Founder Journal #3
"One of the biggest myths about inventing is that successful people have better ideas. I don't think that's true. I think they're simply willing to let reality prove them wrong."
About the Founder Journal
Building a company isn't a straight line. It's a series of experiments, setbacks, unexpected lessons, and small victories that rarely make it into product announcements.
The Founder Journal is where we share the stories behind PFV Innovations—not as a marketing campaign, but as an honest record of what it's like to invent, build, and keep moving forward. Whether you're a musician, an entrepreneur, an inventor, or simply someone with an idea you can't stop thinking about, we hope these stories encourage you to keep going.
When people see Flip Pick today, it's easy to assume there was a master plan.
There wasn't.
There was an idea.
Then a prototype.
Then another.
Then hundreds of decisions shaped by things we never saw coming.
Looking back over the past four years, I don't think our biggest advantage was getting things right.
It was being willing to admit when we were wrong.
Here are five assumptions that completely changed the direction of PFV Innovations.
1. We Thought Building the Product Would Be the Hard Part.
When I first designed Flip Pick, I assumed inventing it would be the difficult part.
In reality...
Designing and prototyping was the easy part.
That's actually encouraging.
Today, CAD software is readily available.
3D printers are affordable.
There are countless online tutorials.
If you have a good idea and you're willing to learn, it's never been easier to create a working prototype.
Mass production?
That's another story.
We learned about design for manufacturability.
Injection molding.
Tolerance stacking.
Material selection.
Vendor sourcing.
Our first production RAVEN picks weren't even made by a guitar pick manufacturer.
They were cut by a local print shop.
Originally, we'd contacted them because we wanted our logo printed on the picks.
During that conversation we discovered they owned a CNC cutter.
One question led to another...
...and suddenly we had our first production partner.
That experience taught us one of the biggest lessons of this journey:
Sometimes the solution you're looking for isn't the reason you contacted someone in the first place.
But here's the part nobody really talks about.
Manufacturing wasn't even the hardest challenge.
Marketing.
Maintaining a website.
Writing content.
Photography.
Customer service.
Advertising.
Inventory.
Accounting.
Those became our full-time education.
Inventing a product gets all the attention.
Building a business is what takes years.
2. We Thought People Would Immediately Understand Flip Pick.
We've lived with this idea for years.
To us, Flip Pick feels obvious.
To everyone else...
...it's something they've never seen before.
One of my favorite moments is still watching someone's reaction when they ask:
"So...what did you invent?"
"A guitar pick."
Cue the confused look.
Then we hand them one.
Or show a quick video.
Suddenly their expression changes.
"Oh!"
They get it.
That taught us something important.
People don't buy explanations.
They buy understanding.
For some products, seeing really is believing.
3. We Thought Function Would Matter More Than Form.
This one surprised me.
I've played guitar most of my life.
To me...
A pick was just a tool.
Sure, I liked James Hetfield's White Fang picks.
But beyond that, I never obsessed over pick materials or finishes.
I assumed players would see Flip Pick's functionality and forgive a few rough edges.
Jamie wasn't so sure.
She believed we'd eventually need something better.
I thought functionality would win.
Our customers told us otherwise.
They loved the idea.
But they also noticed...
The finish.
The edges.
The feel.
The tone.
The polish.
They were absolutely right.
Looking back, they weren't criticizing Flip Pick.
They were telling us it deserved to be better.
That feedback eventually led us to Delmar Products and D'Andrea USA.
The Next Generation Flip Pick exists because our customers expected more.
We're grateful they did.
4. We Thought We Knew Who Flip Pick Was For.
When we launched, we thought we'd created a clever guitar gadget.
Then the emails started arriving.
Players with arthritis.
Players with neuropathy.
Players recovering from injuries.
Multi-instrumentalists.
People who simply wanted more confidence switching between techniques.
Over and over we heard some version of the same sentence:
"I can play again."
That wasn't why we built Flip Pick.
But it became one of the biggest reasons we kept improving it.
Those emails changed our understanding of our own product.
Flip Pick wasn't just solving the problem we had experienced.
It was removing barriers we hadn't even imagined.
5. We Thought We Had to Solve Every Problem at Once.
When customers reported broken celluloid picks, I became obsessed.
I spent countless hours trying new materials.
Delrin.
Nylon.
UV printing.
Different cutting methods.
New manufacturing processes.
I thought we needed to offer every option.
Customers surprised us again.
They didn't actually want a different material.
They wanted the familiar feel of celluloid.
They just wanted it done well.
That's a subtle but incredibly important distinction.
Instead of trying to become everything at once...
...we needed to become exceptional at one thing.
That realization eventually brought us to Delmar and D'Andrea.
Ironically, the answer wasn't inventing a better material.
It was partnering with people who had already mastered it.
One More Thing We Were Wrong About
We thought this would happen quickly.
It didn't.
When we launched Facebook ads, we sold thousands of Flip Picks.
At the time, it felt huge.
Then one day Jamie had a strange realization.
We probably drive past more people during our daily commute than we've sold Flip Picks to.
There are millions of guitar players around the world.
We've barely introduced ourselves.
That's not discouraging.
It's exciting.
It reminds us that building a business isn't a sprint.
It's a long conversation.
One customer.
One song.
One story at a time.
Looking Back
Every assumption we let go of taught us something better.
We learned that customers care deeply about craftsmanship.
That quality matters.
That accessibility can emerge in ways you never anticipated.
That building a company is far harder—and far more rewarding—than building a product.
And perhaps most importantly...
We learned that being wrong isn't something to fear.
It's one of the fastest ways to learn.
Looking back, I don't think we built Flip Pick because we always had the right answers.
I think we built it because we were willing to let go of the wrong ones.
Thanks for reading.
The Founder Journal is our ongoing record of what we're learning while building PFV Innovations. We don't have all the answers, but we believe there is value in sharing the journey honestly. If you're building something of your own—whether it's a business, a song, a piece of art, or simply a better version of yourself—we hope you'll keep going. So will we.
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