Why Nick Ford Drove a Lorry Over a Prototype (and What It Taught Him About Design)

Chris Whyte (: 00:02

Hello and welcome to Why Design. I'm your host Chris Whyte and today we're wrapping up series 2 with a great guest, Nick Ford, founder of Pipsqueak3D and patent ferret. Nick's journey is anything but conventional.

He didn't follow the usual academic path into design. He started on the shop floor of a racing engine workshop, broom in hand, asking questions, learning on the job and working his way up through sheer persistence and curiosity.

Over the last 20 years, he's built Pipsqueak into a nimble, highly respected design consultancy, delivering over thousand projects for clients like Westminster Council, Airbus, Bentley and Harley-Davidson.

In this episode, we dig into how Nick has built a business focused on solving tricky, often overlooked problems, why he believes small, lean teams can outperform bigger consultancies,

and how his latest venture, PatentFerret, is helping UK manufacturers tap into the hidden value of intellectual property.

We also explore his work on iconic projects like Westminster's Tulip Ballards and why supporting young people and community driven innovation has always been a constant theme in his career. And as this is the last episode of series two, I'm excited to give you a sneak peek into what's coming next.

We've got some brilliant guests lined up for series three, including Jude Pullen, Mark Saunders, Dan Harden Brett Lovelady, Jordan Nollman, Jason Wilbur, and many, many more.

I'll also be heading to New York and Boston in June to record a few in-person episodes, which is something I've been looking forward to for absolutely ages. look, in the meantime, we're to be sharing some of our favorite moments and lessons from the podcast so far across our channel. So stay tuned. But for now, let's jump into today's conversation. Here's Nick Ford on Why Design.

Chris Whyte (: 01:43

Nick, welcome to the podcast. Great to have you.

Nick Ford (: 01:45

It's lovely to be on. Thank you ever so much for inviting me.

Chris Whyte (: 01:47

Yeah, no, you're very welcome. It's been a long time coming. So I know we, we spoke last year, didn't we? We've met at least one design event as well since then. I'll quickly run through kind of the kind of topics we discussed, we're going to go through and I'll, I'll open up to you and you can tell our listeners who you are and, and give a little kind of part of history. But on today's episode, we're going to

dive into your journey, which is unconventional to say the least from kind of sweeping up on the workshop floor to launching your own studio. The evolution of your studio, Pipsqueak and how you're adding value to by being brought in at the point where others quite frankly get stuck. Creation of Patent ferret more recently and then why smart IP strategy can unlock huge value for manufacturers.

Nick Ford (: 02:10

Yeah

Chris Whyte (: 02:27

I'm going to dive into a case study as well, kind of the tulip bollards that you taught me about a little while ago, which is a real world example of collaborative design, urban problem solving and resilience in problem development. So I'm looking forward to getting stuck into that. And then we'll finish on curiosity, values and mentoring young people and why that's been a constant thread in everything that you've been building. So again, Nick Ford, it's awesome to have you on the show. Let's start with kind of, yeah.

Give us the elevator pitch, who you are, what you do, and then we'll dive into why.

Nick Ford (: 02:57

So I'm a design engineer. I'm someone that is ridiculously curious. How things worked have always interested me. But also, frankly, destroying things and finding out how they work has always been fun from as early as I can remember. I've always had a slightly destructive tendency. But that helps you understand

how things are created, how things are put together, and you learn a lot from pulling things apart. And so I love sharing my knowledge. I love applying what I do to interesting problems. And I love people. I'm endlessly fascinated by people.

Chris Whyte (: 03:36

Well, it's definitely something that we share there. It's like curiosity and fascination. What makes people tick certainly drives me. So, Nick, let's let's thank you for that kind of summary that we're going to dive into this now. So why design? Where did it all begin? You know, from from our conversations, you told me that it was an unconventional route. You didn't start with a degree. It started with a broom. Curiosity is just mentioned loads of questions. So where did it all begin?

Nick Ford (: 04:00

So

in a lot of ways, so I'm in my late 50s. So for education for me was a state school and we still had woodwork, metalwork and technical drawing. And I didn't realize that I had ADHD then. And so a neurodivergent brain, if you keep the hands busy,

It gives you a chance to think in a way that if the hands aren't busy, you can't think. And so the first time I really learned to think creatively was in a woodwork class. I was blessed with a teacher and unfortunately I can't remember his name, who got me. And he allowed me to discover that I was a creative designer.

that I was somebody who was a maker naturally and got a great deal of pleasure out of

turning a lump of material into a thing, enjoying the process. But also he introduced me to design as a subject, that everything is designed and that that takes time and skill and effort. And I owe him a great deal for that. And then

the love of technical drawing on a drawing board with a pencil and a rubber and a ruler and sets and recognizing that if you followed rules, you could draw things that were incredible. I can remember the first time I drew a silhouette of an E type Jaguar. And I just followed a set of rules about how these lines interacted.

and I followed the instructions and off this page came something that, oh, hang on a sec, I've created that. I followed the geometric rules and so I've always loved both working on a drawing board and working on a CAD system that follows those geometric rules and geometry is a wonderful thing. So from there, it was only natural.

that I moved from school into a technical college to do an OND in engineering. Unfortunately, I had imagined that an OND in engineering meant woodwork and metalwork and technical drawing all day long. That I'd spend spending all of my time in workshops making things and learning from incredible people. And there was a lot of theory. I'm not very

I've never been great at learning from books, I learn from people. I'm not dyslexic as such, but I have trouble taking on knowledge from the written word. And because of that, Technical College wasn't for me. They asked me to leave after a year. They kind of insisted.

