacked horseshoe. And so the top horseshoe is supported by pillars and the whole thing rotates. And so the open end of the horseshoe is open to a small circular section in the middle that also spins. And so both stacks, top and bottom hold spices. The horseshoe themselves and then the center little Spinning piece that spins individually also holds spices. So it gives you access to all your spices in a rotation capability, like a lazy Susan, if you will. That's double stacked and it just works great. But he wanted one model made in the US and it's made in Georgia, very well built, you know, high quality. And then he licensed the technology to another company that was able to really get the sales going by coming out with a much cheaper model. Not high a quality, not as high a quality, but I mean, he was making 5% on tens of thousands of dollars of sales now on top of that. So sometimes you can do both. But the VDPD process.

Steve Waddell [00:21:32]:
Takes you, walks you through all of those steps and gives you some case study examples along the way of what you need to do.

Jon LaClare [00:21:40]:
Before we move to the next topic in this, I want to talk about licensing just a little bit, at least at a high level. I know your book goes into this in great detail, but how do you know if you're an inventor, if licensing is the right path versus launching the product yourself?

Steve Waddell [00:21:53]:
In my opinion, it's kind of simple. It's like you're going to fail a lot of times along the way. And if you don't have the wherewithal to keep going financially, if you don't have the makeup that allows you to persevere when people are telling you you're not going to make it right every time, all the. It's not easy being an inventor and going to market and being successful as evidenced by all the failures. Right. And you're going to have to pivot. You're definitely going to have to pivot. And I'll give you an example from my journey. When I started Nasoni with the fountain faucet, I encountered not one, not two, but three Black Swan events. Black Swan events are events you couldn't anticipate and totally will wipe you out. And so the three that I encountered were when I raised funding to go to market with the faucet, the first one that hit us, I had an order from Asia for $200,000 for our faucets, right? And as our product is coming across the sea, being shipped here, which, by the way, in the book, my editor asked me to map out that process, how you go from shipping overseas to the US because it's a long process, a lot of detail to it. And so I laid that out in great detail in the book.

Steve Waddell [00:23:17]:
And you even have to think about risks, like what happens if your container full of your product gets blown overboard. Do you have insurance to Cover that because the ship may not cover that. There's lots of things to think about. And so.

Steve Waddell [00:23:33]:
Let'S see. Let me back up to your question again. What was your question about?

Jon LaClare [00:23:37]:
Yeah, so how do you know if licensing is the right route versus launching on your own?

Steve Waddell [00:23:40]:
Yeah. So all those details come about, right, that you need to understand. And if you can't handle that, those. The Black Swan events that I was talking about for my company, the first one was in the shipping process. A 25% China tariff was invoked on us as our product was being shipped here. Now 25% of $200,000 is $50,000 I had to pay in tariff. We did not plan for. That was my entire marketing budget wiped out. So everything you go into in your book, you talk about trying to go on a lean budget of testing your product, marketing and all that 50 grand is a lot, right? It covers a lot of marketing. And it just was eaten up. So we had no marketing. The second Black Swan event was three months after our product gets here. Covid hits it's the worst pandemic in 100 years. And now think about trying to go market a faucet that you're going to drink water from at the top when people are all wearing masks and fighting over toilet paper. Right? So that's the second Black Swan event, the third Black Swan event. And these are all things that would just kill any startup. The third one was my investor out of Minnesota had suggested that we talk to Home Depot because one of the things we learned is that 75% of the market for faucets buys from big box retail. And we learned that after we had engineered our solution. Right. And that was something we need to learn early on. So we we going to talk to Home Depot because he knew the head of product development there at the time, it was a guy named Warren. And he arranged a call for Warren for us to talk to Warren. And we actually sent him one of our faucets in advance. And we had the call and he ended up telling us that their customers prefer traditional faucets. And so meaning they weren't interested in doing a deal right then. And we said, okay, thank you for your time. We appreciate it and appreciate your feedback. Well, a year later, a little over a year later, Tiffany Crewman's a good friend of mine from season one of Shark Tank. You might recognize her. She got a deal with Barbara Corcoran for Ava the Elephant. She's a friend of mine. She has our faucets installed at her home in Georgia. She Sent me an email. The subject line said, I'm so mad. And I said, I'm thinking, what is she mad about? And as I skimmed through it, she had been scrolling Facebook and there was an ad for Home Depot with an exact copy of our fountain faucet. So not only did they take our faucet, tell us they weren't interested, they ripped us off. And you know, one of the things you'll learn if you think about even though you have a patent is those who have deeper pockets are going to win. And so, you know, that's a battle I couldn't fight. But that's three examples of black swan events we encountered in this journey. And so as an entrepreneur, how do you determine if you can should license it or not? It's whether you feel like you can endure the things that are going to happen along that journey. If you feel good about it and you think you can make it, then continue on. But for a lot of people, maybe they're better off licensing. And Stephen Key has a great book on licensing. It's called One Simple Idea. And so if anybody thinks they want to go that route, check out One Simple Idea from Stephen Key.

