First Time Developing a Product? The Ultimate Case Study

This article is updated every month with new information and progress.

Last updated: 13th of February 2024

Introduction to our evolving blog post going into way too much detail about developing a cold smoker product from scratch:

Designing products and taking them to market is not just about creating an awesome product. Every successful product on the market is there because it is part of a well-researched ecosystem; the solution, product, branding, marketing, advertisements, how it’s manufactured, the team, luck, where you are in the world, etc. etc.

We thought it would be a fun exercise to document a product idea from the beginning stages, all the way through to when it reaches the market. We’ll be completely transparent with everything we do and share all our findings and thinking along the way.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any suggestions or questions.

This project is starting on the January 2024

Let’s get into it!

Why bring a physical product to market?

I believe if you have a passion for a craft (cold smoking), a lust for building a business and a half baked idea. You could have what it takes to take a product to market and build a successful venture.

These are the three ‘parts’ that I believe are needed in the beginning of creating a product idea worth testing and taking to market.

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The first part - The craft

When I spend time working within one of my crafts (fishing, baking, cooking, dog training) you pick up on really useful information which others may not be aware of. You become an expert in all the tiny details that make you an expert. All of a sudden you are making hard things look easy because of your dedication.

I think being an expert in a craft helps you do two things when developing a product:

The fist is you understand it so well, you have foresight and knowledge in developing solutions that improve the craft for everyone else.

The second is our ability to share and teach others the craft. This is such a powerful tool in our current consumer climate. I’m sure you are aware of ‘personalities’ on social media sharing their craft. We trust these people and this trust is a great part of the equation when building up an audience of believers and followers.

Being an expert in a craft gives us a massive advantage when developing a product.

The second part - The idea

Because smoking food has been around for centuries. There is no shortage of smoking equipment you can already buy.

Which if you look at most industries these days. Everything is kind of saturated. Gone are the days of inventing something, popping it onto an infomercial, and watching the dollars fly in.

So how can we be successful in 2024 when taking a product to market?

I have been smoking fish for many years, and only recently I have started cold-smoking fish. So to be fair, I’m not an expert in cold smoking all foods (yet).

I have noticed that cold smoking, seems rare amongst most of the population. Only a few people take on this process of cooking food and I’m not sure why/ Although I have my theories and these theories is why I think there may be a sustainable business here…

These are my assumptions/theories:

Theory 1:

Cold smoking is not understood or too difficult or too gross, people are not aware of it and/or never use it. Even though they’ve probably eaten cold smoked salmon on their eggs ben. Mmm, I love me some Salmon Egg’s Benedict!

Could we use education to get people over the edge?

Would it help presenting how easy it is to cold smoke food, and what food can be smoked?

Using social media and a website, we can entertain and teach the ins and outs of cold smoking, with methods, and recipes.

We would have to have a face for the brand, someone trustworthy with many years of cold smoking experience and passion. OR. maybe someone on a cold smoking journey, learning and presenting along the way. I think either could be interesting to test, both could potentially work.

Theory 2:

Dry Aging has been around for centuries and has been completed by many commercial restaurants and a few individuals who have a love for the craft of dry aging. Only in the last decade has Dry Aging become very popular thanks to the Dry Ager brand and the very well-put-together products they produce.

Could this not be the case for cold smoking as well? If we create a product that stands out, and a brand that is relatable - could we repeat this dry aging trend in cold smoking world?

Theory 3:

As the world gets more intense and fast paced. Many people are moving towards enjoying the processes in life (making coffee, dry aging, baking bread, fermenting foods).

Cold smoking can be a rabbit hole of variations of what you can achieve. What food, how do you brine, which wood do you use, how long do you smoke, etc. The possibilities end up to be quite overwhelming.

The barrier to entry is relatively low and you can very easily, produce some great smoked food following a basic recipe.

Cold smoking has the ingredients and variables for allowing people to ‘geek out’ on developing their own unique food flavours.

Could the process of cold smoking be one of the next ‘food craft processes’ to watch out for?

These are my theories as to why cold smoking may be an industry worth testing a product in and what would be needed to build a business around it.

