On October 20^th 2016, Gabriel Goldstein, Chief Product Designer of Anidea Engineering, the expert in product development, had a great talk with David Alexander, the President of BaySource Global, the expert in business process outsourcing and offshoring, to discuss preparation steps and common issues when outsourcing in Asia, especially China.

Hi David, Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today and share what you learned about outsourcing manufacturing work to Asia, specifically China. Please tell us a little bit about yourself and BaySource, and how you got started?

I was in the consumer products industry and I’m going back to before the year 2000. We owned some brands that went to the value-price-point category and we needed to develop the new brands, new packaging and we were over a hundred-million-dollar company, but we had very limited expertise in our purchasing and procurement department. Really China was just coming on board. It was really all the Fortune 500 companies that had the resources to send people to China. We didn’t. So we struggled getting some packaging done the right way. We were challenged with that, and it dawned on me that there was no enterprise set up for serving small and medium size businesses. To help them navigate China, to become a bridge to doing business in China and you know having a trusted resource to mitigate the usual anxiety, which are costs and quality. And so, around 2004 I put a business plan together to kind of take a look at how we can serve small-middle sized companies in the United States having a trusted bridge to China setting up offices over there, and I kind of felt the opportunities would be enormous. That is how I got started. I left that position to start what is BaySource now. That was 2005.

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Wow. Okay. That is a good history you have there, so when someone’s considering offshoring their manufacturing to either China or other Asian countries, what are the things they should consider?

They have to consider the potential volume of the product they are looking to source. And, more importantly than that, they need to understand how much of their cost of goods labor makes up in term of the total landed costs. So,  if labor is not at least around 25% of your cost of goods, it generally doesn’t make sense to go to China because until you start adding labor vis-à-vis secondary processes, manual processes, finishing, handwork, anything with labor…assembly, that’s when it makes sense for China. And, they should also look at their design. Are they making or designing products, which keep costs, whether involving labor or not…are they keeping the costs of their products to the minimum when designing their products?

All right, very good, so things kind of need to be designed for China and have a good fit for Asian manufacturing.

Not even designed for China. I am just talking in general, you know? Whenever you’re designing or creating or developing a new product, you want to design a product that is going to be suitable to the market you’re serving or you’re selling in, right? That you are not going to out-cost yourself based on either what is currently available or where the costs are going to out-weigh the value.

Sure! Right! Thanks for the clarification there. So, what are some other advantages beside costs to offshoring the manufacturing?

The other advantages we see, mostly now for offshore manufacturing is that there is infrastructure in place, particularly in China. So, China’s benefited from a steep learning curve in the past 15 years. Their efficiencies are up. There’s infrastructure in place, plant property and equipment. The municipalities infrastructures are there, highway systems, rail, obviously shipping. So really startup costs are a huge advantage, when offshoring because you don’t have to invest in assets: equipment, plants, facilities, people, training, all of that kind of overhead.

Well, they really have built quite a system over there and I can really see that if you had the volume to warrant it, they can really turn out a lot very quickly for you. What about some of the pitfalls or disadvantages of outsourcing your manufacturing?

Sure. So, what I like to say is whether you’re making a product in Chicago or China, the product has to be managed: the life cycle, the development, the quality. You have to manage new product development, and so the obvious disadvantages are time and distance. Not to mention the built-in disadvantages which are communication and translation, so a lot of details can get lost in translation. Another disadvantage is that the Chinese are often making products that they have no idea what the applications for those products are. They’re making just literal widgets based on drawings, designs, specifications, but don’t always necessarily know what these product are being used for in the U.S. So there isn’t that proactive nature for somebody at the factory level to say: Hey! We can make this product a little bit better or wouldn’t it work better if we did this? Whereas, you know, locally there is probably more common knowledge built-in around: Hey why are they doing it this way? If they made it this way, we could fit it in a box better or it would be more efficient or it would show up on the shelves better or something like that.  You’re not going to get that sort of proactive participation when you are offshoring.

