From a 3D-printed idea in September 2022 to the Next Generation Flip Pick System in September 2026, every version taught us something.
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.
Sometimes you don't realize how far you've come until you put everything in one place.
A few days ago, we laid every major version of Flip Pick we could find across a table.
The first crude prototypes. Ideas that lasted a few days. Ideas that lasted a few months. 3D-printed parts. Different straps. Different pick shapes. Different materials. Different packaging. Products we sold. Products we stopped selling.
Things we were once incredibly proud of that now make us think:
Wow. We've learned a lot.
And finally, at the far end of the table, the Next Generation Flip Pick System we're preparing to put into players' hands today.
Four years of work.
All sitting within a few feet of each other.
Looking at that table made something very clear to us. We didn't spend four years simply developing a guitar pick.
Without really realizing it, we were learning how to become a product development company.
And there is a big difference.
It Started With One Annoying Problem
The story begins in September 2022. Like a lot of things we've built, Flip Pick didn't begin with a business plan.
It began with frustration.
I had been playing guitar and thinking about songs that move between fingerstyle playing and flatpicking. One song that had always highlighted the problem for me was Metallica's “Nothing Else Matters.”
The beautiful fingerpicked sections feel completely different from the heavier strummed portions. I wanted both.
But that always created the same question:
What do you do with the pick when you don't need it?
Tuck it into your palm? Hold it between your fingers? Put it down? Reach for another one? Drop it?
None of those felt natural to me.
Around the same time, Jamie and I had watched the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert, and music was very much on my mind. I had also recently gotten into 3D printing. Those things collided.
I remember thinking:
What if the pick could just stay attached to my hand?
Not permanently stuck in playing position. Not a traditional thumb pick. Something that could move. Something I could use when I wanted it and move out of the way when I didn't.
I opened Blender and started designing. That same day, I printed the first prototype. It was ugly. It was crude. It was uncomfortable.
And it proved something important.
The idea could work. That was enough.
The First Prototype Wasn't a Product
There is a temptation when you invent something to fall in love with the first version that works. I definitely understood that temptation.
When an object exists only in your head and then suddenly exists in your hand, it feels miraculous. You don't immediately see everything that's wrong with it. You see what became possible. Jamie knew it needed to be better.
Our first versions were entirely 3D printed. We experimented with rings. Posts. Caps.
Different ways of retaining the pick. Different orientations. Different materials.
Some versions looked almost nothing like the Flip Pick we sell today. Others clearly contain the DNA of the current design.
That's one of the things we love about the photograph. If you look from left to right, you can actually watch the idea figuring itself out. At first, we were solving one mechanical question at a time.
Can we keep the pick attached?
Then:
Can it rotate?
Then:
Can the player still fingerpick?
Then:
Can we make it comfortable?
Then:
Can we change picks?
Then:
Can we make something people would actually want to wear?
Those aren't the same problem. Each answer created another question.
Inventing Something Is Mostly Discovering What Doesn't Work
This is one of the things we wish people talked about more. The finished product gets photographed. The failed versions usually disappear into drawers. But most product development happens in those drawers.
We tried things that seemed brilliant and weren't. We made parts that worked mechanically but felt terrible. We made versions that were too bulky. Too rigid. Too complicated. Too difficult to manufacture. Sometimes we solved one problem and accidentally created two more.
And every once in a while we'd get something right.
A better pivot point. A better strap. A better shape. A better way for the pick to attach.
The lesson wasn't that we needed to be brilliant every time. The lesson was that we needed to keep learning faster than we were failing.
That became one of the principles behind PFV Innovations long before we had words for it:
Not knowing how to do something isn't a reason to stop.
It's the next thing to learn.
Then We Had to Learn Patents
We weren't patent attorneys. That didn't make intellectual property optional.
As Flip Pick became more refined, we realized we needed to understand what we had created and whether it could be protected.
So we learned. With the help of an attorney, we filed a provisional patent in early 2023, then our first non-provisional patent application in 2024.
