Episode 168: Noah McNeely - From Small Town Grocer to Product Development Expert

For anyone who's ever had an idea for a product, Noah McNeely is the guy to talk to. Noah McNeely is the founder of Product QuickStart. He grew up in a small town in central Georgia and studied mechanical engineering and industrial design at Georgia Tech. He has always been entrepreneurial, starting businesses in high school and college. After college, he started Product QuickStart to help people who want to develop products. He also offers free advice to listeners of Your Next Stop.

 In this episode, you will learn:

1. How Noah McNeely's small town upbringing led to his entrepreneurial spirit
2. What Noah McNeely's businesses in college taught him about himself and what he enjoyed
3. How Noah McNeely's experience as an engineer and industrial designer give him a unique perspective on product development.

You can reach Noah on LinkedIn.

Remarkable Quote:

“I've always sort of had this spark, I guess. Maybe it goes back to when I was buying groceries for people at such an early age. I was like, I can work as hard as I want to make as much as I want.”

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Transcription:

 

[00:00:00]

Welcome back to your next stop. This is Juliette Han. In this episode I speak with Noah McNeely. Noah is the founder of product Quick Start. You can find [email protected], he is really not on social media.

 

[00:00:14]

He is on Facebook book LinkedIn is probably the most and Twitter product cue Start but definitely go to his website. Noah works with people that are inventors. This is a fun episode. He was an engineer and then started his own business. But one of the things that I loved and he actually says I haven't thought about that in 20 years, 15 years.

 

[00:00:35]

Thank you for bringing it up. Is a business that he started in high school and he also had a business in college so he definitely has an entrepreneurial spirit. You don't want to miss this. Now also offers to the listeners if you have a product or something that you are kind of interested in exploring but you don't know where to start, reach out to him Product Quickstart.com to kind of ask him what questions he is willing to do. That for the listeners of your Next Stop free of charge.

 

[00:01:03]

Also you can find me at iamjoyette Hahn my website. I am Juliet Han.com but all social media is I am Juliet Han or Juliet Han at LinkedIn. You guys again are going to be very inspired by this episode. Have you ever been listening to your favorite podcast and that moment comes up and you think oh my gosh, I need to share it? Well now you can with picked Cherries.

 

[00:01:25]

What I love about Picked Cherries so much is that when I'm listening to my favorite podcast and that moment comes up that I want to share, I can take a Snippet which is called the pick cherry and I can send that to my friends and family so they can get involved in the podcast that I love. It's almost like sending an IG or a Tik tok available now iOS and Android. If you're not picking cherries, are you really listening to podcasts?

 

[00:01:52]

Hello everyone, welcome back to your Next Stop. This is Juliet Han. I say it every time and I know every time I say I'm not going to say it but then I meet my next guest and I am extremely excited to introduce you guys to Noah McNeely. So welcome my guest, Noah McNeely, how are you? I'm doing great, thanks for having me.

 

[00:02:13]

Yes. So Noah is the founder of product Quick Start. You can follow him on basically his website is the best place but he is also on LinkedIn and Twitter. It's product q start. You can kind of follow all what Noah is doing.

 

[00:02:28]

He is obsessed with product development and I can't wait to dive into his story. We've had him on the live show so you guys might be like wait a second, I kind of know this face. We had him on YNS live with one of his clients that they took us through kind of the start to finish of what it is. When you have one of those ideas when you have one of those ideas that you want to create a product, know is the guy that you go to talk to because he'll be able to help you through those steps. So, Noah, again, welcome to your next stop.

 

[00:02:58]

And I'm excited to get into this conversation because I know when we had you on the live show, we kind of touched on who you are and how you kind of found this passion, but we really didn't dive deep. Yeah. I'm really happy to be here and really happy to tell that story. And those of you watching don't understand that I had some technical difficulties getting started. I'm a little flustered.

 

[00:03:20]

I had to get all my stuff changed around. But, Juliet, I appreciate your patience with that. And, yeah, happy to talk about whatever you want to talk about. Yes. So why don't you just take us a little bit through?