So I guess in that example, it’s kind of like you get exactly what you asked for, and not much else, which is very interesting… uncounted costs or advantages, which I think is a pretty interesting aspect there. As far as, the kind of person or business… I mean at what scale or where should a personal or entity be at when they consider their outsourcing manufacturing? Kind of like size, volumes, financial, capability and where should someone really to be at when they start approaching manufacturing in China?

Wherever you are going to manufacture something, you need funding. I don’t mean to state the obvious, but a lot of people don’t take into consideration once that product is developed, once you’ve gone through your first article of inspection, your prototypes, your samples….now you’ve got to place a purchase order. So people have been able to float their ideas, their business, their startup up to a certain point but if you don’t have the right finances and resources in place…to place orders, literally just place the first orders, to cash flow those orders, you’re at a loss there, right? So, a person or business should consider creating a budget, you know, startup budget, and understanding what their cash flow needs are going to be when they’re manufacturing, I didn’t even mention the tooling and startup costs that need to be built into the equation.

So let’s be a little more pointed about that. I mean minimum order quantity. It would be easier if you said you had an order of 100 or maybe a 1000 of the product but is that realistic when outsourcing to Asia?

Everybody always asks us, so what is your minimum order quantities, but they’re really not our minimum order quantities? They are a factory’s minimum order quantities. We have a sporting goods client that just placed their first order for a new product. We’ve done several orders for them before but it is a new product for them, and they are going to order 700 of these products, and they are going to order 700 at $40 each. Now, you know now it is a $30,000 order, and that is not a huge order, but their resale on the items, the margin of the resale on that item supports getting into that business, watching that product. The next order will be doubled that or triple that, and also we have found a manufacturer suitable, who is pleased with…..you know who is not stopping at those lower sub 1000 unit orders because they’re a family owned factory, and they have capacity and so they are delighted to help these guys get into the business, because the guys have already proven on other products that they are making, that they’re doing with us. They are proven that they have ability to capture the market. They have already been successful with their other products. There is no one size fits all on the minimum order quantity. The other thing that I’ll mention to you is that freight…any good business decision maker understands that your freight whether in Chicago or China, freight should not eat into any more than 10% of your costs of good. So a container is a container is a container, so a 40-foot container all-in, let’s just call that $5000. So, if you don’t have $50,000 of value on that container, you really should be looking for something else. Likewise, a 20-foot container is generally…you know with taxes and import fees, tariffs, $3500. So if you do not have $35,000 worth of value on that container, you might want to reconsider. We should still do “Less Than Container Loads”, LCL but the trade value at cost of the products on those containers support the exercise.

Very good. That’s good metrics and numbers there. For that one example that you gave about that product, can you give a general category of that kind of product as far as you know, was it a soft good, was it engineering intensive, or would something that ….

Yeah, it’s engineering, it’s sports training equipment and it’s got good margin over here, so they will sell it for double what they pay for it, but they have to work in distributor margins and things like that. For me to say okay that $30,000 order doesn’t make sense even though it is going to cost them $3500 dollars to get it in. The margin on that $30000 of product supports the little bit of overage over that 10% of costs of good.

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Very interesting. You mentioned that there was engineering involved with that, so let’s talk about design work. What should be designed offshore? What should not be designed offshore? And what is available in turnkey design services?

We’re seeing more and more Chinese firms pop up to say we’ll do your design and development work, help you get into prototypes, things like that. Generally, the cost, the managerial cost or the salary of the designer over there, the CAD designers would still be less than over here. However, going back to the original translation issue and application issue, where they can help you design something, but if they don’t know the literal use or the practical everyday use of the product, they are not going to be suited to design nearly as well as the U.S. designer. So, you get what you paid for, right? And also, when dealing with a designer offshore, just the translation, the back and forth, the product revisions, their understanding of what you’re asking them to do, and how you are asking them to change things. When you start meshing creativity with practical services and design work, it’s definitely an advantage to stay local.

