We recently connected with Konstantin Dolgan and have shared our conversation below.

Konstantin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

How LA New Product Development Team was born.

LA NPDT is a company that turns ideas into products. We develop our own products and do that for our customers. This year LA NPDT turned 7. Here is the story of how it started.
I was a graduate student at Louisiana Tech University, working towards my Ph.D. in Materials and Infrastructure Systems engineering. By the fourth year of my education, I took all the required classes and was primarily focusing on my research. The process was rather monotonous and boring. I’m not a typical scientist who likes to work in a lab, I always leaned towards business and entrepreneurship. So, when I found out about the Venture Innovation class offered at Tech I decided to sign up to learn about technology transfer and commercialization. The class was taught by Dr. Dave Norris. In the class, we basically learned how to turn research into money. It was really exciting and eye-opening for me. At that moment two of my worlds, engineering, and business collided. Thanks to my technical knowledge I could understand all the nuances of new technologies and innovations and thanks to my entrepreneurial passion, I saw how these innovations could be brought to reality benefiting everyone involved. At that moment I realized that I didn’t need to choose between a career of an engineer and that of a business owner, but I could apply both of my strengths in the same discipline – new product development. That was the Aha! the moment for me and that’s how I discovered my passion – turning ideas into products and businesses.

I still had about a year before my graduation, but I was so excited about the new passion that I wanted to start realizing it immediately. One day when I was driving to Houston to pick up my wife from an airport, I zoned out and the idea of starting a student organization with a focus on new product development and technology commercialization came up to me. Next week, I created an ad to recruit members for the organization and posted it throughout the campus. I received a ton of calls and emails from students. The interest was extremely high. The organization quickly grew to almost 50 members within a couple of weeks. We had students and alumni with engineering, marketing, HR, finance, and other backgrounds.

After running the organization for a few weeks, people from outside of the University started to reach out to us to get help with prototyping their inventions. After completing a few projects we realized we could actually get paid for the services we were providing to the community. That’s how the student organization evolved into an LLC.

After graduation, I started to work as an R&D engineer at a pump manufacturing company. I was running the LA NPDT business as a side hassle. After about two years, the revenue from LA NPDT started to exceed the salary I was getting as an engineer and, me and my wife accumulated enough funds to quit our jobs and start running LA NPDT as our primary business. That’s exactly what we did in 2016.

We opened a small office sandwiched between a church and a massage parlor and started to grow our customer base and equipment arsenal. Initially, we were very hungry for customers, so we participated in many different business networking groups, attended various entrepreneurship-related events, and just tried to get our name out there however we could.

Over time we built our portfolio of projects and gained a reputation as a team that “gets shit done”. This helped us with getting new customers with less effort from our side. We continued to perfect our craft and grow our business since then. Dedication to the company and our passion for new product development brought us various industry awards and accolades. We were featured by Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur, and other prominent media outlets. Most importantly, we earned the respect and trust of our customers by helping them to turn their invention ideas into products.

This is the story of how LA NPDT started and how we went from idea to execution.

Konstantin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a certified new product development professional and a CEO of LA New Product Development Team. My background is in engineering, in fact I have three degrees in engineering, including a Ph.D. Day to day I and my team develop new products for our company and as contractors to our customers. We turn ideas into products that can be sold, or sometimes just realize someone’s invention or product dreams. Our team covers the whole process of new product development, starting from ideation to product design and prototyping, to manufacturing and marketing. We believe in people who dare to realize their ideas and we support them as they make this world a better place. Our team is here for the journey, offering guidance and R&D support along the way, one idea at time!

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

When we just started we only provided product design and prototyping to our customers, but eventually, we expanded the list of services and manufacturing was one of them. Specifically, we realized that most of our customers needed to produce only a few units to get their sales going and to test the market. At the same time, most contract manufacturing companies make money by producing large quantities. So, we saw how some of our customers struggled to find a reliable manufacturer who would produce them 100 pcs, or 500 pcs, or maybe up to 2000 pcs of their product. The costs were either too high or the manufacturers were simply not interested in dealing with our startup customers. That’s where we decided to fill the void in the market. Over time we became specialists in short-run production or small batch manufacturing. With some creativity, technical know-how, a network of reliable partners, and a tad of willingness to make things happen it’s almost always possible to come up with a cost-effective way to produce a limited-quantity batch of new products. This service became a lifesaver for some of our customers. It allowed them to get their products launched on a limited budget and within a short period of time.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

I’m a big believer in giving individuals a chance to make mistakes, be creative, and make decisions. People lose interest and stop being innovative if they are unable to choose how they will address an issue or opportunity. In our company, creativity, inventiveness, and problem-solving are all critical talents.

If you want to keep your team morale high, it’s important to allow some freedom in how they work. creativity and innovation are key factors in maintaining a successful business, so giving your team the ability to exercise those skills is essential. Of course, there also needs to be some structure and guidance in place, but giving people the opportunity to be creative and make decisions is essential to keeping them engaged and excited about their work.

Contact Info:

• Website: lanpdt.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/product.design.la/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dolgan/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/LANewProductDevelopmentTeam/