Project management & product realization
A career helping customers move ideas and needs toward products. Connecting the people, decisions, engineering, and production work.
Bringing products to lifePractical AI. Real product development, engineering, and manufacturing experience.
ADVANCE NOW / IDEAS WORTH EXPLORING
More people creating.
More ideas moving forward.
Helping inventors and entrepreneurs use AI to ask better questions, explore what’s possible, and find a practical path for their ideas.
EXPERIENCE SHARED. POSSIBILITIES OPENED.ADVANCE NOW / MIKE MAIER
A largely free resource for inventorsA career of bringing products to lifeAI put to practical use
AI / MY FOCUS OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS
AI is opening doors.
I want to help you use it.
I’ve spent the past two years learning AI by using it, coding with it, and building real systems.
Project management. Sales outreach. Time tracking. Invoicing. Those builds have taught me much more than how to ask a chatbot a question: how to give it context, divide a job into useful pieces, test what it produces, and turn it into something that works.
That is the experience I want to share with inventors, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, and engineering teams. AI can make more of the research, planning, analysis, and development work accessible—especially when someone helps you get beyond the first answer.
Go deeper into practical AI01 / WHY I’M DOING THIS
Good ideas should have
a better chance.
I believe AI can help more people create, solve problems, and do things that once felt out of reach.
I’m Mike Maier. At this point in my career, what excites me most is helping inventors and entrepreneurs move their ideas forward.
I’ve spent much of my working life managing projects and helping customers bring products to fruition. I’ve also seen how difficult and expensive that journey can become for someone doing it for the first time.
AI gives us a chance to make more of the knowledge, research, and early work accessible. I want to help people use it well—and put what I’ve learned to good use.
My experience and why I’m sharing it02 / AN CREATION
An idea. A place to start.
Help finding the next step.
A largely free toolkit for inventors and entrepreneurs, built around AI and a project manager’s way of thinking.
Should you form a company? What should you ask about patents or liability? How might you fund the next stage? What needs to be designed, tested, or learned before you spend more?
AN Creation is an office that brings those questions into one project, alongside conversations, documents, and next steps. The goal is to help you use AI beyond quick, surface-level answers.
You can use the resource without hiring me. It is a way to share useful knowledge and help more people explore what they could make.
About AN Creation03 / HOW IT HELPS
You don’t have to know
all the questions yet.
- 01
Explain the idea
Start in your own words. Explore who it could help, what it needs to do, and what you still need to learn.
- 02
Investigate the possibilities
Use AI with context and follow-up questions. Compare options, examine sources, and prepare questions for people with specialist knowledge.
- 03
Give the work a direction
Keep the decisions and next steps together. Work out what the next prototype, conversation, or piece of research needs to prove.
04 / THE EXPERIENCE I BRING
A lot of different work.
A connected perspective.
Manufacturing & operations
Plant production leadership, maintenance and setup groups, injection molding, cycle and setup reduction, and Lean Six Sigma problem solving.
Manufacturing experienceEngineering & automation
Parts, molds, secondary assembly devices, Cartesian robots, test equipment, press evaluations, cooling systems, and infrastructure.
Engineering experienceGovernment & military products
Military-related plastic products, packaging, specialized tool storage, testing, and approval work, following earlier service in the Air Force.
Military product experiencePractical AI & helping people learn
Two years of intensive AI use and development. Helping people provide context, drill into questions, check the answers, and use what they learn.
Working with AISoftware & everyday systems
Hands-on development of project management, sales outreach, time tracking, and invoicing systems, alongside a long history of using computers to improve work.
Systems experience05 / KNOWLEDGE TO SHARE
I don’t have every answer.
I can help you find a direction.
The questions change. Knowing how to investigate them is a skill worth sharing.
My experience has introduced me to the technical and business questions around product development. It helps me recognize what deserves a closer look and when someone with a particular specialty should be involved.
The goal is not to replace every professional with an AI answer. It is to help you learn more, prepare better, and use your time and money thoughtfully.
My personal consulting is a premium service, and it will not be the right fit for every budget. If money is tight, start with AN Creation—that is why I’m making these tools available. If you want my direct involvement and have the budget for it, we can discuss an engagement.
Working directly with meAI + ENGINEERING JUDGMENT
New tools.
Real-world understanding.
AI can help you explore the work. Experience helps you recognize what makes sense.
When we discuss a molded part, a fixture, a manufacturing process, or a new business system, the details matter. The right question comes from understanding what the work is supposed to accomplish.
My background helps connect AI’s output to physical requirements, production realities, people, and the next decision. The aim is to make you more capable—not leave you dependent on an answer you cannot evaluate.
HOW I PUT AI TO WORK
An organized team.
A project that keeps its knowledge.
The opportunity goes beyond a smarter chat.
My work has evolved toward AI roles with defined responsibilities, shared project records, and written procedures. Temporary helpers take on contained assignments; continuing roles review the results and maintain the project’s context.
That approach grew out of working through real AI limitations—and recognizing familiar lessons from manufacturing leadership and project management.
How my AI approach developedWHERE TO BEGIN
Let’s see where
your idea could go.
Start with the resource, learn about the approach, or get in touch. You don’t need a finished plan to begin exploring.