 

[00:03:33]

I would love to find out what we always start with. Your next stop is a little bit about your background. So where you grew up, if you went to university and what you studied in university. Well, I'm not used to wearing these little things, so it keeps popping out of my ear. My daughter likes to say I have an unusually large head, and I think it makes everything not fit correctly.

 

[00:03:54]

But I grew up in a very small town, the kind of town where, at least back then, your parents just let you go. You ride your bike everywhere. You can be all over town, and nobody sees you again until dark. So I grew up in that environment, very small town, central Georgia, about 2 hours outside of Atlanta. I did come to the Atlanta area, and I studied at Georgia Tech.

 

[00:04:22]

I actually have two degrees from Georgia Tech. When I first got to college, I was like, yeah, I want to be an engineer. I want to build all this stuff. I want to design all this stuff. And then I got into engineering, and I realized that's very little of what engineers actually do, most of its math and computers and all that sort of stuff.

 

[00:04:41]

So I learned how to do all that, and that was great. And I got my degree from the mechanical engineering school at Georgia Tech. Side note, I actually serve on the advisory board for that school today, so I'm still very much plugged into the engineering community. However, as I work through that experience, I realized that I have a more creative side than just what a mainstream engineer might typically have. So I went back to school after doing some other things.

 

[00:05:16]

I worked in ministry for a while and kind of tried to find myself. I went back to school, grad school, also in Georgia Tech, and studied a field called industrial design. And I earned my master's degree in that field. And I described that as more if art and engineering had a baby, it would be industrial design. So it's the more artistic side, the more human side of product development.

 

[00:05:40]

So as an engineer, I make sure things work. I make sure things are manufacturable. As an industrial designer, I make sure that they are aesthetically right, that they use the right materials, that they're easy to use, that really, here, I make it work here, I make it something that you actually want to use. And I've used both of those kind of conflicting points of view throughout my career to some success. I love that.

 

[00:06:07]

And, you know, I actually just spoke to which is really funny because my listeners are going to be like, wait a second, what's with all the engineers? Because my guest that is coming out next week, it will be the one right before you. He was in mechanical engineering, and he worked there for 20 some years, and then in his 40s, decided every day that he woke up was like, is this really what I'm doing? I don't like this. So then became a professor in Colorado.

 

[00:06:31]

And it's a very cool story. You all have to listen great. There are a lot of recovering engineers out there. That's how I often describe myself as a recovering engineer. Well, and I think what you said is it kind of hit the nail on my head is that when you think that you want to be an engineer, it's because of kind of what you learn as a kid.

 

[00:06:52]

It's like you want to build things, you want to make things. But there's so much more to it than actually just like every field. Every field has its ins and outs, right? The things that we think that we love and then the things that we are like, I don't know if I love that. And one of the things I always talk to my clients about, which I think is really important, is that everything in life, right, whatever kind of job you have, wherever you are in life, you're going to have the things that you love and the things that you really don't love.

 

[00:07:18]

So let's bring it to, like, being a mom. I love being a mom. I love taking care of my kids. I love talking to my kids. I love really getting in there with their sports.

 

[00:07:27]

I love so much of that. I don't like to do laundry. I don't like to cook. I don't like some of those other things, and I really don't like those. So I find a way of maybe not having to do those all the time.

 

[00:07:40]

And then also, like with podcasting, there's things that I love about podcasting, and then there's things on the back end that I don't love, but I still love them enough to do them. And that's the thing I think is important. When all of a sudden, the things that you don't love about the career or the path that you're on, that it is weighing you down so much that you're not living the life you're meant to is really when you need to pivot. So when you decided and I love that you went back to school, because that is a theme. A lot of my guests, they either go back to school or they kind of go on this journey to kind of find themselves.

 

[00:08:14]

So when you started studying something else, was it really like an AHA moment? Like, this is definitely what I want to do, or was there some more pivots in there, if you can tell us that. Well, to be honest, it took me a good 45 years to reach the level of now I'm not sure I'm still fully clarified and everything, but to reach the level of understanding of the things I like about this field and the things I don't so that I could minimize certain things and maximize other things. Now, the educational journey was certainly a part of that. I can't describe it as a light switch moment.

