Entrepreneur • Investor • Speaker
Kevin Mako builds businesses—and the people behind them.
A Canadian entrepreneur who founded, scaled and sold MAKO Invent after helping more than 1,500 hardware founders bring physical products to market. Today Kevin advises select founders, invests in businesses and property, lectures, hosts The Product Startup Podcast, and speaks about what it really takes to build.
1,500+
Hardware founders advised
30+
Business and design awards
200+
Podcast episodes
Since 1999
Building and investing
Built in the real world
From a one-person startup to an international acquisition.
Kevin founded MAKO Invent in 1999 and grew it into North America’s leading product development firm focused on hardware startups. After more than two decades building teams, systems and products, the company was acquired by TriMech in 2024.
That experience now shapes everything he does: advising founders, teaching commercialization at Toronto Metropolitan University, investing his own capital, developing property, and sharing candid lessons through keynotes and The Product Startup Podcast.
Where Kevin spends his time
Advise & Build
Direct, practical guidance for inventors, hardware startups and product companies—delivered exclusively through Product Startup.
Speak & Teach
Keynotes, founder talks and university lectures on hardware entrepreneurship, product commercialization, growth and building durable companies.
Invest & Develop
Long-term investments in small businesses, private credit, rural land and property projects through the Mako family of companies.
Building a hardware product or scaling a product company?
Kevin’s consulting and advisory work for physical-product founders is handled through Product Startup, where you’ll find the services, podcast and strategy-call request form.
Keynotes & guest speaking
Hard-earned lessons for founders, builders and leaders.
Kevin brings practical stories, clear frameworks and the occasional scar tissue from more than 25 years in hardware and entrepreneurship.
- Turning a physical-product idea into a real business
- Scaling a specialist firm without losing its edge
- Funding, manufacturing and go-to-market realities
- Building a company that can eventually be acquired
Selected recognition
A few highlights from more than 30 business, growth and design awards.
Business is only part of the story.
Away from work, Kevin is a family man, private pilot, hockey player, bass fisherman and enthusiastic host. Curiosity, long-term thinking and bringing good people together run through all of it.