Jon LaClare [00:26:48]:
Well said. All right, back to, let's get back to your chart and continue on through the process. What's next?

Steve Waddell [00:26:52]:
Well, you know, as you go from your, your concept right down into your prototype. And then we go from prototype, we've made the gate point through the gate of making the decision we're going to not license it, we're going to go forward with the doing it ourself, we're going to talk to those customers, we're going to iterate that design over and over until we get to the right solution. And then we're going to build our mvp. We all know MVP is a minimum viable product. That's the first thing we want to come out with, right? Doesn't have all the bells and whistles yet, has just enough to solve that customer's pain, right? And in the case of many products.

Steve Waddell [00:27:29]:
You'Ll need to go through and do your branding, your marketing and all that, because what's going to happen when you go to manufacture is all those kind of things have to be put on the packaging that the manufacturer is going to need. But you also need to make sure you get your certifications as well if they're required. So if it's electronic product, you may require UL listing. You know, if it's a plumbing product, you may require IAPMO certifications, lead free certifications, nsf, things like that, because again, all those things have to be put on the packaging. And another thing is you need to understand your channels, right? How are you going to sell? So, for example, if I'm going to sell in, let's say, Home Depot, I have to understand that they require multiple languages on your.

Steve Waddell [00:28:17]:
Manuals. Instruction manuals, right. So we had to have Canadian, French and Spanish for south of the border, right. Canadian, French for the Canada portion of the market in the US and then Spanish for the Mexican side. And so you have to find somebody that can translate your manuals into those languages as well and create those instruction manuals in multiple languages, which that was another thing I had never done before. It's quite a journey to go through all of this with a product from start to finish and everything you learn and all the people. The fun part is all the people you meet, right? Because in many cases, if you got a cool product, they become fans in the journey. And we've entered a lot of startup competitions, which, by the way, funding is a challenge for startups, right? For entrepreneurs and for your audience. You know, when you start out in the process, in the book, I have a model that shows what types of funding come online when in the journey of building an MVP and going to market. And when you're in the idea stage, the only funding is bootstrapping, meaning you got to come up with the money yourself. And so as I bootstrapped Nasoni, not only did I pay out of pocket, I also, though realized I could get in startup competitions and try to win funding. And I won $10,000 in a startup competition locally hosted by Inc. Magazine and Cox media that paid 5,000 in cash, 5,000 in prizes for the judges favorite. I also won a $250 American Express gift card as the audience favorite. And I used that to build my first prototype. The prototype was taking a faucet and just rebuilding only the spout with a fountain mode and a lever to actuate the fountain and so forth. But then I used that to create a video and apply for Steve Harvey's Thunderdome, which is a TV show with Steve Harvey. And on that TV show, I won that and won $50,000, which allowed me to create my own design and get to an mvp. And so all that type of journey is in the book and what I went through and how to fund it. And so now you've got your MVP and you're ready to go do a launch and market your product. And that's where your book kind of picks up the package much better than mine. Does because I don't really go into much of that on my end. And that's how our books kind of are synonymous. They work together. Right. It's almost sequential. I come before yours on how to go from idea to a product you're ready to sell and then, man, you launch it from there.