Later, as the system evolved further, we filed additional patent work to cover improvements and the broader design.
That process taught us another side of product development. A product isn't just CAD files and physical parts. It's intellectual property. Documentation. Drawings. Claims. Prior art. Manufacturing methods. Branding.
Decisions you may need to defend years after you make them. We had to start thinking beyond the object in our hands. We were building an asset.
Then We Had to Learn Branding
Look at the photograph again and you'll see another evolution happening at the same time.
The product was changing. So was the way we presented it. Early Flip Pick had a very homemade personality. Some of that was intentional. Some of it was because we were doing almost everything ourselves.
We experimented with logos. Colors. Cards. Bags. Boxes. Instructions. Taglines.
We leaned hard into the playful nature of the product.
At one point, “Give Your Pick the Finger” became a prominent part of the presentation.
We still have affection for those early versions. They were us figuring out what Flip Pick sounded like as a brand. But we were also learning that clever branding cannot substitute for clarity.
Someone seeing Flip Pick for the first time has to understand it quickly. What is it? Why does it exist? How do I wear it? How do I use it? Why would I want one?
Those questions eventually became more important than being clever.
That's another lesson visible on the table. The farther you move to the right, the less the packaging has to shout. The product becomes easier to understand.
Then We Did Something Much Scarier Than Prototyping
We sold it. We made our first version available in early 2023. We learned very quickly it needed A LOT of work. So we went back to the drawing board.
In September 2025, roughly three years after the first prototype, the final Flip Pick concept finally entered the market. It was a drastic imporvement on the first version, but even so, before we enjoyed mass sales most of our feedback had come from people who knew us, testers, friends, musicians we could speak with directly.
Selling at scale changes everything. A stranger gives you money. Then they expect the thing you built to work.
That first order from someone we didn't know was incredibly exciting. Then another came. And another.
We increased advertising. Sales grew. Eventually, more than a thousand players had purchased Flip Pick. That was validation we couldn't manufacture for ourselves.
The concept wasn't merely interesting to us anymore. Real guitarists saw the problem too.
They started telling us why they were using it. Some wanted easier transitions between fingerpicking and strumming. Some were tired of dropping picks. Some simply liked having the pick available without thinking about it.
And then we started hearing from musicians dealing with arthritis, injuries, stroke recovery, age-related grip changes and other challenges.
Those messages changed us.
Flip Pick had started as a way to move between playing techniques. But players were showing us that the bigger idea was removing barriers between people and music.
That eventually became the foundation of our mission:
Remove barriers. Make music. Share the joy.
Success Also Showed Us Everything That Was Wrong
This is where the story gets less comfortable.
Customers liked the idea. That did not mean the product was good enough yet.
The RAVEN-style pick shape was difficult for us to manufacture consistently at our scale.
We were working with small quantities. We were experimenting with materials. We were trying to develop finishing processes. And sometimes the edges simply weren't good enough.
Some picks broke. Some customers weren't happy. One email in particular came at a difficult moment.
A customer was angry about the quality of the pick edges he had received. It would have been easy to become defensive. We had been working incredibly hard. We knew how much effort had gone into those picks. We knew how many problems we had already solved. None of that mattered. He was right.
So we told him he was right.
We explained what we were working on. We offered to send him hand-finished replacements and some prototype materials we'd been testing.
Something interesting happened.
His tone changed. He told us he was rooting for us. He still stays in touch.
That experience has stuck with us because it taught us something important about building products.
Customer complaints are not attacks on your vision.
Sometimes they are the clearest information you have about the gap between your vision and your execution.
We Started Telling People to Wait
There came a point when we knew a better version was coming.
And that created an uncomfortable business decision. Do we keep pushing the existing product because we have inventory? Or tell customers something better is on the way?
We chose the second option. We paused most of our advertising. In some cases, we suggested people wait.
Financially, that wasn't especially fun. We had already invested heavily. Orders slowed dramatically.
But once we knew what the product could be, continuing to push something we no longer considered our best work didn't feel right.