 

[00:08:49]

It was really more of a gradual process. When I went to college, when I started college, I didn't even know there was a field called industrial design. I'd never heard of it. A lot of people have, and it's sort of an obscure little corner of art and design and engineering. I met some students that were in that field, and I was like, hey, what are you guys doing?

 

[00:09:11]

I saw these kids, these young adults, drawing these products and things just in the library, and, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? And they were like, well, this is part of our coursework. And then I just became more and more interested in that. Now, at that point, I was already three years into my engineering degree and studying things like computational fluid dynamics and all sorts of crazy nerdy stuff.

 

[00:09:37]

So I finished that. I had too much invested to not finish that, so I started easing myself into the industrial design field. But then after college, it was also a process of I went through the educational aspect of what I like, what I don't like. But then I also had to go through the business aspect of that as well. In terms of post college career, this is actually my second company, actually.

 

[00:10:05]

I've always been a little bit entrepreneurial. I had three companies in college, but that's a whole different story, perhaps for a different day. That's that those are the kind of things that I want my listeners to hear. So I would love for you to touch on those businesses that you had, because what it is, is those business led you to where you are today. So I would love to kind of dive into that a little bit.

 

[00:10:25]

Sure. All right. Well, one of them, really, I guess more my high school business. My first entrepreneurial adventure. I told you I lived in a small town, and it was a small town that had a lot of little old ladies in it.

 

[00:10:39]

So, yeah, I had a lot of little old ladies in the town, and they didn't like to go to the store, and they didn't like to buy their own groceries. I started this little business in high school of, give me your grocery list, I'll give you the money, I'll go shop for the groceries, and I'll charge you $5 to do it. I bought my first car off of that business, which was there wasn't much of a car, but it was a car, and it was good enough for a 17 year old kid. That's amazing. It's almost like you had the idea for Insta start.

 

[00:11:07]

Yeah, it's like Instacart before there was an internet, really? Or much of an internet. Right then in college, I had this creative site, and I was doing this engineering work, but I needed an outlet for that, so I just started designing t shirts. I designed this t shirt for an organization I was involved with on campus and people, hey, that's a great t shirt. So then I started I met up with a lady that ran a t shirt printing company, and I just basically became her sales independent sales rep on campus.

 

[00:11:37]

I would design t shirts for these organizations, and she would print them, and I was able to put in my own margin in there. It was a great business, and I did that all through undergrad and grad. And then my third business, I guess it wasn't really my business, but I actually had sort of business. I was tutoring kids or again, young adults in calculus and early college courses. So I guess it was a business because they work for anybody else.

 

[00:12:12]

It was an entrepreneurial venture. Okay. Stay pretty busy. Yeah. So I'm definitely fascinated.

 

[00:12:19]

So I would love to know, was it creating the business or was it the money that drove you? I think it was a little bit of both. I've certainly worked jobs for other people. I've been an employee even throughout that period of my life, and there's nothing wrong with being an employee, and a lot of people love that, and that's great. But for me, as long as I was an employee, I was very limited, and I'm only going to be able to make this much money, and I'm going to have to do these exact things whether I really want to or not.

 

[00:12:56]

But on the entrepreneurial side, I was like, I don't really like that group. I don't want to design a t shirt for them. That guy was mean to me, or whatever it is. I could work harder and make more money. If I wanted to take some time off, I could do that.

 

[00:13:11]

And the same with the tutoring. If someone tried to hire me to tutor them, and I just didn't like them, though I'd have to work with them. On the other hand, if I like someone a lot, I could give them a discount to work with them if it made sense to me. And it's just more about control and balancing what I enjoyed with how much money I could make, with really being kind of the captain of my own ship, if that makes any sense. Yeah, no, it definitely does.

 

[00:13:43]

So where do you think you got the entrepreneur kind of spirit? Did you see it in your family? Was it something that you had a mentor in town? That's a tough question.

 

[00:13:56]

My parents actually divorced when I was very young. My mom, I would not describe her as entrepreneurial in a large way. My dad, who I saw occasionally, he was always doing some sort of side business, and if anyone out there lives in a small town, you probably know people like this. You would go to his house, and the backyard is full of stuff he found that he's someday going to fix and turn into something and sell. That was my dad.

