Dan Harden – Wild Business Growth Podcast #160: Founder, CEO, and Principal Designer of Whipsaw

What does it take to design thousands of products for top companies? It all starts with a little curiosity and creativity. This week’s Wild Business Growth Podcast guest, Dan Harden, will fill you in on the rest from there. Dan is the Founder, CEO, and Principal Designer of Whipsaw. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and your other favorite podcast platforms.

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Wild Business Growth Podcast Summary

Episode 160: Dan Harden – Founder, CEO, and Principal Designer of Whipsaw

Dan Harden, the Founder, CEO, and Principal Designer of Whipsaw, joins the show to share his journey from endlessly curious kid to starting the acclaimed product design company that’s brought over 1,000 products to market for Google, Nike, Uber, and other top companies. Hear how to differentiate your company, create balanced tension, find the “It Factor” in products, what Dan learned from working with Steve Jobs, and what excites him about biomimicry. This episode covers everything from industrial design to macro-engineering. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• When did Dan know he could start a whole design firm
• What is Balanced Tension
• Was Dan a tinkerer as a kid
• What is Whipsaw’s hook and character that’s helped it have so much success over the past few decades
• Passing “The Steve Jobs Test”
• What is Three-Minute Precognition
• How can companies identify opportunities to create gifts
• What is Dan’s favorite painting of all time

Connect with Dan at Whipsaw.com and on Instagram at @WhipsawDesign and @DanHardenDesign.

Enjoy the shoooooow! Check out the show notes below for much more detail.

Show Notes

• Intro & Product Design
  • [0:22] Love you, Dana!
  • [1:16] Email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast and use it as a business-building tool
  • [1:28] Connect with Dan at Whipsaw.com and on Instagram at @WhipsawDesign and @DanHardenDesign
  • [3:38] Google Trekker
  • [3:56] Tile
  • [4:08] Gerry Hays on Episode #82 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast
  • [5:30] Technology (Tech)
  • [7:20] Tonal
  • [7:37] Prototype
  • [8:39] Accountant, Salesman
  • [9:14] Gold Star for “Multiplicity”
  • [9:30] What’s the “It Factor” that products have when Dan wants to work on them
  • [10:36] Aly Orady, Digital Weights
  • [11:15] Brita Stream Water Purifiers, Clorox
  • [11:49] Lao Tzu
  • [14:47] Consultant
  • [15:07] Wharton, Stanford, Data
• The Whipsaw Story & How to Design Innovative Products
  • [16:02] When did Dan know he could start a whole design firm
  • [16:12] Richardson Smith, Shoutout Ohio!
  • [16:38] Internship
  • [16:55] Frogdesign (Frog)
  • [17:49] The Rolodex of the Gods
  • [17:54] Dreyfuss (Henry Dreyfuss Associates)
  • [18:08] Cisco, Creative Labs, General Dynamics
  • [18:50] Network
  • [18:57] How did Dan plan to make Whipsaw stand out from other design firms
  • [20:05] Engineer, Marketing, CEO (Chief Executive Officer)
  • [21:39] Client
  • [22:22] Culture
  • [24:45] Reciprocity!
  • [25:17] Industrial Design
  • [25:25] Content
  • [26:09] Invoke
  • [26:26] Dayton, OH, Louisville, KY, Des Moines, IA
  • [27:43] Wright Brothers
  • [27:51] What is Balanced Tension
  • [30:08] Mercedes-Benz Door Sound
  • [31:28] Acer Aspire, Stan Shih
  • [36:01] What is Whipsaw’s hook and character that’s helped it have so much success over the past few decades
  • [36:39] Podcast
  • [37:31] Brand
  • [37:42] Everything goes back to Ohio
  • [38:00] Oh come on, Dan!
  • [38:54] Differentiation
  • [40:18] ADHD
  • [42:02] Was Dan a tinkerer as a kid
  • [42:57] Save time with your high-quality podcast. Email me at to bring your podcast to life and use it as a business-building tool