That period taught us that product development sometimes means being willing to make today's numbers worse to make tomorrow's company better.
Then We Found People Who Knew Things We Didn't
One of the most important parts of this journey has been learning when to stop trying to do everything ourselves.
Our relationship with Delmar Products and D'Andrea USA started because we were looking for better material.
Eventually it became something much bigger.
We met in person with the great folks at Delmar at NAMM in January 2026.
We showed them Flip Pick. We talked about where we'd been. What had worked. What hadn't. Where we wanted to go.
And they started teaching us. Not just about manufacturing picks. About the guitar-pick industry.
Materials. Thickness conventions. Printing. Finishing. Packaging. Retail. Distribution. Things that would have taken us years to discover ourselves.
Their advice wasn't always glamorous. Sometimes it was:
Print less. Simplify this. Change that. Make the packaging easier to understand. Think about how a retailer sees it.
Those conversations helped change the way we looked at the product. We were no longer designing something only for ourselves or our website.
We were designing something that needed to survive manufacturing, shipping, retail display, customer expectations and repeat purchase.
That's product development.
Then We Held the Pick We Had Been Trying to Make for Four Years
The first truly finished D'Andrea samples arrived while Jamie and I were away from home because of a family emergency.
Our son sent us photographs. They looked great. But photographs couldn't tell us what we really wanted to know.
How did the edges feel? How did the material flex? How smooth was the finish? What happened under real playing pressure?
When we eventually got home and held them, the difference was immediate.
Smooth edges. Consistent finish. Premium material. Flexibility. Professional polishing. The shape we'd spent years refining.
For the first time, the physical quality matched what we had always imagined Flip Pick should be.
That was emotional. Not because someone had made our product prettier. Because it closed a gap we'd been painfully aware of. The idea had finally caught up with the execution.
The Strap Changed Too
The pick gets most of the attention because it's the part that touches the strings.
But the FlexBand has evolved right alongside it.
We've changed its shape. Material. Softness. Fit. Post design. Retention. Comfort. Every piece affects the player experience.
The current softer FlexBand didn't happen because we decided the old one was bad. It happened because players taught us what better could feel like.
That's a recurring theme in the photograph. Almost nothing changed because we simply got bored with the old version.
It changed because we learned something.
Packaging Turned Out to Be Product Development Too
The boxes and bags on the table might look secondary.
They aren't. We learned that packaging has to do several jobs at once.
Protect the product. Explain the product. Show the product. Fit retail fixtures. Ship efficiently. Hold instructions. Look credible online. Look credible hanging in a music store.
And, ideally, not cost more than the thing inside it.
That last part taught us plenty.
At one point, we were hand assembling window boxes while trying to keep up with orders. The packaging looked good. The economics did not.
We were working constantly and barely breaking even on some orders. That forced another rethink.
Today we've moved toward compact retail pouches that are easier to manufacture, ship, display and fulfill.
They're not simply different packaging.
They're evidence that we're learning to design the entire product system, not just the piece of plastic someone plays guitar with.
Then Flip Pick Became More Than the Physical Product
Something else happened in 2026.
We built the Flip Pick Companion app. At first, the goal was straightforward. Help customers set up and use Flip Pick.
Then we started asking the same question we'd asked about the physical product:
What other barriers can we remove?
The app grew to include practice tools, a tuner, metronome, chord and scale resources, song recommendations, songwriting tools and creative features.
And we decided to make it free.
No subscription. No account. No paywall required to access the useful stuff.
That decision helped clarify something for us. PFV Innovations isn't really in the business of selling pieces of plastic.
We build tools that help people make music. Sometimes that tool is physical. Sometimes it's digital.
The medium isn't the mission.
Somewhere Along the Way, We Became a Product Development Company
This is probably the biggest realization we had while looking at everything on that table.
When we started, neither of us would have described PFV Innovations as a product development company. We were two people with an idea.
But consider what it took to move from the left side of that photograph to the right.