 

[00:14:23]

So maybe a little bit of it came through that way. And my dad was a mechanic. That was his trade, so he certainly had side businesses. He was always working on people's cars and trucks and tractors for extra money. So maybe part of it came from that.

 

[00:14:39]

But that's a tough question. I don't know. I've always sort of had this spark, I guess. Maybe it goes back to when I was buying groceries for people at such an early age. I was like, I can work as hard as I want to make as much as I want, and they kind of came into my life pretty early right now.

 

[00:15:00]

Do you think when you had the idea for the groceries, was that something that just came to you? Did you brainstorm it with people? Was it something that you were kind of milling around in your head, like, how can I start this? Where did that come about? I would say it was an opportunity that inspired a bigger idea.

 

[00:15:17]

My next door neighbor, we lived in town, and I lived with my mum in town. Our next door neighbor was a rather elderly lady, and she and I just struck up a friendship, and she was like, such a house for me to get in and out of the car. So she kind of came up with the idea, can I pay you to go do this? And then I did it for her, and it's like, maybe I could do this for other people. So I was 15 or so when I first started doing it.

 

[00:15:49]

When I first started, my mom would drive me to the store to do it. So then I became 16, and I could drive the car and do it on my own. But no, I would say it was just an opportunity that bossomed into something else, right? So that's what's kind of cool is that an opportunity? And that's what I want my listeners to hear, because maybe, yes, your dad seemed like he had his hands on a lot of things, so maybe that there was an entrepreneur kind of gene, if you want to say that.

 

[00:16:16]

But the fact that this opportunity was kind of brought to you was like, okay, and not everyone capitalizes on that, right? You maybe just had that one neighbor that you did it with and you helped her because it felt good to help her, and you got paid and you left it there, but you were curious, so you wanted to see, how much can I do? Where can I take this? And I think that's what's a really important message that people need to listen to. I think it's important to be in tune or to be listening for opportunities.

 

[00:16:43]

I could have looked at that as like, I'm just going to help Ralph. He's my neighbor, and that could have been the end of it. I get back to whatever wasted time I was doing as a teenager, but I'm fortunate that I kind of thought one step deeper there, and I'm glad I did. I think that did instill in me a work ethic and an entrepreneurial spirit, which I think is extremely valuable, and I'm happy I did it. No, I love that.

 

[00:17:21]

And another question that came to mind, do you particularly like to grocery shop or did you learn to like it?

 

[00:17:33]

That's a surprisingly complicated question. I actually do like to grocery shop so long as my kids aren't with me. When my kids are with me, then it's like, can I have this? Can I have that? Let's just buy what we need to buy and get out of here now.

 

[00:17:46]

I love my kids. Don't get me wrong. You have kids, you just want to. Go to the grocery store so you can walk slowly and just take your time and just be in your own space. I actually like to cook as well.

 

[00:18:00]

I know you said you don't really care for that. That's actually the one kind of household thing I really enjoy doing. So I like walking the grocery store and thinking, what can I turn that into? What can I turn that into? And I can't do that when I have three kids pulling on me.

 

[00:18:13]

No, I hear you. And my husband is actually the cook. He's an amazing cook, so he does that and he enjoys the grocery shopping. I have to say that when he was out of the house five days a week, I had to be the cook. It just wasn't whatever.

 

[00:18:26]

I just don't enjoy it. It's not a strength of mine. However, I enjoy grocery shopping. If there's the grocery store that I like, if there's a grocery store that I don't like, I hate it. But if there's a grocery store particularly, I'm thinking Whole Foods.

 

[00:18:41]

I love whole foods. I could spend hours there. I could actually go every day to do some shopping. I love that aspect. When I did shop at Whole Foods, I probably was a better cook than I am if there's not a good grocery store.

 

[00:18:55]

But I don't like to shop in general. I'm not like a closed shopper. I don't love that aspect of things. It's just not my thing. But grocery shopping I can do.

 

[00:19:03]

So it just came to my mind, I was like, if you hated grocery shopping, I wonder if that business would have been as successful. No, certainly not. And there were things I tried cutting lawns for a while and I hated that. So I didn't pursue that. So, yeah, you're right.