• Inspiration & Creativity: People, Hobbies, and Resources
  • [44:29] Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison
  • [44:39] What’s a story Dan can share about Steve Jobs
  • [44:53] Apple
  • [45:08] NeXT Computer, Logitech, AT&T
  • [45:21] Hewlett-Packard (HP)
  • [46:40] The Roast From Steve Jobs
  • [48:14] AT&T Answering Machine
  • [49:20] Passing “The Steve Jobs Test”
  • [49:39] Is there a lesson Dan learned from Steve Jobs he put directly into his work
  • [50:48] Physics, Psychology
  • [52:12] Elon Musk
  • [52:55] Richard Branson
  • [53:23] Wright Flyer
  • [53:40] “Out of this world” surreal
  • [54:10] What can you do to be and stay creative
  • [54:23] Abstract Expressionism
  • [56:32] Architecture, Macro-Engineering
  • [56:50] Biomimicry
  • [57:03] Koniku “Electronic Nose”
  • [57:49] Biology
  • [57:58] Quantum Physics
  • [58:00] Until the End of Time by Brian Greene
• Wild Business Shoutout of the Week
  • [59:03] Creative Marketing
  • [59:12] LEGO
  • [1:00:12] Braille Bricks
  • [1:01:21] Corporations
  • [1:02:41] How can companies identify opportunities to create gifts
  • [1:03:10] Skunkworks
  • [1:03:29] R&D (Research & Development), Revenue
  • [1:05:43] SKU Count (Stock Keeping Unit)
  • [1:06:18] Xerox

• The Unusual: Pet Peeves, Quirks, and Weird Talents
  • [1:06:57] What are Dan’s weird talents
  • [1:07:25] Millimeter
  • [1:07:42] Metric System
  • [1:08:32] Three-Minute Precognition
  • [1:09:14] U.S. 101
  • [1:09:32] What are Dan’s quirks
  • [1:10:02] Picky Goofy
  • [1:10:22] 1960s & Early 70s Italian Sports Cars
  • [1:12:39] CAD (Computer-Aided Design)
  • [1:14:38] Paula Scher on Episode #110 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast
  • [1:16:00] Nike, BMW
  • [1:16:21] Software
  • [1:16:50] Bottom Line
  • [1:17:06] What’s a pet peeve Dan has
• Rapid-Fire Q&A
  • [1:17:50] What trend within biomimicry really excites Dan
  • [1:18:16] DNA, CRISPR, The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
  • [1:19:38] Chaos Theory
  • [1:19:54] Ai (Artificial Intelligence)
  • [1:20:58] Florence, Italy, Leonardo da Vinci
  • [1:21:19] Michelangelo, Medicis, Renaissance Men
  • [1:22:18] Venus by Boticelli, Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci
  • [1:22:52] Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Édouard Manet
  • [1:23:01] Georges Seurat, Pointillism
  • [1:23:20] Vincent van Gogh
  • [1:23:40] New York School of Abstract Expressionists
  • [1:24:06] Mark Rothko
  • [1:25:04] Connect with Dan at Whipsaw.com and on Instagram at @WhipsawDesign and @DanHardenDesign
  • [1:25:54] Awww thank you, Dan!
  • [1:26:28] What are Dan’s Final Thoughts
  • [1:27:26] Follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast and tell a friend about the podcast
  • [1:27:38] Check out the Wild Business Growth Podcast on GoodPods, where you can see what your favorite people are listening to
  • [1:27:41] Connect with me on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn at @MaxBranstetter
  • [1:27:43] Save time with your high-quality podcast. Email me at to bring your podcast to life and use it as a business-building tool
  • Theme music: Freestyle Percussion Magik – “Jungle Tribe” – provided by Jamendo

What is the Wild Business Growth Podcast?

Wild ideas. Wild growth. Every Wednesday morning a new entrepreneur or innovator joins the Wild Business Growth Podcast to share the crazy creative and unusual ways they grew their business, and provides tips for you to do it, too. Hear the woman who became the voice of Siri, the man who’s reinventing the sandcastle, how GaryVee’s partners are turning the wine world upside down, and more wild stories. Hosted by Max Branstetter (that’s me), Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting.

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Thanks for listening to Dan Harden on the Wild Business Growth Podcast. To hear more Wild stories like this one every Wednesday morning, follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast and tell a friend about it. Until next time, Let your business Run Wild…and Bring on the Bongos!!