Chris Whyte (: 06:40

At they asked. Yeah.

Nick Ford (: 06:43

From there, so this was in Suffolk, and so this was mid-80s, and at that time, job centers were still very much a thing that allowed people to go, what job are you looking for? Something practical. And one thing led to another, and through bouncing through various other jobs, I ended up finding

my finding a job as a cleaner at a company that built racing engines. And I can imagine a company that built racing engines. That's awesome. And to be honest, it really was. They they they did everything from turning their own cranks from solid billets. They took those all through the process of machining every every single component of the engine.

putting it together in the most considered and precise manner, in a surgical environment. And this all fascinated me. And then they'd take them into the dino and they would absolutely put them through the ringer. These babies that they'd created, they would then torture them. And it was a really exciting environment.

Chris Whyte (: 07:47

That's awesome. Yeah, I remember you saying when we prepared for said, I'm going to try and create here, but I wasn't a great cleaner, but I was full of questions. So talk us through. Yeah, how your time on kind of cleaning the floors, shape the way that you approach work today then.

Nick Ford (: 08:02

Yeah, I think that might be an understatement of the century. So I had a job that was all about making sure we were supporting the machinists and the fitters to make sure their workspaces were tidy and they had everything that they needed. And I wasn't overly interested in making sure that everything was spic and span, but I was very interested in

asking these old boys and they're probably a lot younger than I am now but to me they're old boys what they were doing why they were doing it but also getting involved in the minutiae of the operations whether it was turning or milling or grinding and I was surrounded by eight or ten of these guys that I could ask each of them questions

to a point where they go, Nick, go away or get on with doing what you should be doing. And then I could go and ask another one lots of questions. And it meant that I took on board knowledge very rapidly and got to a point where I understood their processes, why they were doing it, the outcomes it was creating, but also some of the things that went wrong and what they did about it. So in about six to eight months, I could do

a good amount of each of their jobs. I couldn't do the top 25 % but I could do all the basic stuff. I could set up their machines for them. I could clean them down. They were very happy to teach me the next bit, especially if it allowed them to get to T faster.

Chris Whyte (: 09:35

So you've been curious and helpful by the sounds of it so good combination. Yeah.

Nick Ford (: 09:38

I thought so.

I'm not sure that the management would have necessarily agreed with helpful part.

Chris Whyte (: 09:44

Wonderful, that's really interesting. how long was it then before you kind of formalized, or you moved more into what we recognize as an engineering role versus helpful?

Nick Ford (: 09:54

So,

but there, they recognized, the management recognized that I was curious. They recognized that I wanted, I wanted to acquire knowledge and that I wanted to move up in the company. I desperately wanted to be a fitter. I wanted to be the person that was in this clean environment that brought all of these elements together to create an engine.

Chris Whyte (: 10:00

Mm-hmm.

Nick Ford (: 10:18

And I wanted to be that person. They didn't want me to do that. And they did give me a huge favor not letting me because I would probably still be there now. I would probably be the person that had lived there for years and years and years and had no interest in doing anything else because I would have loved it. Instead, they asked me, they gave me an office and the white coat and

This put me next to one of the graduate engineers that they brought in and he was not very respected. But what I loved about being a cleaner is that I wasn't a threat to anyone. I could ask anyone anything and at no point would they put their armor on to go, why are you asking this? And that's something I've taken right through my professional life. I want in everything that I'm doing to not be a threat.

Chris Whyte (: 10:47

Hmm.

Hmm.

Nick Ford (: 11:07

being a threat to somebody or being perceived as a threat to somebody and those shutters come down and that's a barrier to communication. So I was given an office in a white coat and that was the start of things going wrong. They would then want me to collect all the timesheet data and anyone that knew me even at that time knew that that was not going to work well. The idea of me being sat at a desk collating timesheet data that

Yeah, no. so relatively quickly, was like time to move out and I loved riding motorbikes. And so I came down to London to be a motorcycle courier because I realized that there was big money to be made and I could get paid for riding motorbikes. Well, hey! And on my first day, I earned more than I did in my last week, despite having no idea where I was going.

Chris Whyte (: 11:55

Yeah.

Nick Ford (: 11:55

I was hopeless career to start off with. But I was fortunate working at a time when there was very good money to be made and it was a job that allowed me a lot of thinking time. I met my now wife. I worked with her cousin and her brother, then got introduced to her and we went away traveling.

And when we came back, all the motorbikes that I had put in storage had been stolen. So I had to get quite creative about, well, I'm going to have to actually find a job. Well, what can I do? I was fortunate enough to be introduced to somebody that ran an educational charity based in Hammersmith that built museum exhibits for places like the Science Museum.

Chris Whyte (: 12:21

All right.