 

[00:19:24]

It's got to be a match. Not only with the opportunity, but it's also got to be something. If you're going to be successful as an entrepreneur, you've got to at least kind of like it or find some sort of joy in it, I think. And I don't enjoy shopping for clothes, so I would not have been successful going and buying people's clothes or anything like that. There's no joy in that for me.

 

[00:19:47]

And so that's the other thing I want people to think and listen to, because a lot of times people will have a hobby or things that they really enjoy. Like you said, there's people that love to close shop, they love to style other people, but they don't ever think of that correlating to a job, do you know what I mean? Not thinking about, hey, wait, I can actually start my own business because they don't know where to go or they don't know how to start that, they don't know how to get clients. And so a lot of times that will stop people from really pursuing what they truly love and that are as a hobby. And so I think that I always want my listeners to think about that.

 

[00:20:25]

What is something that you truly love to do? And think, how can I turn that into a business? I mean, that's what I coach people and that's why I have a workshop on it, because there's so many different things that people don't realize. And I think as the years have gone on, it's so much better. And of course now doing what I'm doing, I hear about so many little interesting things that people have started because it was something that they loved.

 

[00:20:48]

And I think that that's kind of fascinating. So I want to now go into product quick start. How did that come about and where are you guys there today? Yeah, so I've been doing product development for 25 years. I graduated, I earned my master's degree in industrial about 25 years ago or so.

 

[00:21:09]

I'd have to look at the calendar, at least track it years. So I've been doing product development that long and out of grad school I actually started a different company with some partners and doing product design, product engineering. Basically all the things I do now, developing and making stuff all the way through to manufacturing. So I started that company with some other partners, and we did a lot of work for very large companies like Coca Cola and Black and Decker and Proctor and Gamble, Harmon Hammer. Frankly, if you're 20 years old or so or older, you have probably touched a product that I had something to do with along the way.

 

[00:21:48]

Like one good example, if you go into a restroom at a stadium or hospital or something, they have these Georgia Pacific tile dispensers on the wall. I designed a lot of those. Now, a lot of my stuff is probably kind of ancestoring out at this point. But anyway, long story short, we did a lot of work for a lot of big companies. We grew that company to about 40 people.

 

[00:22:12]

I actually ran that company as the CEO for about five years toward the end of my experience there, and it just drove me nuts. I got so burned out on just managing people. I loved the early stage of the company when it was just maybe six or seven or eight of us and got my hands dirty. I was building stuff. I was innovating.

 

[00:22:32]

I was doing all the stuff I got into this business to do. But as we grew with that company, my role transitioned more and more into just purely management. And it kind of came to a head one week when on Friday I got to the Farmers. Like, I've spent the entire week just managing conflicts between people in the company. I was like, I don't want to do that.

 

[00:22:53]

That's not why I'm here. And I was kind of getting into my late 30s, early forty s at that point. And I was like, I have to make a decision. Either I'm going to do this forever and be miserable, or I'm going to try something different. So to make this story a little bit shorter, I met with my partners, our board of directors, and none of them wanted to take on that role either.

 

[00:23:17]

So we ended up selling that company to some of the employees. And they're still out there. They still do what they do. They still mostly focus on very large clients, but we're still friends. I still send them referrals.

 

[00:23:31]

They still send me referrals. But that's how product Quick Start was really born. Along this journey, I did also learn that I have a passion for working with people who have an entrepreneurial spirit like myself. And that's why I focused on Quick Start very tightly around startups and inventors and early stage companies, because I like working with people that are passionate about what they're doing, people who are the decision makers. I enjoyed some of the work we did for Black and Decker, but the issue there was oftentimes we'd start a program and we'd just be working with a project manager, and he'd get promoted halfway through.

 

[00:24:08]

We'd have someone new, and they get promoted. We'd have someone new. So by the time you get to the end of the project, you're working with people that really didn't know what the goals of the project were to start with. I just didn't like that so much. So I created Product Quick Start, very focused, a on keeping the company small, keeping the overhead low, and B, focusing very tightly on the needs of smaller clients and entrepreneurs and helping guide people through the process that haven't done it before.

