Entrepreneurial Product Development at UCSD

On May 17th 2012, Joe Donoghue of Leardon Solutions presented at the UCSD Rady School of Management. The was packed with MBA students that were also part of the Rady Entrepreneur Club.

Joe’s presentation focused Entrepreneurial Product Development and overcoming obstacles.

This presentation was designed to help entrepreneurs, inventors and startups understand the pitfalls of traditional product development that often is not specifically designed to serve small product runs and prototypes.

Key points of the presentation included:

(1) Entrepreneurs usually have little money, little support, and little product volume which puts them at a disadvantage relative to larger competitors.

(2) Little money puts them in a position where they can’t hire their preferred staff.

(3) Little support results from the fact that the industry supporting entrepreneurs is very fragmented with hand-offs that minimize accountability.

(4) Little product volume puts them in a position of higher prices due to no economies of scale.

(5) To overcome the little money constraint: amortize engineering and fixed costs if possible and don’t lock up your money in large quantities of inventory.

(6) To overcome little support constraint: work with a supplier that is an end-to-end provider who understands entrepreneurs and start-ups

(7) To overcome little volume constraint: work with suppliers who do both engineering and manufacturing, making it worth their time to work with you.

Need more information on new product development or the manufacturing process? Please contact us with any questions or contact me directly at joseph.donoghue ( at ) leardon.com