The third part - The product

To sell a physical product, you need someone to build the product in a commercially viable way.

Elon Musk has said on many occasions “Designing a product is easy, but manufacturing a product is hard”

This is so true, as I hope you will discover following this journey. Every design decision has to weigh up the cost of manufacture. No matter what.

If you cannot manufacture your product efficiently. You don't have a business. Taking a physical product to market is not cheap and if you don’t prioritise manufacture, I suggest the casino table with your money. It will get your results faster and be less painful.

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So I have presented the three people on your team that I believe are needed to help germinate the seed of a good product idea. We will discover over the next few months how this theory works out.

Let’s recap:

• The Craft - Knows the industry in and out
• The Idea - Understands the business opportunity
• The Product - Knows how to build a commercially viable product

Luckily, I am going to be all three people for this exercise! Yay! This will help us keep things moving forward consistently.

Let’s start designing!

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1.1. The initial strategy for designing the design process

Now that I’m foaming at the mouth because I think I have the worlds best idea. I can’t run off and design the product just yet. There needs to be some strategy decided on how we tackle the design process.

It’s important we think about how we need to approach the design process. And not rush into designing the product.

We have found with many first time entrepreneurs, this is an easy mistake to make. We get all excited that we’ve found this ‘gap’ then rush off and design a fully manufacturable product. This leads to a lot of time and money spent, and normally a design that you have to redesign because not enough assumptions were tested.

This is where we believe research and strategy plays an important role when designing a product. Step by step we check our assumptions off the list, test our theories and try set ourselves up for success as we move through the design process.

What are some of the steps we need for the cold smoker product idea:

Step 1 - Understand the market, research and decide on strategy

Step 2 - Test the process out by building basic proof of concepts

Step 3 - Design something more robust using traditional manufacture methods

Step 4 - Refine the idea into something commercial

1.2. Research the market and what's out there.

Research is arguably one of the most important things to do when developing a product. It’s a process normally at the beginning of the design process and it will help guide your entire product development process.

Looking for research that supports your theories is a one way ticket to fail town. Find everything you can, for and against your ideas, and figure it out. I try to stay lose around my design ideas, but strong with my ultimate goal. That way I can shift what I need to in my head when new research is uncovered.

If you conduct your research and market discovery well. Once you start designing your product, it’s easy to make decisions, because you know what to prioritise.

There are a few essential areas to research when developing a product:

1. Looking at existing products (if your product is a brand new idea, then look at similar products)
2. Read the comments and feedback on Amazon, Social Media and anywhere else you can find the products. Look for nuanced answers/questions, if one person has an issue, maybe more do.
3. Just because people are not talking about it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
4. Try understand your potential customer. If you are feeling brave, start to talking to potential customers about your idea. Have a conversation with someone who may want to purchase your product. This can help figure out what’s an important feature and give you valuable insights.
5. Pricing of your potential product, how much are your customers willing to pay for products similar?
6. What sort of marketing are competitors using?
7. What pain points are they addressing?
8. What are the features being pushed, what features are people in the comments missing/loving?

1.3 Understanding the functions of the product and customer

1.3.1 Who is the Customer?

A large part of developing a product is empathising with your customer, understanding what they need/want and making sure your solution could fit with their life.

By understanding your customers, you can design for them, market for them and connect with them.

So, who is going to buy your product?

In the beginning, we make some assumptions as to who our customers are. Over the design process and once the product hits the market, these become more defined as you figure out the product-to-market fit.

Finding the product market fit and how you market the solution could be one of the most tricky parts to developing a product and will be an iterative process

What I like to do is imagine the type of person that might be interested in the product. If you know of someone specific that fits the customer, that is a perfect place to start. Explain that person in as much detail as possible:

1. What are their habits/hobbies etc.
2. How they make purchasing decisions
3. Why do they buy products?
4. Do they have friends
5. Do they use social media
6. What do they follow / who do they follow
7. How do they spend their free time
8. How do they see the world
9. What emotions entice/please them

Customer 1 - The OG (the Boomer)

• Is a hunter/fisherman/butcher/self sustaining type of person
• Has been smoking foods for many years,
• Owns, and has owned smokers, barbeques, outdoor cooking equipment
• Is a master of smoking products and follows the same recipe and process almost every time.
• Mostly keep to themselves and enjoy family, close friends and alone time.
• Being a self sufficient person, they look for value for their spend. Even if they are wealthy, you won’t see them with the top-of-the-range barbeque just because it’s top of the range. They will find the best-valued product that will do the job and buy that, nothing more than is necessary.
• Keeping their products for decades and looking after it.
• Fixing anything that breaks themselves.

