Nobody kills a concept by taste-policing here. The gate criteria do.
Innovation projects rarely die because the idea on the napkin was bad. They die because nobody was willing to wipe their mouth with it and throw it in the bin. The Napkin Protocol makes that uncomfortable moment into a method instead of a conflict, and it isn’t new…
It had no name yet, and it still worked.
Long before “Napkin Protocol” had a name, the shape of it was already there. That’s just how good physical products actually get made. A pram our founder, Kasper, built for Ønskebørn, under the name STORK, is a textbook example when you look back at it through these four steps.
Meant getting everything on the table before a single line was drawn. 1,932 survey respondents and 50 individual user interviews, all collected before concept work even started.
Meant refusing to try to be everything to everyone in a market owned by a handful of big, established brands. Instead, a narrow, non-negotiable set of criteria: the largest lying surface on the market, folded into the most compact frame around.
Was, quite literally, a folding test. Could the concept fold into reality, physically and technically, small enough to fit in the trunk of even the smallest car? That single question produced seven patents on its own.
Took the concept from idea to a launched, production-ready spec. The result was 7 patents and a 19% market share in the first six months, in a market that usually takes years to break into.
This isn’t a story we rewrote afterward to fit the method. It’s the proof the method works, because it describes a process that was already producing results long before it had a name and four tidy headings.
Four Steps.
Napkin Dump
Get everything out of your head and onto the table, unfiltered. A broad sweep of concepts and “what if” ideas from across the organization: engineers, sales, clinicians, users. The goal is volume and honesty. Quality comes later.
The Wipe
This is the uncomfortable one. Concrete, pre-agreed criteria, technical realism, regulatory complexity, market size, strategic fit, cut what never should have survived the meeting in the first place. Nobody kills a concept here. The criteria do.
Fold Test
Can it actually fold into reality? Technically, commercially, regulatorily? Fast, cheap pre-validation per concept: rough prototypes, expert interviews, feasibility checks, an early read on production. Just enough evidence to make a confident call.
Napkin to Line
The chosen concept moves from sketch to a production-ready spec. Full engineering, DFM/DFA, supplier selection, a ramp-up plan. This is where the hands-on part of the team really takes over.
Not just a decades-old story either.
On a recent combination-product program for a biotech client, this same process took a blank scoping brief to a decision paper shortlisting three validated concepts, complete with usability data, a manufacturability assessment, and investment estimates. Five weeks, start to finish. See the case →
Napkin Engineering Group
Brønsholmdalsvej 119
2980 Kokkedal
Denmark
hello@napkineng.com
+45 31 4000 90