Nick Ford (: 12:38

So interactive museum exhibits. And the lovely thing about it is that the people there who were generally quite young got to do all the design work themselves. So a client would bring a concept that they wanted to show. So for example, we want to show how locks work with canal boats. We want to do it with real water. And we want the kids to be able to get their hands in it. And so you have to understand the materials. You have to understand

the principle you're doing. And you have to understand all of the constraints. so build a design brief. You have to do a lot of prototyping and understand unusual constraints. So the biological side of having water in contact with small children's hands, and that's deeply unpleasant. So I got a job effectively running the engineering side of that workshop. And

I got to put into play an awful lot of things that I'd seen and learn a lot at the same time and improve their engineering side. And I was there for a number of years. And it was an incredible job because it released me on the engineering community. It meant that I was working alongside some really smart people who were

very creative and we were working on things for one of the most demanding audiences. Children are the most constructive and the most destructive force known to man. And so building things for them brings up challenges that are extreme.

Chris Whyte (: 14:01

Absolutely, yeah. If you want to design something that's going to stand the test of time, design it for children.

Nick Ford (: 14:08

I think that it encouraged me to understand a lot more about material science. really, so we worked a lot with stainless steels, we worked a lot with through color plastics. So understanding plastics and understanding finishes. All of this was really valuable.

Chris Whyte (: 14:22

Absolutely. Well, let's move on to Pipsqueak now because that seems like a natural progression. know, you've been Pipsqueak's been going for 20 plus years now.

Nick Ford (: 14:31

I think we're into our 22nd year now.

Chris Whyte (: 14:32

That's amazing. you and you know, you've told me that Pipsqueak is not your typical consultancy, your team's small, you're agile, you thrive on projects that don't fit anyone else's process, which, you know, having talked to you, and the listeners will probably go to this, you know, you're not your typical engineer. So that kind of makes sense there. You know, tell us about Pipsqueak, the types of projects you take on and how do people usually find you then, given that you're so

kind of different.

Nick Ford (: 14:59

So Pipsqueak came out of a company that I bought a partnership in and it failed. It went through insolvency. So we did really, really well up to millennium. We failed to notice that a lot of that was being funded by millennium money and that that tap was going to be turned off. so having a company go through insolvency, you learn a great deal.

painful, it's expensive, it impacts everyone around you, but it's an incredible accelerated learning process. It's a great example of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. so Pipsqueak was born out of those ashes. And I said, well, what lessons am I going to learn so that I don't make the same mistakes again? And so

We wanted to keep a small overhead because one of the things that killed the previous one was a big workshop, lots of staff, huge overhead, a big monster to feed. So I said that I wanted to keep a small overhead and that I wanted to work for people that I liked or that at the very least I respected. More importantly, we don't work for people we don't like.

And that we wanted to have the ability to say no to jobs that we weren't interested in. We didn't want to be forced to take work. So we kept, we keep enough of a reserve so that we can say no to work that might be very profitable, but actually either is for a client that doesn't fit with our ethics.

So we were asked to be involved in a very large project out in Saudi, and it would have been worth a great deal of money to us. And I brought it back. At the time, the team was five people. So, well, OK, the upside of this, we're all going to benefit from this. The downside of this is that these are the people involved, and this is the project. And for a number of reasons, everyone in the staff

said we would rather not do it. And if only one person had said we'd rather not do it, we wouldn't have done it. And so Pipsqueak's journey is about people. It's about interesting and unusual designs. So you asked, how do we get our work? Almost all of it is through referral.

We get odds and bits through our website, but not a great deal.

So the majority of it comes through either recommendations for existing clients and

in 22 years, we've done more than a thousand jobs. And one of the true delights is that almost everyone we've worked for has asked us to either come back and do another job or has recommended us or both. And there's a delight in that, but also

Chris Whyte (: 17:34

That's fantastic.

Nick Ford (: 17:38

we are aware that in our earlier days, one of the reasons for that was because we were under pricing work. And so it's very easy to be popular if you're selling pound coins for 50p.

Chris Whyte (: 17:46

Right, okay.

I'm with the size of the business and your kind of commitment to keeping overheads low, you are able to offer it at a cheaper rate card than some of the bigger consultancies with bigger overheads. I'm imagining you're not offering a discount service though, are you? Because it's all relative.

Nick Ford (: 18:15

So the lovely thing about it is that the kind of jobs that we often engage with really well and do very successfully might be the kind of jobs that a large, so it may be a relatively large structural engineers has been approached by one of their regular clients for what is effectively a very small job. It might have

10,000 pounds of fees. And at that level, they may know that they're at significant risk of not making their margins on it. So what can happen is that that gets delegated to junior members of staff. So if they do take it on, they're not doing as good a job as they would like to do. So perhaps by referring us in,

They know that we will work very, very closely with them. If the job expands, we will spit it straight back into them. But also, we work at a level that is extraordinary right across the whole project. And we will bring experience and expertise that is right for the project. But also, we've got to add value. We are there to make our clients look good.

Chris Whyte (: 19:07

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nick Ford (: 19:24

period. If we can't do that, we are failing.

Chris Whyte (: 19:27

Absolutely. And you mentioned before we clicked record that your clients can vary in size and scale, but you've turned down some quite big contracts in, like you said, in Saudi. You mentioned some brands that you've worked with as well, which is remarkable given the scale. So give us some ideas of the kind of businesses.

