10, 9, 8, 7…WAIT, Are You Ready to Launch a Product?
Questions you should be asking yourself before lift-off
If If you’re contemplating launching into the world of hardware product development, there are numerous questions you need to be asking yourself. Having and initial idea, performing market research, developing functional product requirements, creating a working prototype, and then bringing the product to life through iterative design and development can be a long and costly investment. It can be longer and more costly if not managed appropriately. While the payoff of creating an incredible product can benefit many, the process should be entered into only once you’ve asked yourself — and your potential market — some serious questions.
While this article would be entirely too long to hit every permutation of every product we’ve seen, we will hit a few fundamental questions our team wants you to consider. These questions are not meant to discourage you from further developing your idea. Rather, they are meant to give you a head start, because any product development firm that you engage with will likely persist in asking the same questions, and expect answers.
Questions To Ask Yourself:
Are you willing to see it through to the end?
“Passion” is a word that’s often thrown around. Perhaps better words in this case are “devotion” or “persistence.” Any originator that wants to see their idea brought to life must work through all of the necessary steps — regardless of how mundane and unimportant they may seem. When it comes to developing a hardware product, no step should be hurried and no step is insignificant to the final product. That’s why the originators must have patience, perseverance, and yes, both passion and devotion.
This first question is important. If you are not willing to write requirements, talk to potential customers, make choices on product feature tradeoffs, then it may not make much sense to go through the rest of the questions unless you plan to hire someone to perform all of these necessary steps.
Do you have the time and resources to develop a hardware product?
As you’re probably already aware, developing a hardware-based product requires a fairly significant amount of resources, depending on the complexity of the product. If you do not already have an engineering team, the process requires you to work with a partnering product development company through all the development stages such as: ideation, discovery, definition, design, prototyping, testing and production. Each and every step of the process requires a commitment, both in terms of financial resources and perhaps more importantly, your time. Developing a physical product means that you must be readily available to answer questions and provide feedback throughout all aspects of developing your product.
What are your metrics for success?
What does success mean for you and all stakeholders involved? When developing a hardware-based product, it’s crucial to have realistic goals in mind for how you will measure the outcome. And while the journey ahead likely isn’t a one-and-done approach, it’s important to develop milestones and key objectives along the way so you know whether you’re on track or whether you need to ramp up marketing, work to establish partnerships, upgrade your offering, or abandon the project. Determine your break-even point, your profit margin and revenue requirements. These are all important metrics and milestones to keep in mind when you’re starting along the journey of launching a hardware product.
Questions to Ask The Market:
What makes your product idea better than your competitors on the market today?
One of the important first steps in market validation is to search for existing and potential competitors. It’s vitally important to perform thorough research on your own to know and understand your market, even if a competitive analysis is included in your design firm’s process. How many competitor products already exist? What makes their product offering unique? How successful is their product? Have you read their customers reviews? What are their specifications? Where is their product manufactured? How do they market their product?
If successful competitors exist, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should table your idea. In fact, in many cases it helps validate your market opportunity. It’s very possible that you could make your product better in some way, shape or form, or find an underserved niche. If a competitive product does exist, the key is to identify pain points that it doesn’t meet, and determine how your product will close that gap. Are there features that you could incorporate that would make the product more useful? Would your product be made with better quality materials? Could you sell the product for a competitive price? But beware, if your only differentiator is lower cost, please go back and check your numbers.
Have you validated the product concept with the market?
You need to ensure that you aren’t the only one that believes in the product. What good is a product that no one will want to use or purchase? Make sure to test your idea out on friends, family, experts and potential customers who will share their honest opinions. Getting honest feedback and insight from your close circle is an important step in the process of bringing a physical product to life — and fortunately, doesn’t cost a thing. However, a minimum level of research may not be enough to justify spending resources for a project kickoff. How will you ensure that your customers — especially if your product is very technical or is a niche product — will view your product as useful and a beneficial investment?
It’s critical to understand who your target market will be. Will you market to consumers or to businesses? Who will be the audience you need to influence and who will be the actual buyers? Once you’ve established your target market, it’s critical to validate your product with both those who will actually use your product AND those responsible for its purchase.
What if your product is successful? Are you ready to scale with success?What then?
If you made it this far, it may be prudent to plan for a successful product launch. When your product is ready and released to the marketplace, will there be a company behind it?
Creating a physical product is only just the beginning. While checking the boxes on all of the steps required to bring a physical product to life can seem like the finish line (and it is a major victory indeed!), you’re just getting started. Before you start the initial process of building your product, have you considered what comes after that? Do you have partnerships or designated channels in place to take the product to market? Will you sell and market the product yourself? What will the costs of taking your product to the industry entail? Do you have a plan for maintaining the required certifications, and ongoing product improvements and customer support? While the specifics don’t need to be perfected at the front-end, it’s critical to have a go-to-market plan in the works throughout the process so once your product is developed and market ready, you’re set up for long-term success.
Randy Parmerlee is the CEO at Glassboard, a hardware focused product development company.
