ILPS2e24- Kickstart Your Idea; Kevin Mako Talks About How He Helps Inventors Launch Their Product

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Kevin Mako is the Founder and President of MAKO Design + Invent, a 25-person invention development firm with offices in Toronto, Austin, and the UK. His entrepreneurial spirit was ignited during his early teenage years when he started several ultra-small businesses that built a wealth of knowledge and experience for his eventual life passion, MAKO Design + Invent. While attending one of the top business schools in North America, the Richard Ivey School of Business, Kevin incorporated MAKO in his third year at just 22 years old. Graduating as Section Class President with an additional specialization in Entrepreneurship, Kevin continued his education at the University of Hong Kong studying manufacturing and supply chain management.

MAKO Design + Invent was the first firm in North America to offer full-service professional physical consumer product development services to start-ups, and is now the largest firm in the industry in both Canada and Texas. The company provides home inventors and product developers with end-to-end consumer product development services that turn invention ideas into successful businesses. MAKO is tremendously proud to be completely grassroots and organically built with zero financing, debt, or investors. While most of Kevin’s time is spent growing the firm, Kevin also spends a great deal of time progressing the product development industry as a whole through guest speaking engagements, building robust strategic partnerships, and advancing the development of entrepreneurship through initiatives such as The Industrial Design Guild, Inventors Meetups, and the MAKO Student Innovation Awards at Ryerson.

Sitting on the Board of Trustees for Lakefield College School, a Board Member of the Brookfield Institute for Entrepreneurship, an Advisor for Next Canada, and recipient of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award, Kevin has been recognized as a standup member of the industry for his community involvement and outreach. For his industry impact, outstanding leadership and rapid business development, MAKO Invent was named one of the best companies in the US in 2016 by Entrepreneur Magazine and made the Inc5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America list.  MAKO was given the award for Best Industrial Design by Creativepool in 2018, as well as named to the prestigious Entrepreneur 360 list, and named Best Product Design Firm in North America for 2019 by LUX Life Magazine.