Nick Ford (: 19:45

So

I think that quite often we are working for tier one suppliers. And so we've done work for JLR, we've done work for Rolls-Royce, we're currently doing work for Bentley, not on vehicular design but on self-support design. And we're currently doing work for Harley Davidson as well. We were brought in

for a project by Airbus. And you sort of think, why on earth would Airbus bring in three guys in a shed at the bottom of somebody's garden? And it was because we needed to understand their problem completely and rapidly and the knowledge and expertise that we needed to solve that problem.

it was to make a very specific tool to replace a tool that they've been using for decades. But that tool was a metal tool. had a set of rules that with the carbon fiber wings, they were not allowed to use metal tools in this particular space. And so we had to redesign it as a plastic tool. And it's a gauge that tells the fitter which bolt to select.

Chris Whyte (: 20:37

Hmm.

Nick Ford (: 20:54

The lovely thing is that, we designed that, it was manufactured by Gemino prototype in Oxford and it got patented. And whenever I fly on an Airbus, I can look out the window and know my tool was used to select the bolts that put that engine onto that wing. And I get a ridiculous amount pleasure out of that.

Chris Whyte (: 21:01

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, I was commenting on someone's LinkedIn post earlier today about seeing their products out in the wild. And, you know, that's one of the greatest things about product development, isn't it? Is seeing other people using your products you've designed. I mean, I'm involved in it on the peripheries and I still really enjoy and get a buzz from seeing kind of my clients' And especially people that I've recruited, they've gone on to design some awesome stuff.

It's incredible.

Nick Ford (: 21:37

But it's

and it's a privilege It's it's a delight to know that you've had impact but the flip side of that Is seeing things you've designed in the rubbish or in a skip? That Affects me at a very Deep level so am I making the world a better place or am I just am I creating?

tomorrow's chip wrappers. And I think that's something that we all, the question that we all ask ourselves more and more and more. Do people actually need what I'm?

Chris Whyte (: 21:58

Hmm.

How does that play into your decision making process now when it comes to what projects you take on or which you push away? Because that's a difficult one, isn't it?

Nick Ford (: 22:19

I think that the delight of it is that people know us for solving problems and so they tend to bring problems to us that enable, so we're working with a brand at the moment that has a problem within their packaging that means that one of their particular packaging systems is not easy to recycle.

And they said, well, do you think that you can solve this problem? And in my wonderfully creative, ridiculous brain, I'm driving down to a meeting last Friday morning and I actually have to pull over into a lay-by because I've got an idea. And I'm just pulling out a notepad and I'm drawing out, will that work? Ooh, that could work. And I then...

I haven't been appointed to do this. Nobody's paying me to do this. And I'm going like, no, leave it. Just step away from it. I can propose it. And once we get appointed, then we'll do Because do I want to go down that rabbit hole? I want to go down that rabbit hole more than anything. And so being part of hopefully making something more recyclable, but also being able to say to them,

Have you thought about marketing the solution for this so that you've got a reusable element so that we're not talking about recycling, we're talking about reuse. And I think that whether it's a building and we're looking at reusing its skeleton, its steel, whatever. So one of the projects that we're doing at the moment is a large double decker stand for a big show.

And if we go back six or seven years, we would have spec'd all that steel, it would have been used two or three times and probably scrapped. now we've got 18 tons of steel that's being rented. And what that does to the embodied carbon calculations is massive, because you take the steel out of a structure

Chris Whyte (: 23:55

Yeah, the waste at trade shows is eye-watering, isn't it?

Nick Ford (: 24:10

or out of its embodied carbon calculations and all of a sudden life gets a lot better and then it's a Meccano set. It's designed to be reused and it will do its days there and then it will be reused and it's... If we're using smart design and we're designing smartly what we can, what we do collectively can have less impact.

The smarter, the more we invest in smart design, the more impact that we can have collectively. And there has never been a time when design is more important.

Chris Whyte (: 24:44

Here, here. Yeah, absolutely. So that's wonderful. So let's move on to another one of your ventures, patent ferret and unlocking micro IP. Because it kind of goes, evolves naturally, doesn't it, from the consultancy work you're doing. But it's all about being curious and trying to find value, I think you've told me. So talk to us about patent ferret and what that does then.

Nick Ford (: 25:07

So during Pipsqueak's work and solving problems and enjoying creating solutions, a lot of those solutions end up as a patent. And what I will say to your listeners is that if you don't understand IP, you don't understand business. And be curious about IP because it's one of the

oldest parts of transactional business. And so we recognized that we were creating disproportionate value for some of our clients. And we reveled in it and we were really, really happy that a huge number of patents had been granted. Some of them I'm named as inventor on, some of those are my patents. And that's a joy. there's a lovely thing about being a design professional and seeing your name on a patent.

It never gets old. It really doesn't. But so over the last handful of years, we recognized that the value that we were creating was more than just about protection. Because if you have a product and it's patented, the company is based in the UK and is profitable and is paying corporation tax.

Chris Whyte (: 26:00

You

Nick Ford (: 26:18

you can pay less corporation tax by having a patent. the HMRC provides an innovation incentive called PatentBox. So you can check it out on gov.uk, just put in PatentBox, and it's actually one of the gov.uk sites that is really well written and is very informative, a rare and special thing. But it means that the corporation tax payable on the profits

can be as low as 10 % from 25%. The whole reason for that is to keep businesses in the UK paying some tax rather than having very profitable businesses move out of the UK. And so it makes a lot of sense. So what the new business does, it helps profitable businesses to identify patentable features within their product or process so that they can

stay in the UK and that they can engage with this and they can protect rather than the whole thing they can protect a key feature

And that allows them to engage with this innovation incentive, but also it keeps that business in the UK.

