Before Developing your Physical Product - What should you know?

Hi, my name is Dylan and I'm in my 14th year developing physical products for the world.

Yep, only 14 years. If you ask a boomer, they'd tell you I know nothing yet and I should wait another 20 years to give advice. But if you ask a LinkedIn-Marketing-Course-Selling-Guru, they'd tell you I'm a pro.

Personally, I would say my experience is somewhere in the middle. I have worked with 100+ solopreneurs, 20+ medium businesses, and a handful of large corporates. Helping them develop brand-spanking new ideas or add additional products to their range.

I write this article for anyone who has never developed their own idea into a working product before.
These are some of the things I look at before putting pen to paper and help me decide if it's going to be worth the pain of developing the idea.

Roll on a random list of things that helped shape my approach to product development:

• Worked with many clients on insane budgets trying to develop their ideas.
• Watched the drawbacks of clients on insane budgets.
• Learned how to allocate important resources on a budget.
• Designed products for businesses that have sold thousands of products every month.
• Worked on projects with quantities of 10
• Spent $500 000 on moulds.
• Used 3D printing for mass production
• Filled up 10 plus sketchbooks of ideas over my years
• Taken 3 products to market
• Spent my own money on useless patents
• Built six functional websites
• Created multiple logos and packaging designs
• Pitched products for licensing
• Failed my customers because of my ego
• Written thousands of lines of copy
• Learned SEO and applied it with positive results
• Written many articles
• Published 10% of the articles
• Built a six-year and still-going-strong product development consultancy
• Sketched and researched so many product ideas I've lost count
• Killed 97% of my ideas on a spreadsheet

All these things have allowed me to understand what goes into taking a product to market. It's not just about designing a kickass product that makes our projects a success.

Many things need to come together to make up a successful product idea:

• Customer needs.
• Costs to manufacture
• Position of your brand
• Cash flow
• Time and money you spend on R&D
• Matching value
• Time of the year
• Time of your life
• Attitude
• Personal connections

All these variables play a part in creating a successful solution, not just a successful product. The more you can stack the odds in your favor, the easier your chances of being successful are when you hit the market.

These are the things I research and figure out before considering designing a product.

The prelude

You cannot bring your ego into the equation when validating your product idea.

I've learned this the hard way. I wasted a ton of time and money on a few product ideas because I was too focused on designing the product and not the larger picture. It was a few lessons over a few years which hopefully I will never forget. It's something I have to constantly remind myself of.
With each product idea, I have to make sure I extract my ego and allow the idea to bounce against challenges, pivoting and blossom in its own way.

So, is your product idea worth solving?

Probably one of the most obvious questions, but one of the toughest unbiased objectives to achieve. If you are too in love with your product, you will never see the wood from the trees. And this is the most dangerous place to start your product development journey. With blinkers on.

I can see these entrepreneurs coming from a mile away. They get defensive when I ask them questions about their idea. Answers like: "Trust me, I know". And saying things like "disrupt the industry".

I would know, I'm a self-product-lover in recovery.

When I'm looking at a new idea, I try to separate myself from the idea and get unbiased feedback from friends, strangers, coworkers and if I'm feeling brave, some potential customers.
Ask a few open-ended questions and listen.
What do you think of this? What don't you like? Would you buy this? Why not? etc. etc.

My initial reaction is sometimes to punch them in the face and tell them they're stupid and my idea is the best

Remember, still in recovery.

But this is obviously not the right approach, so I have to put my big girl panties on, dig deep, fight my ego, and ask more questions, and listen to what they are saying, not what I want to hear.
This is definitely a muscle that I have worked on over the years. You cannot develop a product without this technique, you have to be able to objectively listen to feedback, process it, and decide if you want to implement it or not.

Then there is the opposite problem, listening too much and letting people dictate your problem and solution to their personal experiences and needs.

Being a people pleaser, I have on many occasions, listened to feedback or suggestions, and in the moment thought that was the best idea and wanted to serve their desires.
This is great... for them.
Later when I speak with another customer and they suggest something different, I find myself now switching to their suggested solution. Bouncing around solutions like this, and reacting to keep everyone happy, is not the most ideal place to find yourself.

So somewhere in the middle of:
"my idea is the best" and "let me help you"
is the sweet spot for listening to feedback.
This filtering system is art and a muscle you can learn, it takes time, but it is the first step in matching your ideas to what people actually want, which is ultimately how you build successful solutions.

What's next?

Who is your customer, and what solution are you wanting to provide them?

From our initial research and talking, we now know our idea could work in the market and there is some interest. People are responding positively and we have some idea of a direction. We now need to start refining exactly who our customers could be. This will help target the product development process, marketing and business directions.

For example. We currently have a coffee product we are taking to market. We have discussed it at length and are targeting a customer who wants an easy, good cup of filter coffee. Not too fancy, just a good ol cuppa. Now every product development decision we are making is based on how we can serve that customer better. Our product could totally be used by the coffee connoisseur, but that isn't our primary customer. We want to completely devote our attention and effort to our primary customers and build them the best product experience.

Deciding who your customer is, is a vital step in the product development journey. It can help with:

• Price point
• How much money and time to spend on R&D
• What the product needs to look like
• How your branding integrates
• Then eventually marketing, advertising and positioning in the market.

Developing a product can sometimes feel like you are a kid walking into a candy store, you want to taste it all. But that will leave you dizzy, unfocused and spending all your pocket money. Leaving you feeling unsatisfied and poor.