We had to learn:
Industrial design. 3D modeling. Rapid prototyping. Materials. Injection molding. CNC machining. Print production. Packaging. Patents. Trademarks. Ecommerce. Fulfillment. Customer service. Advertising. Photography. Video. Mobile app development. Retail pricing. Wholesale margins. Distribution. Media relations.
And probably twenty other things we're forgetting.
We're certainly not experts in all of them. That's actually part of the lesson.
A product development company doesn't have to know everything. It has to know how to identify the next problem, learn enough to move forward, and eventually find people who know more than you do.
That is what the four years on this table represent.
Customers Built Part of This Too
There's another reason we don't think of the photograph as simply our achievement.
Thousands of decisions represented on that table came from other people.
Customers who told us the strap needed to feel different. Players who wanted different gauges. People who broke picks. People who loved them. People who hated something about them. People who emailed us photographs. People who explained how they used Flip Pick in ways we'd never considered. People who reordered. People who requested replacements. People who recommended it to friends.
Even the uncomfortable feedback belongs in this story. Especially the uncomfortable feedback.
We could have built Flip Pick alone. We could not have built this version alone.
The Company Changed Because the Product Forced It To
The current Flip Pick System is dramatically different from the first prototype.
So is PFV Innovations. Today we have a defined product family.
A Starter Pack. Interchangeable RAVEN Wing Pick refills. Replacement FlexBands. Retail-ready packaging. A free Companion app. Media resources. Retail infrastructure. Creator relationships. Independent-store conversations. An accessibility initiative. A growing library of educational resources.
And relationships with people in the music-products industry whom we couldn't have imagined knowing when this started.
We're still a tiny company. It's still Jamie and me doing an enormous amount ourselves. We don't suddenly have everything figured out.
But we are not the same company that printed that first prototype in 2022. The evidence is sitting right there on the table.
The Right Side of the Table Isn't the Finish Line
This may be the most important point.
It's tempting to look at the photograph and think the object on the far right is the finished product.
Maybe it is. For now.
But history suggests we should be careful saying that. Every version on that table was once our newest version. Every one represented our best understanding at the time. And almost every one eventually taught us how to build something better.
That's not discouraging. We think it's exciting. Because the goal was never to create something and defend it forever.
The goal is to keep making useful things better.
What Four Years Taught Us
If there's one lesson we would give someone staring at the first crude prototype of their own idea, it would be this:
Don't confuse version one with the idea itself.
Your first attempt can be terrible. The idea can still be good. Your first packaging can be wrong. Your pricing can be wrong. Your manufacturing process can be wrong. Your assumptions can be wrong. Customers can point out things you don't want to hear.
None of those things automatically mean you should quit.
They mean you have information. The question is what you do with it.
Four years ago, Flip Pick was an awkward 3D-printed answer to a personal guitar-playing problem.
Today it's a professionally manufactured system being prepared for broader retail distribution, supported by a free app, built around a mission much larger than the original problem.
We didn't get here because the first idea was perfect. We got here because we kept being willing to change it.
Four Years Later
September 2022. September 2026.
Left side of the table. Right side of the table.
The distance is measured in inches. It took us four years to cross it.
And when we look at all those versions lined up together, we don't see a collection of failed prototypes.
We see lessons. Each one got us to the next. Each mistake narrowed the gap between what Flip Pick was and what we believed it could become.
We're proud of the product sitting at the end of that table.
But we're even more proud of what it took to get there. Because somewhere along the way, the question changed.
It started with: “Can we invent this?”
Then it became: “Can we make it good?”
Then: “Can we make it consistently?”
Then: “Can we build a real business around it?”
And now we're beginning to ask a much bigger question:
“What else can we build that removes barriers between people and making music?”
We don't know all the answers yet. Four years ago, we didn't know the answers either. We just started building. And we'll keep building.
Remove barriers. Make music. Share the joy.
—Tim & Jamie
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, entrepreneur, inventor or simply someone with an idea you can't stop thinking about, we hope these stories encourage you to keep going.
So will we.
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