Chris Whyte (: 27:21

That's brilliant. I've got to ask, you've mentioned, neurodivergence your ADHD. In fact, you don't like kind of admin or the, you know, IP, you know, that's the kind of thing that requires attention to detail. How, how'd you go about that then? Cause you know, you've been doing this a little while now and it sounds super, super interesting, but how's that work from your side?

Nick Ford (: 27:35

Right, certainly does. ⁓

So,

but the lovely thing about it and exactly the same way as I am lousy at keeping my books and I have a fabulous bookkeeper. We work with teams of experts and as I have a joy of people, finding great people that are really good at doing what they do ticks my box of I really like working with these people. I love

people that are fabulous at doing and the fact that my bookkeeper gets pleasure out of doing something that I regard as not just a chore but something horrendous and finding people that can do things that you can't do or won't do and are both good at it and can knock it out and can knock it out the park and enjoy it that's a pleasure so having a team around me that

do things that I'm great at identifying the strange and unusual features. That's what I can add to it. also, for example, a profitable company might go to their accountant. Their accountant, if he or she is really switched on, they will ask, do you have any patents? And the profitable company will say, no.

Chris Whyte (: 28:41

you're curious, isn't it?

Nick Ford (: 28:57

the accountant can't ask, do you have anything that might be patentable? Because one, they're not in a place to ask that question, but the company isn't in a place to answer that. So I sit in between that question. You need an engineer to be able to answer that question and somebody that's a design professional to be able to work with the team, to be able to turn it from a concept into

wow, actually, we can get this secured and then we can create the benefit from it. The benefits when they're working well is for the life of the patent. So it's for every year for 20 years. That can be huge.

Chris Whyte (: 29:26

Hmm.

Yeah, massive. You mentioned, obviously there's a big financial incentive there for the companies that you're working with, but you mentioned a wider purpose as well in terms of helping young people into STEM. how is, yeah, how is Patent and Ferret helping with that?

Nick Ford (: 29:48

So

Chris Whyte (: 29:51

Before we jump back in, I'd like to take a moment to tell you about something we're building alongside this podcast, the Why Design Community. We're bringing together people across the hardware and physical product development space, designers, engineers, founders, and leaders, creating a space to connect, share ideas, and tackle the real challenges shaping our industry.

We've been running online huddles to explore key topics, collaborating on projects, organizing both in-person and virtual events, and even setting up pre-networking groups to help people meet ahead of major industry events.

And if you want to be part of it, we've set up a WhatsApp group where the conversation keeps flowing between episodes and events. You can find all the details at teamkodu.com forward slash events, or just drop me a note on LinkedIn and I'll happily add you in. I'll also make sure the links are included in the show notes. But that's all for me now. Let's get back to the conversation.

Nick Ford (: 30:44

So one of the things that pipsqueak has done for Almost 18 years now is had people in Usually year 10 and year 12 to do a week a week's work experience. So through June and into July We'll usually do five weeks five week long stints of one-to-one work experience. I believe

There is not a design business out there that couldn't do this. If we can do it, anyone can do it. So we've developed a program. We've developed a way of delivering it that is very successful. It's very repeatable and I will share this with anyone who wants it. And so we changed lives. So we've had 40 something people through that process in that time. Of that,

More than 20 are in careers in design or engineering, some of those quite senior now, and it's a joy to speak to them. And exactly as you were saying earlier about the reflected glory of those people doing incredible things, seeing some of the awesome things that they're involved with and knowing that I've been part of that journey is a special, special thing. So I have on my wall

a little thumbnail picture of all the people that have been through the studio and it just grows every year. And if I'm feeling a bit down, any founder has down days. I look at that and I go, actually that's legacy. That's proper something we have done that have made lives better. One of the reasons for setting up Peyton Ferrett

Chris Whyte (: 32:13

Mm.

Nick Ford (: 32:16

was to have a business that was designed to make significant money, to be able to push that into a foundation so that we're no longer helping five people a year, that we will end up helping 50 young people a year. so Peyton Ferrett will bankroll the establishment of that. And that's the real why behind it. But also, it's to help.

SME manufacturers in the UK to engage with an innovation incentive that they should be claiming because it's there for them. A huge amount of the patent box that is claimed, more than 90%, is claimed by companies that turn over 50 million or more. And that means SMEs are losing out. ⁓ I would love to move the stats even just a little bit on that.

Chris Whyte (: 32:57

Hmm.

There's a massive opportunity isn't there? it's, yeah, it sounds like it's a win win win really for everyone. we'll definitely.

Nick Ford (: 33:11

I think one of the interesting bits is that it almost sounds too good to be true and we're all taught as entrepreneurs, if it sounds too good to be true, turn around and run really quickly. But the nice thing about it is we're starting to get traction, we're starting to get case studies that show actually this works, it's not snake oil, it's legal, it's legitimate and actually it's there to help.

Chris Whyte (: 33:31

Well, it's the same with any consulting professional services businesses. It gets a lot easier to get the word out once you've had a few folk kind of put trust in you and you've got built those case studies.

Nick Ford (: 33:41

It really is.

but I think that anyone at the start of their journey, whether they are at the start of running a design business or whether they're at the start of creating a product, that it's tough. It will grind you in ways that you can't imagine. But the flip side of it,

is that when it's working well, there is nothing that feels as good. And the trick is to get enough of those updates that you can bank that the down days you can look at the updates and go, there'll be another one just around the corner.

