Don Rickert Design

Don Rickert Research & Design

Don Rickert Research & Design, a DBA for Wiederholt & Rickert Partners, LLC, is a full-service multi-disciplinary design research and product design firm with TWO lines of business. It is essential that you understand this. We are located in Atlanta, GA.

Consulting Services: Learn More...

Focus is on solving your most challenging product development problems through observation, research. Don Rickert Research & Design Consulting provides New Product Development (NPD) services to companies that want to create a successful new and/or breakthrough product (or fix a flawed or outmoded existing product). Services include: Usability, User Experience, Design, Product Development and Ethnography.

Our Own Product Development (Primarily Ground-Breaking Musical Instruments): Learn more...

Doing business under the name Don Rickert Design(tm), we invent, design, produce and sell innovative musical instruments under two primary brand names:

1. Don Rickert Design: Mostly electric and electronic musical instruments, but also some cutting-edge modern acoustic instruments, all designed by Dr. Don Rickert or in collaboration with other top musical instrument designers.
2. Old Mill Musical Instruments: Mostly acoustic instruments of a more "traditional" (but cutting-edge) type, all designed by Dr. Don Rickert or in collaboration with other top musical instrument designers.

Don Rickert Design operates two primary online stores.

1. The first is The Adventurous Muse Store (motto: "Working to be the most interesting musical instrument store in the universe!"). The informative website and blog and "landing page" is The Adventurous Muse.
2. The second store, actually a department within the Adventurous Muse Store, is called Musicians' Sutlery and exists to serve the needs of 19th Century "living historians", selling authentic replicas of mid-19th Century musical instruments and accessories.

About Don Rickert Research & Design Consulting (Summary)

Due to the demands of our own in-house product development endeavors, we are no longer actively seeking consulting engagements. We continue to do all of the activities described, but primarily ONLY for our own products. We will accept consulting work from qualified customers who seek us out and are prepared to pay our our 50% (of the estimated full cost of the project) retainer prior to commencment of our work. Rates vary according to the work, but average at about $175/hour.

Musical instrument, furniture, adventure gear, rowing craft and unique niche products are our preferred consulting domains.

We are a Product Design, Design Research, Consumer Insights, UX (User Experience) and NPD (New Product Development) firm...Yes that includes Usability Evaluation, Survey Design & Analysis and Quantitative Data Analysis!

Putting it as simply and directly as possible, our primary business to date has been to help other companies like yours...

• To understand what your customers, consumers and/or users really care about
• To determine whether or not they care about what you are planning to sell them.
• To discover what it will take to bring your new product vision in line with your customers' and consumers' true needs and desires (and what are they willing to pay?)
• Design and test alternative embodiments of new products with real people before the development budget is wasted on a loser!

Basically, we do not participate in any of the common practices used to obtain free services (we have seen them all and can sniff them out in minutes...trust us on this)

• Free consulting...our billing clock starts after the first 30 minutes of discussion, regardless of the discussion channel (e.g. telephone, email, "informal" lunch chat, etc.)
• Participate in initial discussions with staff members who DO NOT have final budget authority for the potential project
• Participate in "bake-offs" or any other type of competitive proposal and bidding process
• Evaluation of projects that are already finished
• "Rubber stamp" your solution that you have already decided to pursue

Contact us NOW: don@DonRickertDesign.com

Before wasting a lot of time on finding what may appear to be the best bargain, check out what some of our clients have to say about us (see Endorsements and Raves)

Want more details about our methods, process, and so forth? We've got your details RIGHT HERE!

Don Rickert Design Getting Back to its Core Business--Design!

The adventurous business climate has prompted us to rethink our business model and tactics. While we will continue our work in the area of ground-breaking musical instrument (Adventurous Muse) and high-performance rowing craft designs, we will also be renewing our emphasis on being a full-service multi-disciplinary design research and product design firm.

Dr. Don Rickert ponders our business future...

Click on the photos for larger views.

For the observant Industrial Designers among you, that sure as heck is a genuine Eams Chair!

Details on Don Rickert Design In-House Product Development

In addition to work for clients, we invent many new Don Rickert Design^(tm) products in-house, being very careful to avoid conflicts of interest with our work for clients.

Some of our in-house New Product Development is self-funded and some involves joint ventures and limited external funding. We tend to avoid external funding, as primary ownership of our inventions is key to our business plan.

It is no secret that Don Rickert Design has unique expertise in the design, manufacture and marketing of innovative musical instruments, primarily bowed instruments (acoustic and electric violins and synthesizers with a violin-like interface). In fact, Dr. Don Rickert is internationally known in the field of musical instrument invention and innovation.

Some might find this musical instrument angle surprising. It is no different, however, than Cox Enterprises owning the world's largest used automobile buying and re-selling (to dealers) enterprise, Manheim Auctions. Nor is it different from Clabber Girl, a brand of baking powder, baking soda and corn starch, which also owns and operates the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Indy Racing League.

Would you really want a product development firm that does not invent, manufacture (through a complex network of boutique CNC, laser-cutting, carbon fiber fabrication and violin-making workshops in the U.S.) and market its own products helping you in your own product development efforts?

A key business partner in our musical instrument arena has been Fiddarci Lutherie (lutherie is the proper name for a stringed instrument making workshop), located in Helena, AL. Another critical business partner has been International Violin Company, which serves as a broker to specialty workshops in Germany, Eastern Europe and Hong Kong for the manufacture of some of the parts, such as the distinctive necks used for Don Rickert-designed violins.

The current main website/blog for Don Rickert Design musical instruments is www.AdventurousMuse.com. There are several online retail outlets where both Don Rickert Design, as well as instruments and accessories from other makers are sold. The primary online store is www.AdventurousMuseStore.com; however, we also own storefronts on Amazon.com and Etsy.com.

Other In-House Product Development Areas:

In addition to the musical instrument development described above, Don Rickert Design has considerable expertise in rowing craft design and construction. We are "sitting on" three original designs for high-performance boats intended for ocean, bay and rough river rowing until we can get the rest of our business running on a new "troubled times" business plan.

Another reason we are waiting is that high-performance rowing craft are "luxury" items and launching them now (no pun intended) would not be prudent, even if investment resources were available, which they are not.