 

[00:24:39]

And I think that's so amazing, and I want to tie it back to your early schooling. You always wanted to be that engineer, but everything kind of started with an idea, right? Like the companies that you started with the idea, and you remember how you felt when you came up with the idea. So I love that you were able to kind of connect those two and be like, that's who I want to work with. And I think that's so important.

 

[00:25:02]

When people start a business, they really should ask themselves who they want to work with, because that's something that I don't think enough people ask. They have the idea, which the idea could be fantastic, but behind it is you have to think of all those steps. You have to think about who I'm going to be working with every day. And I think that what you're saying is you love that energy, that excitement, that when people come to you and say, hey, I have this idea. How do I start it?

 

[00:25:28]

And that's what I love. I love that talking to people's stories because I always could hear in there and see the person, how they're sitting on the other side of the camera or in person, what excites them. And I love tapping into that, just that little piece, because it is what kind of lights lights me up. I love going on throughout the day and being like, it was so fun connecting those dots with the listeners, with the person that I'm talking to. So I love that you were able to find that connection and kind of move forward.

 

[00:26:02]

Now, did it happen right away? Have there been pivots with product quick start. Because I know you've had it for a number of years from when you first started. Is it still kind of where you envisioned it, and is it still where you want it to be? Well, I would say that the big picture of it has remained relatively constant, the focus on entrepreneurs and early stage companies.

 

[00:26:28]

I've gotten smarter as I've done this with this particular category of client. I've gotten a lot better at identifying early on if someone has a legitimate chance of success or not. And the ones that I really don't see a pathway for, I try to steer them. Away from spending money with me or anyone else. Oftentimes that comes down to me, sitting down and explaining, you've got a great idea or a great problem solving, whatever it is.

 

[00:27:00]

But here's the four or five problems I see in this first meeting. If you can't solve these problems, you probably don't have a business that you can develop here. Now, there are a lot of engineers out there that will happily just take your money and build what you want them to build. But at this point, my career I'm after success stories. I don't need to finagle anyone to do a project with me just because I need to make a house payment or something.

 

[00:27:27]

It's not like that. I want success stories. I don't want you to spend money with me for eight months and then be nothing but poor at the end of it. So I'll give people this sort of homework, and some people get really ticked off about that. I never hear from them again.

 

[00:27:44]

That's okay. Fine. Probably for the best for me. If I don't. Some people really appreciate it and some people actually go away they solve those problems.

 

[00:27:53]

They rethink their business plan. I've got one guy I've worked with that I had this conversation with, and he went away for three years. And he came back. Now we're working together. So I think I started answering a different question than what you asked.

 

[00:28:09]

No, that was it. I've gotten smarter along the way. Early on. I wasn't as good at that. And I look back on some of those things.

 

[00:28:18]

I probably would have done some things different for those particular clients, but I didn't know what I didn't know at that point. Now I'm just older and wiser, I guess. Well. And also you honed in on your craft. And I love that you said that this is really a passion of yours, but you want to see other people being successful as well.

 

[00:28:35]

So it's not that you're just going to take someone's money and run with it? And I think that that's something that's why when we first spoke, I connected with you, because you had said that to me kind of in the beginning. I think it's a really important thing for someone on the other side to listen. If you have a product or you have an idea and you really don't know where to go with it, noah is a good person to talk to. Right?

 

[00:28:57]

Hey, can you give me let's see how this works. And is this something that you think is viable? And I think that, again, you might say to someone, I don't see the value in it or not value, because that sounds negative. But I don't see you need to fix these five things or I don't know that you're going to get to that next spot. Because of all the different people that I've worked with.

 

[00:29:18]

I see it. I've become an expert. You've become an expert in your field. And I'm sure there are some, as you said, that got ticked off, that maybe changed a little things and then became successful. They ran it, but they are not thinking about you're just there helping and guiding because of the amount of time that you've been in this field and the amount of people that you have worked with.