Chris Whyte (: 34:13

That's the trick, yeah, absolutely. It's definitely something that, know, when you're starting off, just got to, you need to know it's going to be hard. And it's always going to be hard, but it's like we're going to the gym. It doesn't get easier. You just get better at doing it. You get stronger. So, and when it comes to case studies and doing what you've got, you're building up a track record, building up credibility, you're building up people that can recommend you. So,

just compounds over time. that's wonderful.

Nick Ford (: 34:40

Yeah,

it's a joy to see young people making the break out into, think I can do this on my own. And to be able to support some of them and just to, and I think that the community that you're building and the huddles that you have, I think it's fascinating to listen to other people's experiences.

and to recognize something of your own experience in that and to be able to throw things into the pot of this works for me or does that is that how that works now i'm pleased it didn't work like that five years ago yeah so but i think that that community piece is really important and it's it's a strength beyond reckoning

Chris Whyte (: 35:16

Absolutely.

community is huge. I was at an event on Thursday that was a hardware community and it's nice to see people from the community that I know there was a few podcast guests on there at the show. But then there's lots of new people, lots of founders showing off their, kind of proudly showing off their prototypes. And that's where the real magic happens. I posted about it on LinkedIn. So much stuff happens through community.

Nick Ford (: 35:45

I think that the

flip side of that is that I deal with people in the hardware community that are bipolar, that are neurodivergent with some crippling things. And it's really important to talk about the ups and the downsides. And in product design, we have a duty of care to our clients.

Chris Whyte (: 35:59

Hmm.

Mm.

Nick Ford (: 36:12

the number of small inventors that I have come through my door. And to put this into context, in 22 years, I've had some incredible successes and some wonderful products, but we've also had one inventor that died by suicide. We've had several houses repossessed. We've had several people make

life-changing decisions that were really bad. And so I think it's really important to set that yin and yang together to say this is not a risk-free enterprise and innovation or so. So it's important to go into it with your eyes open. I know that none of if we all knew everything, none of us would do anything. And so, yes, you do have to grab it with both hands and jump. but

I think that a good test is if I was an investor in my business, what returns would I be guaranteeing me? And if you can say, well, I think or this should, then you're not supporting your investor. If you're investing in yourself, that's really important.

Chris Whyte (: 37:13

Yeah, absolutely. It's a fine balance, isn't it? And, um, you know, the reality is, you know, the vast majority of businesses fail in their first year, let alone hardware business, something even more scary. It's like 97 % of that hardware startups fail. Um, so you've got to be resilient, but then those of those 97 % that fail, there's a good chunk of those that are the same entrepreneur that, you know, picks themselves up and goes on.

Nick Ford (: 37:28

Yeah.

And I'm

a great believer that failure is almost the wrong word. So me having gone through an insolvency and lost a business, at the time would I have said that I failed at that? absolutely would.

Would I choose for that not to have happened now? I would choose for it to have not cost me as much. I would choose for it to have been a lot less painful, but I needed to learn those lessons. And that was probably the only way that I was going to do it. well, and you learn through pain, but.

Chris Whyte (: 38:06

Hehehehehe

Yeah.

Yeah. What's the trade off?

Nick Ford (: 38:22

it's really important that you are allowed to learn those lessons. And that's why we have to talk about the things that haven't gone as you expected them, whether it's in product development. So we'll talk about that a little bit if we get time. But I'm a lover of iterative design. I'm a lover of make it and break it big.

Chris Whyte (: 38:26

Hmm.

Well, they are absolutely I mean, in terms of you know, the the labeling of failure, I think, you know, a lot of people have a fear of failure. Engineers when you're talking about iterative fail fast, you know, we kind of embrace it there. But, know, realistically, failure is part of the journey, isn't it? You kind of you can't get anywhere. You never learn to walk without falling over. So it's about risk mitigation, I suppose.

Nick Ford (: 39:01

Yeah,

I think that we need to find new language around it. I think that we are grown up enough that we need to have words that allow us to express some of those things where they don't hurt our prospects going on. Because if we're looking to raise money, if we're looking to create confidence,

It's very easy to play off anything that we feel might damage that as well. can't talk about that. can't put the fact I'm sat at my desk crying on LinkedIn because somebody will think that either I'm less reliable or that I'm more fragile or that they can trust me less.

I was on a call with a very small group of founders and somebody said, tell us about Q1 of this year. I said, do you want me to really? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I did. I said that it was very scary. And there were some bits of it that I wasn't certain we were going to come through.

Chris Whyte (: 39:54

You

Nick Ford (: 40:04

I was a little bit more emotive than that. ⁓ And what was fascinating was that the other people on the call went, thank you so much for being honest and actually saying something. We've all been through it. We're all seasoned entrepreneurs and nobody, you wear your scars and your medals.

Chris Whyte (: 40:06

shh

Yeah, absolutely. think the, and go back to the community piece, you know, it's, it's, it's great to be around people in industry and kind of pay each other on the back and kind of have examples to, to look up to, know, but then also to balance that with the shade of, you know, Q1 has been tough. fact, the last couple of years for consultancies been really, really hard. You know, I've seen quite a few small businesses kind of fold, you know, lot of big businesses are struggling as well, but it's.

