Nibletz Staff
Getting a product to market successfully is truly difficult. The amount of products that die a death before they really make an impact litter our newsfeeds as endless cautionary stories. On the other hand, those truly successful and impactful products, like the iPod and the Fitbit, become almost legendary for getting it right. But you don’t have to reach their level of notoriety to succeed. What you need to do is ensure you’re not making these product-killing mistakes.
Skipping the market appeal
Whether you’re inventing a product for a business or as a business, you can’t skip the step of creating a proper pitch for it. You need to identify that the target market exists, that you’re providing some unique proposition compared to your competitors, and that consumers will actually care about that proposition. If you don’t take the time to create a proper pitch, you will either get laughed at by potential investors in your idea or you will launch only to find virtually no fanfare for it.
Lacking a roadmap
Developing a product can be hectic and can throw all kinds of unexpected steps and detours at you. But without a roadmap, those detours can become an entirely different road with no end in sight. Make sure you have clearly defined goals and a process route that ensures no-one is left waiting at a bottleneck for others to open up the next step for them.
Rushing the prototyping process
Prototyping is vital. But all too many businesses use it solely as a proof of concept step. You should be using it to get used to the physical dimensions and property of the product you want to create. This is the perfect time to identify design aspects that could be changed to make production a lot easier, or elements of discomfort that could put potential buyers off the product entirely.
Not investing in the production
Few businesses can afford to skimp out on the proper equipment to ensure they’re as efficient in production as possible. When it comes to shaping the product, you need to do what you can to reduce loss of valuable materials. Whether that’s spending more time training employees to use manual tools or integrating automated CNC machinery, loss prevention is a vital part of keeping production cost-effective. Fail to be cost-effective and you’re already making it a lot harder for the product to succeed.
Failing to launch
The launch is the part that gets the public invested in the business. A successful launch can make more an impact than most of the steps above. But you shouldn’t let a fear of failure keep you back from launching. If you keep putting it off, then the hype you should be generating through social media and marketing will keep dying down until there’s no-one to care by the time you actually do launch.
At every point during the development, creation, and launch, you need to be honest with yourself about how smooth the process is going. Knowing when to cut your losses is as important as getting a great launch going. Looking at the elements above will better help you identify not only how well you’re doing, but how successful the product is likely to be.
