Experience turning ideas into products, and products into businesses.
Think Outside LLC provides advisory, board advisory and fractional executive support to founders, CEOs, investors and leadership teams facing important product, technology, manufacturing and growth decisions.
John Tang has spent more than four decades building hardware, from early GPS and the Apple Newton to the Stowaway folding keyboard, first-generation iPhone accessories, Sonos audio and Butterfly Network medical imaging. He has worked as a hands-on engineer, an executive and a CEO, so he can take on a hard technical problem, a manufacturing ramp in Asia, or a board-level strategy question. He has spent more than 30 years working with manufacturing partners across Asia, from Foxconn, Inventec, Foxlink and Luxshare to small, specialized suppliers, bridging product companies and their supply chains.
How I help
Product & Technology Strategy
Feasibility, architecture and the path from concept to high-volume production.
Engineering & Organizational Leadership
Building, restructuring and scaling product teams.
Manufacturing & Global Supply Chain
Decades of work with Asian OEM, ODM and JDM partners, from Foxconn, Inventec, Foxlink and Luxshare to specialized suppliers: sourcing, tooling, cost, quality and production ramp.
Business & Executive Strategy
Fundraising, finance, channel, operations and executive decisions.
Problem Solving & Execution
When the problem isn’t clearly defined yet: find the real constraints and the riskiest assumptions, then move from discussion to evidence.
Apple · Sonos · Palm · Amazon Lab126 · Butterfly Network · HP · Trimble
Manufacturing partners: Foxconn · Inventec · Foxlink · Luxshare
3M+
Stowaway keyboards shipped
$100M+
Think Outside revenue
~50
U.S. patents
MoMA · SFMOMA
Products in permanent collections
Selected work
Stowaway keyboard
Apple eMate 300
Palm Touchstone
Butterfly iQ
COMING SOON
IGINEER
A Life Spent Making Things
John’s memoir begins with learning to build and becoming an engineer, then follows forty years of product development, leaps of faith and extraordinary experiences, from early GPS and the Apple Newton to the Stowaway keyboard, the first iPhone, Sonos and Butterfly Network.
Want to know when it’s published? Send a note and you’ll be among the first to hear.
Facing a product, manufacturing or growth decision?
Let’s talk.