Yes. Very good. Thank you. So, wrapping up! if someone has an idea and they have their finances in place and they’re confident they want to go offshore with their design, their product. What is the next step for them to get started?

So that goes kind of to a question you have, it says: How should a person prepare to outsource their manufacturing? I gave a talk out at a tradeshow in Las Vegas last year, which was essentially how to do business in China. The thesis or the main argument of my discussion was sort of from the garbage in…garbage out. You will be received to the degree that you are prepared, meaning you need to have a…it’s not a business plan but a formal product document, product briefing. A little bit of background about you, the business, you know…. where you are selling to. Not that you have to devolve the whole business plan to the Chinese factory, but you want to put a very professional request of proposal together, because the more thorough and detailed that package of information is, the more creditable you will be with the factory and the greater sense of urgency that they are going to share around helping you with manufacturing your product. So we talked about a budget. You shouldn’t even be near China, until you’ve done a budget, and what I meant by a budget is sort of a breakeven analysis that if you’ve identified what percentage of the potential market, whether that would be one percent or one tenth of one percent of the market here. And that should extrapolate into top line numbers. And then what your margin needs to be on those numbers to support the business and help you cash flow the business. So having a budget in place and particularly including those startup costs, those purchase order costs, and then a lot of people don’t even work in the selling and marketing expense. They just think it’s their time but there’s time, there’s travel, the opportunity costs, right? Having a good budget and a sound game plan and a professionally presented package of information around your product.

Very good! So, that last question prompted me to ask something else here. How do you handle IP and licensing issues when you’re working oversea?

So, that is a great question, and you know kind of tongue in cheek I tell people if the Chinese factory or somebody that works in China tells you not to worry about IP…run from that person! That’s just not viable advice. How we help mitigate that is we work two ways. One, we work with reputable people, reputable suppliers that are owned by decent people, and have worked with Western companies before. So, it is kind of on the coattails of other businesses that have come before them and they have had a good track record with supporting the manufacturing businesses, and not running off with their IP. That’s one way to mitigate it. So if ‘Black & Decker’ has been working with the factory for a while, you know that they’ve audited and scrutinized and challenged that factory’s willingness to protect their IP. One is really reputation and experience and knowing where to go, having sort of that extra sense in instinct to understand if the factory is reputable or not. Two is really working with somebody in China that coordinates the manufacturing from a supply chain perspective, and doesn’t necessarily tell the right hand what the left hand is doing. So, we are making injection molded parts over here. We’re doing our SMT technology and our circuitry over here. We’ve got metal parts and components over here. We select the final assembly point which can usually be one of those factories, but the factories we are going to choose are not the ones that are already participating. Meaning, they’re not vertical, which means they are not manufacturing and marketing companies. They were not already at all the tradeshows in those respective industries over here in U.S, right? So, we work with really pure contract manufactures. We seldom work with companies that are already marketing their own products. Another thing I’ll tell you that we don’t work with anybody that doesn’t have a patent.

Got it! So, it helps protect you on the US sale side too. That is very handy.

That protects us, and protects them. We just don’t want to work with someone who doesn’t have a patent because we can get well in the process and find out that our customer has no right to launch the product because somebody else has a patent.

Oh interesting. I wasn’t thinking about that originally. David, very good. This is a wealth of information. I appreciate your time and thank you very much.

Yeah! Thank you, Gabriel.

Unless you have all of the resources you need to create and develop your product, you are more than likely interfacing with a technical consultant or engineering company.  The more effectively you can communicate with the technical team, the better your chances of getting what you want. 

Writing it down and describing all of your ideas and how they will work together will be a very effective task for moving your idea forward with your technical team.  You will begin to see holes in the logic, stumble upon new ideas, and begin to document what is in your head.  Writing it down will also alleviate the constant ruminating of an idea in your head.

