Mako Invent

MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry’s leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers.

Mako, the first firm providing world-class product development exclusively and tailored for small business and startups. In order to best service these innovators, Mako pioneered the S.M.A.R.T. Product Development Model : A highly successful product design model to strategically and cost-effectively develop high quality products from sketch on a napkin to production, all in record time and with high-impact market results – An ideal solution for small product businesses.

This model was forged 20 years ago when all world-class design firms were focussing almost all of their work servicing Fortune 500 product companies through scattered, lengthy and costly design processes. Over 20 years Mako tweaked, refined, and improved the Rapid Development Model on over 1,000 projects with dozens of designers across North America. Now, simplified variants of this model are used all over the world. Founder Kevin Mako now teaches this model to numerous design organizations and companies, as a lecturer at the Masters of Engineering Program at Ryerson University, and of course, to Mako Design clients!