You’re sat at your desk with a gleeful grin as you’ve just conceived an idea so incredible that your itching to get started. But where do you start? We’ve put together our top ten tips for you to design and build the product of your dreams.
1. Evaluate your idea
Does your product solve a problem? Is it something you’ve seen that can be improved upon? Could it reduce time to make something more efficient? You need to be really clear if your product idea is needed and will add value to peoples lives. Conduct thorough market research to determine and evaluate your plan.
2. The Team
Assembling a team together is an important way to ensure you have a wide use of brain power at your disposal. If you don’t want to build a team have you considered outsourcing all your design, prototyping and manufacturing needs? Don’t fall at the first hurdle in trying to juggle everything yourself, invest in a partner or better yet outsource. Two heads are better than one.
3. The business model
Planning the business model out effectively will give you a good overall grounding. Take time to work out everything from distribution channels to advertising growth. Do you know who your end customer is and if your prices match up with your forecast finances? Think about what value you are going to deliver to your customer, how are you going to make money?
4. Branding
In a world where we all want to stand out from the crowd it’s vital to pick the right branding for your product. The name should be kept simple and say everything about your product. Research what the big brands do today and be inspired by their clean lines and sophisticated lettering. Your brand will reflect your enthusiasm for the product make sure it stands out to the right people.
5. The prototype
You want to be able to feel your product in your hands, show it off to potential investors or simply test it out in your market, these advantages will be invaluable to you. Prototyping has changed a lot in recent years with the rise of new technology you’ll be able to design a prototype quicker and cheaper than you may think. At this stage you’ll be able to tweak and perfect ensuring you get the product you want from the designs. Building a good quality prototype will start to turn your dream into a reality.
6. Test
Your product will have to withstand a lot, will it work efficiently? Is it useful to a customer? Is the design correct? You must test and analyse all your findings keeping track of developments and improvements along the way. Push your product to its limits to achieve the best results. Be confident in the knowledge that your product will go to market with no hiccups.
7. Raising funds
Want to take it to the next level but your funds aren’t quite up to scratch? VC funding not your thing, consider raising additional funds via crowdcube.com or seedrs.com. These are great ways to crowd source your funds as well drum up much needed marketing. Inspire people with your product and you’ll soon be a huge hit.
8. To Market!
You’ve got the funds, manufactured a volume of your product and your all set and ready to go, it can be a nervous and an exhilarating ride but have the courage and don’t look back. Marketing your product effectively is very important at this stage to get people talking and buying. Sell sell sell!
9. Grow
Consider how you will grow once your product is a huge hit. In today’s fast paced markets you always have to keep an eye on what’s out there, stay ahead of the competition consider big changes in a new direction or even smaller incremental changes, you’d be surprised how quickly they can compound. Consider a redesign or an update to improve and grow. Take a look at the Ansoff matrix to get a clear understanding of the possibilities for development and use it in your planning for strategic growth.
10. Success!
Kick back, relax and sip on the champagne, you’ve done it! Our tip for this is to make sure the champagne is ice cold! But why stop here? You’ve got the bug why not start over again? Begin to think of what your next product could be!
If you can successfully acknowledge all these points and have an electronic product idea that you think can benefit peoples lives or revolutionise your business. Get in contact with GSPK Design to see what we can do for you.
Lets build something great together.
