From Idea to Physical Good - Portable Beer Die Table
There's a point where you need to stop reading books. You just need to do it.
I reached this point a couple years ago and after 2 years of prototyping, my physical products now live. I thought I’d share how I got here in case it helps someone out with developing their idea to a physical good.
IDEA:
Back in 2017 I had an idea to create a portable beer die table. Beer die is in my opinion the most fun drinking game there is. Usually you play on a 4’x8’ sheet of plywood that’s about 3’ off the ground. It’s easy to play in college cause most people have a yard they can leave the table on. I had recently moved to a city where yards didn’t exist but public parks did and I thought if I could shrink a 4’x8’x3’ table to fit in the trunk of a Prius, I’d be on to something.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT:
V1. Not sure where to start, I sketched up some designs and contacted a welder through Craigslist to see what it would cost to develop. Realizing welders were very expensive I opted to learn how to weld by myself at a local shop to bring my initial design to life. The first table was made of a steel subframe and wood, and transported with a big ass bag I found on Amazon. After trying to carry it 1/2 mile to a park on the weekend I realized it was waaaay to heavy and I had to come up with another design.
V2. In addition to being super heavy, the first design wasn’t very stable either. I then stumbled onto a product development method that would lead me to the promised land. I realized I could find an existing product, modify it slightly to suit my needs, and iterate until I had something I was proud of. I picked a plastic folding table to start, ripped off the plastic top, and fastened two sheets of plywood to it. This table worked, but it was only 6’ long. Nobody whose serious about beer die would want to play on anything shorter than 8’, it’s just not the same game.
V3. This led me to separate the product into components, there was the table top, the legs, and the carrying mechanism to transport it. First I started with the table top since it was the most important component. I split the table top into thirds and after searching the internet for weeks, found the perfect pair of hinges that would allow the table top to fold up onto itself. Next I moved onto the legs. I needed something strong, lightweight, and something that could fold into a compact position. I realized camping tent poles were my solution. With some fasteners and angles I devised a system where the legs were rounded just like a camping tent with the wooden table top in the ground position, except the whole thing was flipped 180 degrees. This worked! But, the table top wasn’t straight, the ends bent up making the table into a “U”. I messed around with some aluminum sliding bars that were inlaid into the bottom of the table top to try and keep it straight but realized this would fail when taken to the real world. I wanted to keep the camping pole idea, and soon found Alibaba. I looked through Alibaba’s complete camping section of thousands of items until I found a camping stool made from the same aluminum tent pole material that could be used as the legs when it unfolded into an “X”. I negotiated with the manufacturer and had them make me some samples to the dimensions I needed. They sent me the samples and I tested out the table in my living room and shockingly they worked! The table stood upright and was flat! Last, I moved onto the bag. Sticking with the same idea, I found a carrying mechanism online that looked it would work with my table. After modifying it slightly with some table to hold the collapsed legs, I found a seamstress on craigslist to sew my prototype bag together. Happy with how it came out, I drew the design in a PDF editor, found a bag manufacturer on Alibaba, and sent them my design. A month later they arrived in the mail, turns out they did not quite understand my sketch and added an extra pocket. This surprisingly worked better than my design. After a couple more iterations on the bag design and a couple more samples, my product was close to ready I thought. It fit in the back of a Prius, I could easily take it to a park and play beer die with friends, and I could even check it on an airplane. It was good, but not great. I was happy with the design, but not completely proud of it. The issue was it wasn’t quite sturdy enough, if you leaned on it, it could fall over. I shelved this design for some time and then it came to me one morning.
V4. I woke up and realized what I needed to do. The perfect leg solution was right in front of me. Keyboard stands! I picked 2 up from Guitar Center and tested them out. Table was solid! Lean on it and it’s not going anywhere. They were collapsible and with some modifications to the bag it could be a solid product. I then found another manufacturer on Alibaba to make my table top design, got some samples and was very happy. I finally had a product I was proud of.
My motivation for continuing to develop the table into something I was proud of came from an episode of How I Built This with James Dyson where he talked about his design and iteration process. I highly recommend you checking it out if you’re developing a product yourself. If you’re interested in seeing the product development pictures check them out here, joefitzpatrick.substack.com.