But you say, “I’m not an engineer!  I don’t know how to write a specification!”.  Well, both statements may be true, but if you want to pave the way to a successful product development venture, you’ll need to learn to communicate your ideas effectively to the engineers who can write a specification.  And with a few helpful tips, you too can write a basic specification.

An item of note, this list is for a somewhat validated idea.  This list assumes you’ve already performed the basics like validated a market, created a tentative business model, and you have performed some level of prototyping.

1. Brainstorm.  Your first step is to just get all of your ideas down on paper.  White boards, drawings, and short lists are a good place to start.  You want to focus enough on this so it is all out of your head and on paper.  You can move things around later, but now you have your concept documented and you can begin to refine it.
2. Strong and weak words.  Inventors tend to get very tied to their ideas.  Try to break away from that and begin to describe what you need done using some special words.  If you use a phrase like, “The device shall be made from titanium,” then the reader will expect that you are the expert in this material and there is no room for variance.  Other strong phrases are: must have, required to, and will.  Does it need to be made from titanium or is it that weight to be minimized?  There are weak words to use like may or should or can.  Think about what is absolutely required and what would be nice, and the real goal you are hoping to achieve.  Then write that down.  Keep in mind that opposites can also be valuable in your writing.  Phrases like cannot, shall not, and should not are equally useful.
3. Sketch.  As you have heard, a picture is worth a thousand words.  You may be amazed at how effective a simple block diagram in Power Point can be.  Show how things are connected.  Show the logical flow of operation.  There are great mock-up tools for software/apps these days you can also use.  The more you think and articulate your idea, the more effective it will be conveyed and possibly become a better product.
4. Write what you know.  You are probably not an engineer if you are reading this, so don’t try to be.  Yes, you should educate yourself in the technical field of your idea.  You should not spend your days looking over websites for microcontrollers and then specify the use of one in your project.  Describe the features and functionality you require, don’t try to engineer the product unless you have that skillset (before you had this idea).  An experienced engineer will have just that, a lot more experience.  Take advantage of that and let them do what they are good at.
5. Iterate.  A specification is a living document.  It can change as the market and business input is uncovered.  As you learn more about your idea, do more research, and develop your product and business, it will constantly evolve.  Now with that being said, once you engage a technical team, there can be costs associated with change.  You will want to get close enough to start engaging your technical team, but once you hand it over to them you should have a good assurance it’s right, and only make changes that absolutely have to be done.  Inventors tend to like to ‘tinker’ with their ideas which can keep products from ever reaching the market, so iterate until you have something to sell, then stop.  Let the market drive your iterations.  This is a subject for another posting.

What I’ve described above is generally referred to as Functional Requirements Specification or a FRS.  The engineering team will then likely create several documents from this which could be a Design or Product Specification, Test and Validation Plans, etc.  Those are beyond the scope here. 

Don’t worry about making it perfect.  From a non-technical perspective, you should put down the things that you care about.  However technical and non-technical that is.  If you care about the color, put that down.  If you care about costs, put that down.  If you don’t care what material is used, let the engineer figure that out.  In any case, your technical team will start to ask you a lot of questions to help flesh out your specification.  After the ground work is laid, then everyone can be on the same page for what needs to be done.

Startup Weekend is an innovative concept, where by in one weekend, just a mere 54 hours, you can go from nothing to a viable company.

Anidea Engineering’s owner, Gabriel Goldstein, attended his first Startup Weekend in 2013 in West Palm Beach.  Although not a Startup company, Gabriel knows there is always something to learn. 

It starts with an opening event with a speaker, then attendees start getting down to business: What is your idea?

They make pitches, wait anxiously as their peers choose which pitches seem the most viable, and then, as ideas are weeded out, groups begin to form. Inspirational speakers tell of their entrepreneurial experiences. Then, they get to work.  break for the night. Day 1 is complete. 