You know, it's going back to failure as well. You know, there's as much learning from your own failures and what you can take from that and either avoid or do differently, but also benefit of community and being open and vulnerable. there's, you're helping in that respect.

Nick Ford (: 41:06

I think I've supported a number of people through insolvency and every one of them has come out stronger and not just a little bit stronger they've come out shiny and it's been a joy to watch those phoenixes raised from those ash piles

Chris Whyte (: 41:15

Yeah, absolutely.

Nick Ford (: 41:26

Because as a country, we need innovation, we need people that are going to run small businesses successfully and it's a joy to watch.

Chris Whyte (: 41:34

Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, let's let's move on to the case study then. So we were talking about case studies and importance of that now it's time to actually kind of talk to Turkey. So in fact, talk tulips. So tulip bollards, that's a project that you've been working on for a little while now. is it it live now?

Nick Ford (: 41:54

So it's just about to go live. So I'll give you a little bit of background. So I cycle a lot. One of the networking groups that I cycle with is they're part of the AEC community, the architecture and associated industry community called Club Peloton. And they do a ride from London all the way down to Cannes in the south of France every year.

And there was about 80 of us doing this together, really well organized, fantastic event. And so I was riding from London to Cannes with these people. And most of the people are senior management or partners or at fairly top levels in large architects, et cetera.

Chris Whyte (: 42:39

Mm-hmm.

Nick Ford (: 42:40

You get to spend a lot of time talking to people when you're riding from London to the south of France. And so we got to know each other very, very well, in a limited way. And most people are very interested to hear as we have an unconventional business. We got chatting about what we did with that. And so I was riding with a chap called Luke Tozer of Architect Pitman Tozer. And just in commenting, said, we've just won an award.

I said, what was that? He said, yes, we put in a design for a new kind of delineator that goes between a cycle lane and the carriageway. And we run the competition. said, that's cool. What are you going to do with it? He said, well, it was all a sort of paper-based competition, but we'd really like to make it. And I went, I'd really like to help you.

And he appointed us and we found a commercial place that worked for both of us. And so we employed a young graduate, Alex Douglas, to come and work with us. Because most of the stuff that we start with is devices or designs that need improving.

we don't generally start off with an absolute blank sheet paper. And so form isn't where my expertise is. So we needed somebody that did have expertise, both in the structured design and also form, to actually create a design that fulfilled the brief from the winning competition entry. And so what it does, it's to replace a standard sort of 80 mil diameter bollard.

Chris Whyte (: 43:50

Hmm.

Nick Ford (: 44:11

with something that is more graceful and elegant and has a bit of fun about it. But also the primary stakeholders are, course, yes, the people that drive on those roads, whether it's cycling or in vehicles, but also the people that live on those roads, they're the voters. And so we wanted to create something that fulfills the brief, so a much thinner stem.

Chris Whyte (: 44:26

Mm.

Nick Ford (: 44:33

and a larger, more visible head that happened to look a bit like a tulip. Now, you can imagine the challenges of having something as new road furniture. It has to be able to be knocked over by a cyclist and not take the cyclist off, but it also has to be able to be run over by a big truck. So we were fortunate enough to do quite a lot of early iterative testing of

Let's bolt it to the road and run over it with a car. And then once we got that working well, let's bolt it to the road. And we were working with Conways and they had a piece of the embankment closed. And they said, and as we working for Westminster Council, said, can we come and bolt some things to the carriageway and will you run over them for us? What, you want us to run over them on purpose? Yeah, please. And can we film you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No problem at all.

Chris Whyte (: 45:21

You

Nick Ford (: 45:23

So we bolted the carriageway, the prototypes, and the lorry drivers said, first of all, want you to hit it nice and centrally. And it bounced underneath the lorry. yes. Can you put all six wheels over it? He said, are you sure? And this was a lorry filled with ballast, so 32 tons. And I said, yeah. And this was our first time we put that kind of weight over it. It went boom.

Chris Whyte (: 45:38

Hmm.

Nick Ford (: 45:44

We had representatives from Westminster there, representatives from CON, so everyone there, and they're going like, was that supposed to happen? I said, we learned so much from that. I learned how it failed. I learned where the points of impact are. And could we have done FEA that would have told us that? We could have done FEA that would have told us a lot, but I guarantee there would have been variables that we'd missed.

Chris Whyte (: 45:54

Hmm.

Hmm.

Nick Ford (: 46:09

And it was actually quicker and cheaper to bolt it to the road and run over it and then film it from all angles, super slow motion, and see exactly where and how it's failing. And so we've got to a point where we solved, we hope we solved all the problems. We will only know, there we got a string of these going into Sussex Gardens in Paddington.

Chris Whyte (: 46:16

lot more fun.

Yeah.

Nick Ford (: 46:33

And we hope that they survive well. It's a bit like putting your babies out there on the road. But it's designed to be a test. And so we're evaluating them over, I think, a year and a half. But if they do well and they fulfill the needs of everyone, all of the stakeholders, then we may see them go much wider in Westminster. And the lovely thing about Westminster adopting these is that if Westminster adopts them,

Chris Whyte (: 46:35

Thank

Nick Ford (: 46:57

A lot of the councils probably will. So, yeah, as a project, it's been a delight.

