In days not long past, building a product required a lot of capital. The story of James Dyson and his quest to make the best vacuum cleaner at great cost, personal risk and debt being one of many.

Wired had an interesting article in their January edition that goes through sites that allow you to leverage their facilities and designers to mock-up a product:

Whipping up production-ready furniture and laser-cut tchotchkes has always been a cinch on custom-fab site Ponoko.com—for those who know their way around apps like Adobe Illustrator or CorelDRAW. But what if you’re like us — heavy on the ideas, light on the CAD skills? Our DIY dreams die on the napkins we draw them on. Luckily Ponoko recently launched a service just for us. It lets creative types submit concepts to be mocked up by actual designers (if your brain wave is deemed worthy). You can then sell your built-to-order product on the site, CafePress-style. We decided to give it a try, requesting a few items we wish were on the market.

Sites like Ponoko and CafePress-style allow you to quickly mock up a working product at a low cost. One of the 4Ps just got a lot more accessible.