From lab bench to launch, and from zero to one.
Baik Hoh Consulting helps universities and early-stage teams turn research and raw ideas into products people actually use — through tech commercialization, 0-to-1 product innovation, and grounded business strategy.
Core competencies
University Tech Commercialization
We bridge academic research and industrial application — helping universities and research teams assess commercial potential, shape licensing and spinout strategy, and move technology out of the lab and into the market it was meant for.
0-to-1 Product Innovation & Market Validation
We help early-stage teams turn a concept into a validated product — using design thinking and real customer discovery to test assumptions fast, sharpen the value proposition, and get to a first version worth building.
Product & Business Strategy
We help organizations define vision, roadmap, and go-to-market strategy for nascent or complex technologies — aligning cross-functional stakeholders through rigorous market-validation frameworks, working-backwards PRFAQs, and data-driven product roadmaps that get executive and investor buy-in.
Design Thinking Workshops
We run hands-on Design Thinking workshops building practical fluency in empathy-driven problem solving, ideation, and rapid prototyping. We tailor sessions to the audience: helping K-12 educators scale project-based capstones, and helping technical product teams turn open-ended engineering ambiguity into structured, user-centric roadmaps.
Cross-Functional Project & Product Initiative Management
We lead complex, cross-functional projects and new product initiatives — coordinating engineering, design, and business stakeholders through structured roadmaps, milestone gates, and decision frameworks that keep ambiguous, high-stakes efforts moving toward a clear outcome.
Strategic verticals
Future Mobility
Road safety, location privacy, and next-generation in-vehicle infotainment — defining system design frameworks and product strategy for secure, user-centric software in the modern connected vehicle, including Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) migration.
Environmental Tech Transfer
Micro-/nano-plastic detection and third-hand smoke remediation — scaling lab-proven environmental health technologies to address urgent global toxins.
Next-Gen Education (EdTech)
AI fluency, K-12 design thinking, and 40+ workforce upskilling — democratizing technical literacy for an AI-native world.
Search & Geospatial Tech
Search relevance and large-scale geospatial platforms — applied ML for mapping, discovery, and location-based systems.
Cases
Problem Solving Studio (PSS)
A tablet-based platform that guides 8th-grade capstone teams through the full Design Thinking cycle — Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test — using Socratic AI coaching to make structured problem-solving accessible to resource-constrained schools.
Submitted as a Phase IA proposal to the U.S. Department of Education's IES SBIR program, with a pilot partnership at St. Clare School and commercialization pathways in progress with Sacred Heart Nativity Schools and San Diego State University's Department of Child and Family Development.
Status: SBIR Phase IA proposal submitted, 2026
Third-Hand Smoke Testing — Commercialization Pathway
Commercialization strategy for a testing solution and service that detects and monitors third-hand smoke contamination in real estate and automotive environments, in partnership with SDSU and the Thirdhand Smoke Resource Center (THSRC).
Micro-/Nano-Plastic Detection at Clinical Scale
Scaling a lab-based micro-/nano-plastic detection method toward clinical-scale deployment, in partnership with SDSU — moving from research setting to real-world clinical workflow.
Background
Baik Hoh Consulting is led by Baik Hoh, PhD, MBA — a research-trained, multi-time founder and product leader with a 20-year arc spanning Nokia Research, Microsoft, Toyota R&D, and Amazon.
Across that arc, the same pattern repeats: translating rigorous research into products with real-world impact. At Toyota, this meant leading the industry's first proactive driver-safety research program, securing 10 patents and a successful tech transfer to Toyota's engineering division. At Nokia, it meant a PhD dissertation on location-data anonymity that was cited by U.S. Senators and directly influenced GM OnStar's data policy. At Amazon, it meant authoring the product vision for a white-label in-vehicle voice assistant now deployed across three global automakers.
As a two-time co-founder, this same discovery-driven approach — empathy interviews, hypothesis testing, rapid prototyping — has been applied to building and validating products from zero, backed by SBIR grant funding, a TechStars accelerator finalist placement, and a successful Kickstarter launch.
Let's talk about your project
Email info@baikhohconsulting.com or baik.hoh@baikhohconsulting.com to start a conversation.
2108 N St, STE N
Sacramento, CA 95816