Day 2 begins bright and early, with budding entrepreneurs ready to make something happen. They quickly get to work, feeling the pressure as time trickles away, far too quickly for their liking. Day 3, Sunday, they continue working until it is time. The groups present their companies, and a winner is chosen.

Startup Sponsor / Supporter / Mentor

In 2013, Goldstein worked on an app – YO! – that facilitated conversation between bartenders and patrons in a loud, crowded atmosphere. The would-be drinker communicates visually through the app to the bartender, creating an ease-of-ordering that can’t be beat.

Unfortunately, the team did not win. However, Goldstein not only met some great friends but still to this day, is an experienced entrepreneur who avidly supports the startup community.  He was bitten by the ‘Startup Weekend’ bug and his team was featured in a newspaper article about the event.

Being an entrepreneur is not new to Goldstein. After all, he started Anidea Engineering with literally, just an idea. He has since leveraged his experience to become one of the speakers and sponsors at 2014’s Startup Weekend West Palm Beach, and a mentor and sponsor at Startup Weekend Miami-FIU, which took place Friday, Nov. 20-22, 2015.

Mentoring is not new to Goldstein who has worked with various clients for the last 15 years, helping to mold and shape many of their companies. In addition, he is a mentor at FAU’s Tech Runway, a collaborative work space for entrepreneur to house, educate, mentor and fund their companies from inception through venture funding.

Goldstein used his mentoring experience to assist the teams at Startup Weekend.

“I got to work with a lot of different companies,” Goldstein said. “I was a huge fan of it. It is so much fun to see these companies start from nothing and become something.”

 “As a mentor, it was a lot of fun to go around and challenge the teams on their ideas and make them question things. One of the biggest things about Startup Weekend is validation. Everyone thinks they have a good idea, until you go out and test it in the marketplace,” he said.

Testing the ideas led to some of their downfalls, and others readjusted, reevaluated, tweaked their ideas, and came up with something stronger and more viable.

Working with a younger demographic – many of the participants were college students – did not have the same experiences that Goldstein has had, which shaped their projects and approaches. For example, one group learned about credit card processing, and how small transactions do not lend to a profit.

“As a mentor, I was able to bring my entrepreneurial and life experiences to the table to challenge and guide the teams. I’ve had the advantage of seeing technology evolve in the last 20 years that many of the attendees – bright, gifted students – did not,” Goldstein said, explaining that although he has accumulated years, he still has the same energetic, inquisitive, entrepreneurial spirit that helped him create Anidea Engineering.

Goldstein enjoying one of the more entertaining parts of Startup Weekend.

The teams worked hard on their ideas, testing and learning along the way.

“The incredible value of Startup Weekend is that you have the opportunity to go through many of the processes that you would go through in a team format to launch a company, with very little risk involved. It’s a vast learning experience,” he said.

Former attendees have reached out to Goldstein, as a mentor, and a networking connection.

“It’s a really great organization that I highly recommend for anyone who wants to learn about entrepreneurship and starting their own company and to participate in,” he said. “I’ll participate in any one I’m ever invited to, or any other way I can possibly participate.”

To learn more, visit www.anidea-engineering.com or call us at (561) 383-7311. Check us out and see how we can help you. Have an idea? Get Anidea! We’re located at 8020 Belvedere Road, Suite 1 in West Palm Beach Florida. Not local? Call and we can set up a Skype conversation at gabriel.goldstein.anidea.

 I start around 8 minutes.

IP Strategy

Intellectual property (IP) is a big buzz word these days.  It’s important stuff.  If you can convince the US government (or other government) that you have an original idea, they will help you protect and give you exclusivity of it for a period of time, generally 20 years.  That sounds great, doesn’t it?  You can also file a provisional patent that is kind of places a foot in the door which discloses that you are working on an idea, but you aren’t ready to file a patent yet.  If you file a patent based on your provisional, you’ll get an earlier file date. 