Looking after Customer 1

• Customer 1 is a logical, value-for-money spender. I believe creating a premium smoker that will last will get these customers, but price it too high and we will loose them.
• Marketing to this customer will be all about showing our product can be used for 10, 20, 30 years and will keep them going. Spend the money once, and they’re good to go.
• Back that up with the product doing an exceptional job.
• I think if customer 1 can afford it, they could be convinced to buy the product if they don’t have a cold smoker.
• The price still needs to make sense for them.

Customer 2 - The Toy Hauler

• Is a hunter/fisherman/butcher/self sustaining type person
• Has money and is not afraid to spend it
• Buys the best of everything
• When they pick up a new hobby/sport, they purchase the best because they know it will last and help them perform at their best.
• They are also aware of their image and keeping up a premium image of themselves
• Is brand name aware and will potentially buy products just for their brand name.

Looking after Customer 2

• Wanting to show off their fancy product that smokes food. It can be a talking point for him/her and their guests. When friends come around, it’s something cool/new to show off.
• It must work really well and if there are any clever features, this is the person that will be impressed with them.
• Using ‘showy images’ for marketing and creating that emotion of ‘I will look cool with this product’ could be a great marketing angle for this customer

Customer 3 - The Outdoor Chef/Entertainer

• Loves cooking and preparing food
• Love entertaining and watching guests eat their food.
• Is comfortable cooking all sorts of foods on a grill
• Has a barbeque and hot smoker.
• May or may not have cold smoked food. This could be new to them
• Loves the process of cooking, baking, preparing food. Geeks out on how food is prepared, cooked, baked etc.

Looking after Customer 3

• Because our customer 3 finds pleasure in the process of preparing food. Emphasizing the intricate details of going from raw food, to smoked food can be extremely satisfying to them.
• The product will have certain features that can be ‘tweaked’ to create different outcomes. By highlighting these features and options, it could give them things to think/obsess over and wonder how they could create food with this product.
• Showing these methods and outcomes will have the effect of ‘I want to try that for myself’
• In marketing, showing that process, in detail, with mouth-watering content could be a good way to market to customer 3.
• Using satisfied guests tasting the food, after it’s prepared will help bring an emotional response of also wanting that for their guests
• Technical reading, recipes and sharing knowledge will be vital for gaining trust with this group of customers

1.4 The 3 key design aspects

1.4.1 Aesthetic - What sort of aesthetic are we after?

With a product like this, using sheet metal and wood is at the top of my list. It will be a large product, with a small market. I don’t see it selling 10’s of thousands, which means using moulded parts and creating expensive moulds are probably not necessary right now. I’m going to rule out moulding from the beginning.

This could change down the line. Or using moulded parts for accessory parts might be an option when there is volume.

That leaves us with sheet metal and wood as the predominant material for the product.

I see this product primarily as a functional unit. Meaning that it needs to function very well, and not be priced at a premium well above what’s on the market.

Basing our decision decisions on removing parts and only leaving what is necessary will be a popular method of designing for manufacture. .

Form follows function will most likely be the method of aesthetic for this design. That doesn’t mean I can’t add some character to the design. Which I will. It means that I will prioritise ease of manufacture and usability over aesthetics when the design decision happens.

1.4.2 Usability (Features and benefits)

Based on the customer research, I do believe making sure the unit doesn’t create frustrations will be a benefit to the customer and something that will help sell this product via word of mouth.

Being able to open and close the door with ease, empty and or clean the unit, remove the smoke generator are small user-friendly design decisions that make using the product a tad better than what’s on the market.

Based on my cold smoking knowledge I have put together a list of features and benefits I would like to achieve with this design.