Jon LaClare [00:30:43]:
Yeah. And one of the phrases I use in my book is that great, you know, the best marketing, great marketing cannot save a bad product. What I don't go into is how do you make sure you don't have the bad product? You can test it. There's a little bit of. Right. And we do market research. There's some advice on there. But in terms of the detailed approach of about really getting to that minimum viable product and the journey to get there. So you start off with a good product that consumers are going to love and, and then my book takes over the perfect launch system. Okay, now we've got a good product. How do we take it to market? Well, one of the hurdles that, that inventors or product marketers often hit and you've talked a little bit about how you got some early funding for your business is funding. Right. So they've got a good idea, maybe they've done some testing, they've got to a minimum viable product, maybe, but they've got this stopping point where they just can't fund it themselves anymore. So you talk about everything from crowdfunding to angel investors. You know, what funding strategies do you believe work best for first time founders today?

Steve Waddell [00:31:41]:
I love the startup competitions. Right. Because in many cases it's non dilutive. Now there are things like Y combinator and accelerators like that that you can get into. I've also gotten money out of accelerators which were non dilutive also.

Steve Waddell [00:31:57]:
But you know, let me, maybe this will help too. Is after I got into market and I told you about all the black swan events, now I'm pulling money out of my 401k to keep the company alive. And my wife, who is an aerospace engineer by the way, and a brilliant lady, she tells me, she goes, you ought to think about a grant. And I wondered what would I do with a fountain faucet and a government grant? I had no idea. Right. And fortunately I was introduced to Dr. Lisa Caperna. Lisa is the clinical director at Old Dominion University Monarch Physical Therapy, where they help people with spinal cord injury live more independently. And when she saw the fountain faucet, she says, oh my gosh, if I had one of those that was sensor driven, we could help them live more independently. And this is where entrepreneurs need to keep their eyes and ears open for opportunity. Right. Because when she told me that, what came to mind was there's a grant opportunity. Right. And so as I research grants, I learned that grants have about a 10% to 13% win rate, meaning another 90% failure opportunity. Right. And so to de risk that, my idea was let me go find a grant writer that is experienced in winning grants. And I found one that had won $20 million in grants. And so I contacted him. What I learned was he needed $10,000 to help me write the grant. It was a lot of work. So how do I come up with the 10 grand? Fortunately, at the time, again, this is all part of keeping your eyes and ears open to the, to what's happening around you at the time. Back during COVID you remember the PPP loan?

Jon LaClare [00:33:27]:
Absolutely. Paycheck protection program, I think it was.

Steve Waddell [00:33:30]:
Right, exactly. So I applied for that and I was able eligible for 20 grand. So I got 20 grand. I needed all of that to run the company. But I said, you know what, I have de risked this grant opportunity by the grant writer. So I'm going to gamble half of it and put it towards this grant. Long story short, I won the grant for $259,000. We finished phase one, it was very successful. And so we're like, okay, let's apply for phase two. Well, my grant writer said that's a much more in depth proposal and it'll cost 15 grand. So now I need another 15 grand. So you ask around, find out what's available. And I learned that in the state of Virginia, there's the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation, vipc. It's a state funded entity to help startups. Okay. And they have a grant called CCF Grant Commonwealth Commercialization Fund. And you can apply for it and get up to $75,000. Now you have to have a plan when you apply how you'll spend that money. And it can't be just to go hire a grant writer. So I had to be creative on how I applied and say that we would develop a commercialization plan and all the things we need to put in the government grant proposal so I could use it. Dual purpose. Right. But the long story short is I won the 75,000, which enabled me to fund my grant writer, which enabled me to win 2.02 million for a phase two grant from the National Institute of Child and Human Development. And then again, along the journey, as an entrepreneur, you always think about other ways to raise funding. And I thought you Know, my mother in law helped my father in law as he declined with dementia. And they fell in the shower as she tried to help him wash his hair. Maybe we could modify this faucet to help people with Alzheimer's so they could wash their hair at the bathroom sink with a taller faucet where it'd be safer. You can't get your head underneath a normal faucet. Right. And so I went and found Dr. Ahmed Okravi, he's the head of gerontology at Eastern Virginia Medical School. And I told him what I want to do and he goes, steve, I like you. I like the product idea. My problem is I got to call my customers every morning and every night to remind them to take their meds. I said, we'll put that in the grant. So again, I hired my grant writer, again applied for a direct to phase two and I won 2.58 million. So long story short, we've won $5 million in grants in the last three years and I have now a pipeline of another 5 million pending. So it's just keeping your eye open for opportunity, looking for those different funding streams that could be available. And again, in the back of the book, there is a discussion on what funding streams can become available depending on what stage you're at in the product development process.