Ultimately what you want is a Utility Patent.  You want to patent the actual utility of what you’ve created.  Those are the good ones.  There are other types like Design Patents, but they are more easily circumvented.

Above while I was talking about the government helping you protect your idea, they will only do so much.  The patent office does try, and they do a decent job, of making sure the patent they give you is unique, however they are not the only opinion that matters.  In the case where two issued patents have overlap, people can go head to head for years dumping tons of money into lawyers trying to get injunctions or other compensation in place.  Alternatively, you may have protected IP and someone else is selling a product which infringes on your patent.  It will cost a good bit of money to make them stop. The old line is that a patent is only as good as your pockets are deep.

So why patent at all?  It’s a reasonable question.  In general, patent what you can with the finances you have, but don’t go overboard.  Or, you can always take advantage of some other techniques like “first mover advantage” or “first to market”.  Coke doesn’t have a patent on the drink itself, but people can’t copy the true ingredients.  Coke has a trade secret on their recipe and they have proven that they go through extraordinary efforts to protect it.  The proof of how hard they protect it, and it actually being unique, provides them protection.

Footnote: I’m not a big fan of patents.  Not because I don’t think a patent is cool, but that they get way over used and big business has ruined it for the common inventor.  I do think they are very good for impressing your mother, and who doesn’t want to do that.

General Protection Mechanisms

So you are going to need to talk to someone about your ideas, as no one can do it themselves and you have to build a team.  So the first step is to have a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).  This is a basic agreement between you and to whom you are talking to that they will not disclose your discussions and they will not benefit from them (unless you end up hiring them in some way).  These are basic agreements.  You can download them for free/almost free.  They are a good first step.  If nothing else, it sets a clear expectation that you expect your conversations to be between you and the other party.  If you don’t trust the other person, the NDA probably won’t mean much.  Also, many people won’t sign them.  Investors typically won’t as it exposes them to risk, as they tend to see a lot of deals and ideas.  They may already know 3 people working in that space.  The suggestion here is start out slow, and make sure they have a legitimate interest.  As the relationship grows, they may sign an NDA and get more involved with your venture.  On a side note, most professionals only have their integrity and reputation.  We know not to talk about other people’s ideas or to try to leverage information given in confidence.

Keep your mouth shut.  Not everyone at the bar on a Saturday night needs to know about your whiz bang idea.  Be careful about who you speak to about your idea.  Think of it as a need to know kind of thing.

Also, as you getting started with your team, you may be thinking, “We’ll figure out the money later” type of thoughts.  No, do it now, while there is nothing to argue about.  Money makes people weird.  At the very least create a rough operating agreement that you sign with your ‘friends’.  Talk about the ownership distribution, who does what, and how a person can leave or come in.  Just get some basics out of the way.  If the money starts rolling in, the last thing you want to do is start fighting with your co-founders about who owns and does what.  It will be over before it begins.

Also, keeping ownership straight, everyone should read up on the Copyright Law of 1976.  It talks about who owns things when you hire a contractor if not otherwise agreed to.  Make sure you understand the agreements you sign with contractors, especially dealing with ownership and rights. Yes, it is possible for you to pay for something and not own it or full rights to it.  There are all sorts of variations here where a contractor may become part owner (sweat equity) or a manufacturer may partner with you.  The key here is to make sure you understand the agreements.

Read the next installment.