1. Option to use an external and internal smoke generator.
2. Airflow through the unit is important to make sure the smoke doesn’t hang around in the enclosure and deposit ‘old’ smoke/soot onto the food. It also helps with removing moisture from the unit, leaving a better product at the end of the day.
3. Temperature and humidity gauge would be great, not 100% sure if this is necessary, it could be an additional ‘add-on’ part. So we need to think about that and design it into the unit from the start.
4. These units will be used in all sorts of places and having the door being fully removable makes things much easier for the user to access the inside with doors getting in the way.
5. The tray at the bottom to catch any dripping juices and moisture
6. Smoke can build up layers of ‘grime’ some leave this on as ‘seasoning’. However, if you want to wash your unit, accessing to clean should be easy.
7. Having the box insulated is a dream of mine as it allows us to hopefully create a barrier form outer ‘heat’. With the constant flow of airflow through the box, I’m not sure this is entirely necessary.
8. Bringing ice/cooler packs into the unit to help keep the temperature down could be a great option. I believe the ability to add ice blocks, or chunks need to be possible as people have different ways of doing things.

1.4.3 Manufacturing - what is the plan for manufacture?

To make sure this product can be manufactured, sold and make a profit. We need to make sure that, number 1, it can be manufactured, then number 2, that it can be manufactured as efficiently as possible.

Once we start prototyping and designing the unit for mass manufacture. I will keep chipping away at creating a product that’s valuable to the customer and the business by using well practiced design for manufacture principles.

Manufacture will be at the top of our decision-making and is a vital part for the business goals of this product.

1.5 Initial ideas. Sketching, CAD, prototyping?

When your so early in the design process. The more you understand and explore in these early, the more money and time you save later.

Having used hot smokers before and watching many videos of cold smoking. Sometimes you just need to use one for yourself and figure things out. Over the last few months I have been using my DIY cold smoker that I built from cardboard.

It’s unbelievable how much you can learn from using the product you want to design and improve. Once I start pairing up my experiences with what the other cold-smoking community is dealing with. I’ve been able to find areas where an improvement in the product may benefit customers.

To build the prototype I bought 2 cooking racks and an aluminum drip tray. They were almost the same size so it was perfect to use as my base components.

I then spent some time measuring up the racks and drip tray and scribbled a quick design down.

Grabbing some cardboard, I spent a few hours cutting and gluing a prototype together so I have my very own cold smoker to try out.

3.1. Ideation - Sketch and CAD

Sketching ideas is the most powerful thing you can do when developing a product. It’s communication between our brain, all the lovely ideas, and the real world.

Making sure we present all the ideas in our heads to the team is vital in helping us work through all the concepts. Brainstorming and talking about ideas always sparks new thinking patterns and is a dance us designers know very well.

1. Design by yourself,
2. Talk with the team,
3. Create new thought patterns,
4. Go back and design/refine by yourself.

This process is repeated until we’re sick of each other, or there is a clear winner emerging and we can now start refining that idea or two.

Once we’re at his point, where we have thoroughly sketched out our thinking, we move to CAD.

CAD is a tool used to convert ideas into digital designs. Computer Assisted Design is CAD and that’s what it does. Assists us in turning ideas into real-world-sized digital designs.

With the cold smoker, it’s a very basic object, so drawing it up in CAD was not a difficult task, nor requiring much time, so moving into CAD quickly was a good decision.

• It helps us see the ‘true’ proportions of the design
• We can begin looking at what wood/metal thicknesses could work
• Maybe our sketches missed an important part that we can now include in the CAD design
• These details and proportions are vital in the next stage of refining the concept

3.2. Detailed Concept

Once in detailed design, I spent time working in the CAD model as well as sketching basic ideas of the different features that I needed to include.

Sometimes I would sketch, CAD, review, and then start sketching again if I thought it could be improved. This cycle would be repeated a few times for each feature until I have a design that is worth moving forward with.

For example with the vent. I sketched about 6 different options for the vent design. With each sketch, I chipped away and removed material until I got to the design I thought used the least amount of manufacturing, performed the function and looked cool.

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Every week more progress is added as we work through the design process :)

Until next week

Dylan