Chris Whyte (: 47:03

That's really exciting. Are they designed and painted to look like tulips then or is it just the silhouettes?

Nick Ford (: 47:09

So the heads are blow-molded, so they very much have a form of a tulip. The stems have a retro-reflective sticker on them, so they've got a green stem. But of course, some of the stakeholders, things like the lighting department in Westminster Council, had to approve everything because it's going on to the public road. so there are lots of things you can and can't do. There are lots of...

Chris Whyte (: 47:12

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Nick Ford (: 47:35

elements that you have to conform to that dictate this has to be this color seen from this direction. These are colors you can use. These are colors you most definitely can't. So in your audience will be used to constraining product projects. The constraints on this project grew as the project started to come into focus.

Chris Whyte (: 47:41

Hmm.

Yeah.

Nick Ford (: 47:59

But it was a delight and everyone has been very, very pro getting it out there to see, can we make a difference?

Chris Whyte (: 48:06

Mm.

Yeah, it sounds great. I've got just got a, yeah, mental image of like a future tulip with all the reflections and the abstract colors or the less traditional flower colors, I suppose.

Nick Ford (: 48:16

So the joy about it

is, so part of the process of blow molding, so we're loading pelleted polymer into the top of the machine. We're mixing it with a master batch of color. And during the tests, want, so the client Westminster Council wanted to have five different colors to evaluate.

And so again, this is working with Gemini and Oxford, and we're working with a machine operator. And normally you run the machine, you purge it through until you've got a solid color. You'd then mold however many you want in that color. You then purge the machine again to clean it out. And we said, can we just go from color to color to color?

and almost just carry on. You said, the machine operator went, yeah, fine. And we got this wonderful, literally rainbow of our colors. And so we've got lots of different colored tulips. And they're going to be excellent. Just because rather than five colors, we've got this graduated rainbow of colors. And it's going to be unusual and special. And it's going to make me very happy.

We hope that they're not so attractive that they all get stolen.

Chris Whyte (: 49:26

Wonderful.

Well, what's worse getting stolen or run over?

Nick Ford (: 49:31

Well, so I think that any time that you're putting a new product into the public realm, the moment that it has first contact with the public, unexpected things will happen. We understand that. We've tried to second guess many of them, but it would be impossible to second guess all of them. We will learn a lot during this test.

Chris Whyte (: 49:52

Yeah.

Nick Ford (: 49:55

and we're very grateful to Westminster Council for having allowed this to happen in this way and to be forward thinking enough to go, I think there is a better solution to this problem than the solutions that we currently got because all of the big bollards are there at the moment and the ways of doing it, they don't work for cyclists. They don't really work for

Chris Whyte (: 50:02

Hmm.

Nick Ford (: 50:19

road traffic users either. And it's interesting to see is our solution, does it work for both well? Does it work for one better than the other? And I'm fascinated to see is there going to be another iteration? What things will we have got right? What things will we have got wrong? And how will it become the product that it is going to be? So, yeah, who knows?

Chris Whyte (: 50:42

exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing how that evolves. just speaking to you, I can tell you're very excited as well, Nick, so that's wonderful.

Nick Ford (: 50:48

But

I think that's the glorious thing about design is that even in my late 50s, I still like a sweet shot.

Chris Whyte (: 50:56

Yeah, you love it. So look, we've, we've rapidly gone over time because you did say that this might happen when we prep for it. But your stories are so great, Nick, you know, you talk so passionately about what you do is wonderful to, to hear, but let's talk very quickly about what's next then what were you kind of most excited about in the year ahead? Obviously the tulip project, but is there anything else, either personally or professionally that you're excited about?

Nick Ford (: 51:20

So I think that looking at, we've got a business that we're just starting to work with that approached me to say, we would like to implement your work experience system in our business. Can you help us? And we do that free of charge. And I am open to talking to anyone that is interested and say, do I think as a business, I could help?

a year 10 or year 12 student to discover that they want to be a designer. And I challenge you, you can. Yes, there are elements around that that can be slightly challenging. We have answers to almost all those problems reach out. And so I'm fascinated to see how that starts to snowball. So that's thing one.

But also, think, seeing PatentFerret start to take off, we've got an appointment that I think is going to be really pivotal, a company that we can help massively. But even just last week, we came across a company that has a fantastic product. They actually already have it patented. Their accountant has never asked them about it.

So you're paying corporation tax, aren't you? said, I certainly am. And I said, I might just be about to be your very best friend. Because look, I'll send you a link. You don't actually need to pay me anything. You just need to take that link to your accountant. And that could have an impact on your business that could be huge. And they've already got all their ducks in the line. Yeah. So yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 52:50

Yeah, especially when you're talking about national insurance. Yeah, yeah,

that's massive. Nick, that's wonderful. What we'll do is we'll have a chat about how we can share, or people can find out more about your STEM work that you're doing, the work experience stuff, if you're happy to share that, that'd be wonderful. But yeah, we'll, and I'll put all the links and everything on the show notes and when we promote it on LinkedIn, but Nick, it's been an absolute...

Nick Ford (: 53:07

Absolutely.

Chris Whyte (: 53:14

pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Nick Ford (: 53:16

It's been a joy, really

has. And thank you ever so much for allowing me to come and talk to your listeners, because I think sharing these stories is really important. Thank you.

Chris Whyte (: 53:28

Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you.

Chris Whyte (: 53:32

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