• Price points – How many will be sold at a certain price point.  Refresh yourself on the Law of Supply and Demand.
• Market Research – Who is going to buy your product?  How much will they pay for it?  Are there other requirements to be in this market?
• Competition – Are you the only solution to this problem?  How do they price and market their product or service?
• Customer Identification – How are you going to find them?  How will they find you?
• Cash Flow – How much will you need to become cash flow positive?  What kind of funding tranches will you need?  Understand all of your expenses.
• Prototype Costs – You will need to show incremental progress, what will this cost?
• Manufacturing Costs – How much will it cost to make your product?  What if you make 100 at a time?  What if you make 10,000 at a time?
• Consultants – Find specialized people in their field to help you.  And they will need to be compensated.
• Intellectual Property – How are you going to protect your idea?  Are you going to pay a patent attorney/lawyer?
• Lawyers – They are not cheap.   They can help you do things the right way so you don’t get in trouble later.  What will their costs be?  Are they setup to work with small entities?
• Funding Sources – Find an investor?  Find a partner?  Are you going to fund this whole thing yourself?
• Product Launch Budgets – Don’t get to the end and not have the money to tell the world about your company.
• Planning Costs – Everything costs.  See above about the plan.  You will likely need to compensate specialized parties to help you plan.  Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder may be a place to start.

No doubt this looks like a daunting list.  It is.  There is a lot of work and planning to be done to start a company, and I by no means consider this a complete list.

Marketing

Who is going to buy your product?  Why are you making this product?  Marketing determines and conveys the answers to these questions.  It’s how you tell the world why and who and what you do.

There are really a few books I have to suggest here that I really just love about marketing:

Start with Why, Simon Sinek.  This is an awesome book and really transformed the way I communicate and operate my business.

Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell.  Fascinating stories about how ideas propagate to the world and market.  Really you should read everything from both of these authors.

Back to marketing, there are some key core business questions your marketing plan should answer.  Where is this product going to be sold?  How many will be bought at a particular price point?  Who is going to buy this thing?

Keep in mind that you really may end up with several versions of a marketing plan.  Sure, you could sell Bentley’s all day long if you could sell them for $10,000.  However you could never get the price that cheap to sustain that model.  Everyone could sell millions of their products if the price was cheap enough.  So the obvious question is how to you get the price cheap enough, make millions of them to drive the price down.  To get the price down, invest in engineering and machinery and process, and to do that, you need a lot of money.  See the problem in this line of thinking?  You haven’t proven you can sell 1 and you want to invest millions of dollars to make millions of the product.  Before you can make and sell a million units, you need to prove that you can make and sell 100, then 1000, then 10,000.  Determine how your marketing will change based on your volume.

Read the next installment.

Thousands of Wellington, Florida residents, including Gabriel Goldstein’s family attend Sunday services at LifeChurch.tv. When this popular nationwide church with 15 locations and a global online audience shared its idea for volunteers to design and build the movie-themed Monsters Inc. art installation in its lobby in Wellington, Gabriel and his company Anidea Engineering, Inc.  immediately signed up, even without any pressure from his two kids aged 5 years and 11 months old. It’s not by coincidence that our company’s tagline is: “got an idea? Get Anidea!”   

“Anidea strongly believes in giving back to the community.” said Gabriel Goldstein, CEO and Chief Product Design Engineer at Anidea Engineering.

Our experienced, Palm Beach County-based product design firm was ecstatic to donate our expertise in design, mechanical and electrical engineering, and implementation in two main areas:  a conveyor system and LED sign.

First and more intense was a pulley, conveyor system that aerially displayed vibrant Monsters Inc. artwork throughout the church’s lobby. This required over 400 hundred feet of steel cable running through seven custom-designed pulley brackets and a motor drive mechanism.

The second major contribution was inspired by the Monsters Inc. movie “Stalk – Don’t Stalk” LED sign. Our efforts replicated the sign and decked it out with flashing green and red lights, surprisingly and resourcefully made from a Styrofoam beach cooler.

In closing, Gabriel Goldstein states, “working with fellow, talented LifeChurch.tv volunteers and seeing the amazement in everyone’s eyes, including my children’s, made this philanthropic effort worthwhile. Give us a ‘monstrous’ idea, we helped make it a reality, and it was ‘monstrously’ fulfilling for everyone!”   

https://ideamensch.com/gabriel-goldstein/