What if you don't know your exact customer yet?
Sometimes we do end up with two or more potential customer directions we can go. You can push this problem into the first phase of developing your product. It's important we spend this initial time understanding the pros and cons between the different customer directions. Then we make a decision on which direction makes sense for you. The marketing gurus will tell you focusing and niching down is highly important for success. It's the same thing.

‍So now we know our idea is valuable
and who our potential customer is.

‍Next?

What are other people doing? What products are on the market?

Time for maximum research into the market and competitors. For this, I like to list all the different words I need to search to find the product. For example. our coffee product is an immersion coffee maker. So I search terms that are related in some way:

• Immersion brewing
• Coffee immersion
• Coffee immersion maker
• Drip coffee machine
• Coffee dripper
• Pour-over
• Coffee pour over
• Cold brew

I add words to my search, like 'best', 'interesting', and 'cheapest' to find the articles that authors have already published and have assessed the different products on the market. There are heaps of these articles online, I take my time and read everything I can about the market and competitors.

I'll open every single link, and scroll and click on everything I find, no judgment on if I think it's necessary or not. I'm looking at everything. I'll then sift through 100's of products until I've exhausted everything I can find online and I go full circle a few times, knowing exactly what's on the market. I can recite the features, benefits and costs of most of the competitors, I've spent so much time looking at them.

This part can take weeks to months.

As I move through everything I like to document and save products that:

1. Have a similar customer
2. Have a similar build quality (that I'm thinking of using in our product)
3. Have great reviews
4. Have bad reviews

These products allow me to help extract 2 things:

• Potential price point for our product
• Features and benefits for our product.

Pricing and benefits are directly related.
"I love this new magnetic clasp it makes my barbequing a breeze"
Feature = Benefit = Value = Price

Understanding what your customers would pay for and what they wouldn't will help you decide where to focus the energy in designing your idea.

We have to be realistic when it comes to matching the price to our customers and what they are willing to pay for. I think pricing your product can be one of the most challenging parts of taking any product to market. While there are many different strategies for the actual price, we're here to talk about what pricing tier our product will fit in.

Some of the product pricing tiers are:

1. Your product is the cheapest (Someone has to do it)
2. Your product has a new feature that elevates it enough for people to buy it over the competition, you will price it at a similar price point to competitors (very popular option)
3. Your product is premium, high manufacture cost, excellent materials, long lasting, and incredible attention to detail (A great market, challenging market)
4. You have a brand following already and you just need your product to fit with the brand and they'll sell (This takes time, so probably not you)
5. Your product is so s**t hot and so unique and so far better than anything out there you can name your price (keep dreaming)
6. Your product is once-offs or art and you price it how you feel (art and furniture designers play here)

‍Why does this matter now? It helps us as product developers minimize the input required to develop the idea. While maximizing output and where effort should be focused in the design phases.

For this coffee product we have developed. We knew we needed a basic solution that made a good cuppa, with minimal parts to break. We spent the majority of the time maximizing manufacture and usability, with aesthetics not a priority (yet). We still had to make it look good, but only after the two other features were satisfied and only if it didn't affect manufacture and usability.

If the lowest pricing is your strategy.
We could eliminate features that customers don't really care about and could save on manufacturing costs. If the product just needs to perform a function, we can maximize the functionality of the product and not worry too much about aesthetics.

Do you see the trend?

We use the pricing tier and benefits to focus on what matters most while developing the product. And yes, it is tough sometimes because our initial reaction is to have it all! But this is how we build a product that has the customer at the top of the list.

This can be the key to not overspending in product development, and reducing months of developing things that wouldn't actually matter to your customer.

Check out the 8 reasons people buy products

So...now we know...

1. There is some value to our idea
2. We have a customer in mind
3. We have a price tier direction
4. We are familiar with the market.

It's time to move into designing the product.

You, me, and my neighbor, are all in unique positions in our lives, with different budgets, different locations, and different views on how to run a business.
It's important at this stage to design a product development roadmap for our unique circumstances.

It's time to connect what we want to achieve, with what we can actually do with our current resources so we can stack the odds in our favour.

1. I only have X amount of money for R&D, where do I focus
2. Is the market large enough in my location?
3. How much profit could I make if I sold X units
4. What does an MVP look like?
5. What will an MVP cost?
6. How much money do I want to spend on building a solution.
7. Can I get some customers together to show a sketch?
8. What is the global market for this solution?
9. Where is the market located in the world?
10. What is it going to cost to get our product manufactured?

All of these things I do before deciding if it will be worth developing the idea, is all part of preparation.

This will help lay the groundwork for being successful down the road.

A fun example is fishing... One of my favourite things to do.

My one option is to choose a day I can go fishing, show up, cast my line in the water and hope for the best. Maybe, maybe not I'll catch anything

My other option is to understand which wind brings what type of water, what type of water I need for which type of fish, how that fish feed, what conditions they feed in, where in the ocean they feed, what are they feeding on, etc. You get my drift

Then I spend most of my time studying, and planning, when and where to go fishing. Trying to stack the odds in my favour before I even pick up my fishing tackle. So on that one day, when I eventually do go fishing, I have a good chance of catching something.

It's obviously still called fishing for a reason (and not catching), and I may not catch anything. But that is also part of the fun, not knowing exactly.

And when we're taking a product to market, no matter how much I may stack the odds in my favour, it may not work out as planned.

So before I build a shiny new product, I make sure to plan and prepare as much as I can. So that if I do go ahead with the design of the product, I know I'm starting to stack those odds!

The only time we lose is when we stop trying.

Happy researching!