Jon LaClare [00:36:11]:
I love that story behind this. It really should hopefully spark some ideas in our viewers and listeners minds, especially when it comes to funding, which is such an important part of a lot of businesses in the early stages and really as the business grows, even over time. But also in other avenues as well, is being creative, looking for other opportunities. And if I rewind to the, the early parts of our discussion, you talked about finding the who, right? So you're even in your fundraising process after you've, you've won competitions, you've got, you know, gotten money along the way, you've had success along the way, but even then you can adjust your WHO later on in your process. And that enabled you to get these, relatively speaking, enormous grants, right, relative to what you've, you've earned in the business previous to this point. So it's a, it's an adjustment whether it's on day one or later on in the business. Being creative helps in fundraising, but in so many other avenues as well. Well, Steve, this has been an amazing interview and we could talk for hours. We have to cut it off at some point. But before we do, I want to ask you, is there anything we didn't talk about that you think would be helpful for our audience.

Steve Waddell [00:37:18]:
I like to, you know, when I do a lot of talks to students and others, I like to say let who inspire you, the process guide you and impact define you. That's the essence of what it means to be a valuepreneur.

Steve Waddell [00:37:34]:
And again, but you got to have resilience as a Valuepreneurs or entrepreneur because it's going to be hard, without a doubt. And also I recommend networking. One of the things I've done is I started a mastermind with other NIH principal investigators that, that I went through a cohort with. And we help each other. We bring different ideas to the table that we've learned from and share best practices and ideas that help each other grow because we're all in this together, right? Trying to make things better for the world. And the more you can do that, the more you can help others. As Zig used to say, the more you can help them, the better off you'll be.

Jon LaClare [00:38:13]:
I love that. And it's involving other people in their journey is only going to make you get there faster and maybe change the direction in the course of your business as your conversation with your wife did for, you know, really expanded the opportunity for your business. It's a great, great way of saying that. I do want to encourage our audience. If you're driving, this will all be in the show notes, but go to Valuepreneurs.com or sorry, is there an S on the end? Can't remember now.

Steve Waddell [00:38:36]:
Yes, there is.

Jon LaClare [00:38:36]:
There is, right? Yes. Valuepreneurs.com Again, it's in the Show Notes or look for the book on Amazon. It's a very highly well reviewed book. You'll love it. And it's, it's, you know, whatever stage of the journey you're at, but especially if you're in that early product development stage or even trying to find an idea, this is a great way to get started and really find success in your own business.

Steve Waddell [00:38:58]:
One quick comment on the book, guys. It's there in four different formats. So if you like audiobooks, if you like Kindle books or hard copy or paperback, it's in all those formats. The Kindle and the hardcover are the only ones in full color.

Jon LaClare [00:39:12]:
I agree. Well, I appreciate everyone listening and watching this episode today where we uncover the stories and strategies behind some of the most successful, successful product marketers out there and thought leaders. If you're looking to take your own business to the next level, be be sure to visit perfect launch.com you can grab a free copy of my book, the Perfect Launch system. It's packed with the proven principles we've developed over the past 20 years, helping hundreds of businesses launch and grow successfully. Plus, you'll also get exclusive one page summaries of some of our most popular podcast interviews. I'm sure this will be one of them in the next round of the book, Real World Insights you can apply right away. Head to perfect launch.com and start building your perfect launch today. Until next time, keep learning, keep launching and keep growing.