 

[00:29:43]

So I think that that's great. I know I said in the beginning, people can find [email protected]. They can also find you on LinkedIn and Facebook, Twitter product to start, but follow Noah and if you do I know my years, especially like, being a mom and all the different stages of my life, I've always come up with like, oh, I think this could be a great product, or I think this could be a great product. There was a period in my life that I thought I was going to be an inventor. That's why I think I also fascinated with what you're doing.

 

[00:30:18]

And then I think there was a couple of things that I went to go start to do, and I was like, you know what? I don't know that I want to do all of that. I think I like creating the things in my mind, but I don't want to actually go and put something out in the field for various different reasons. But so I've always had that curious kind of entrepreneur thing, and that's how your next stop, I mean, really got created. And so that's what I just want the listeners to really think, especially if they're in a time in their life where they're just waking up, kind of feeling blah.

 

[00:30:48]

You don't have to be miserable to be like, oh, I need to change something. But you're just not feeling inspired. You're kind of just waking up and going through the motions. We all have one life. Why do that?

 

[00:30:59]

Yeah, that just feeling. That's the sort of misery. It's just a gentle, slow misery. It's still misery. It's something you want to escape from.

 

[00:31:09]

If you can exactly so shout out where people can find you. And this has been exciting. I love listening and hearing, and I know my listeners do as well. People's stories have how they've created things, how really how their brains work. I love that you always wanted to be that engineer, but then you tweaked it because you realize, no, that's not what I want to do.

 

[00:31:30]

And I think that's what's so important. People need to see that. If you ever get that feeling, like, I don't know if that's actually for me, you need to explore it. You need to be curious, just like you asked people in the library, what are you doing there's? The other person that might be like, I don't think I want to go into this, but my parents, society, whatever, this is what I'm supposed to do.

 

[00:31:47]

But they never are curious enough to start asking questions to see if it's actually really what they're supposed to do. So, again, Noah, please shout out where people can find you. Yes. So the best place is the website productquickstart.com. It's all spelled correctly.

 

[00:32:02]

No Q-U-I KS or anything. It's just productquickstart.com. I do stay somewhat active on LinkedIn, but frankly, I have very little time to do much posting. But you can certainly find me there as well. I haven't used the Twitter handle in years, probably, so it's probably pretty dormant.

 

[00:32:20]

And the other thing I would say is maybe you're not ready to hire me or hire anyone. You just want to run something past me. I'll spend 15 minutes on the phone with you just to give you some pointers and advice, and I do that as kind of a service to the community, but also because, hey, I may give you advice now, and you may come back a year from now and want to do a project with me. That's fine. And it's fine either way, so don't feel like you have to be that far along or that developed or anything.

 

[00:32:49]

I'll talk to anybody. I'll give you 15 minutes, and I won't charge you for it. If I can help you, I will. That's awesome. Well, Noah, thank you for joining your next stop.

 

[00:32:58]

I think it's so fascinating, again, what you're doing and what you have created, and I love that. It started with the groceries as a teenager. I think that is just things in life that lead us to where we are. I didn't plan on talking about that. I know you didn't, but that's why I love doing these, because I probably.

 

[00:33:16]

Haven'T thought about that grocery store, and it's probably been 20 years since I even thought about that. So thank you for bringing pushing me in that direction. Well, that's why I love what I do, and that's when interviews like this, I know that I am good because I could see the smile on your face when you started thinking about it and talking about it, and it definitely was one of those memories that are awesome. That's why I love doing what I do, because I am curious. I like to ask questions like, wait, I want to know a little bit more why I'm that person that asks why all the time.

 

[00:33:49]

So you guys know what to do, like share rate review, subscribe, and you might be listening to this podcast right now, and you'll be like, oh, that's a cool story, but you're not thinking of your neighbor, your sister, your brother, your mom, a friend that might be in a spot where they actually have always wanted to create. They have this idea to create a product, but they don't know how to do it. And they listen to Noah's podcast, and they're like, oh, my gosh, I have someone that I actually can run this by that knows what he's doing, which is so exciting. So definitely reach out to Noah and we will see you guys for another episode of Your Next Stop. I hope you liked this episode of your next stop.

 

[00:34:28]

Please subscribe to my channel it's share with your friends and join in each week.