How to develop a hardware product: get started in 3 easy steps
Have you ever had an idea for a product, and/or seen something and said to yourself, “why doesn’t somebody make that better”? Even worse, you may have had an idea, then later discovered that someone else built and marketed it? If so, then maybe you should take steps to develop your product!
Developing hardware can be an intimidating effort, even for those who have done it before. Reasons why:
- Complexity: Hardware development typically requires multidisciplinary engineering efforts — mechanical, electrical, software, industrial design, packaging, etc.
- Time: Very long timeframes across design, prototyping, testing, and production.
- Expense: Development and manufacturing can be expensive, and tie up cash flow for a very long time before a return on your investment is realized.
- Post-development efforts: Product development is just the beginning. Marketing, selling, and distribution doesn’t happen by itself. Protecting your product from competitors and infringement once your product is available can be challenging as well.
As daunting as that sounds, fear not. There has never been a better time than today to develop and build your product — thanks to the availability of information, technology, and tools (more on that later — blog posts forthcoming). Here’s a 3-step plan to get the ball rolling:
TL;DR Summary:
- Situate your mindset: Acknowledge your concerns, these fears are normal. Get focused, get inspired, and just go for it.
- Develop a strategy, use it as a compass:
a. Keep it simple; use your strategy as a tool for yourself to see the big picture, keeps you aimed in the right direction.
b. Write it down. Don’t worry about making a perfect strategy; don’t judge yourself whether it’s right or wrong.
c. Figure out the why, how, and what of your project, not just the product. Build a high-level plan. Define what success looks like and how you will measure it.
d. Start filling in tactics that you might use to implement the plan.
e. Wash, rinse, repeat. - Whether you follow any of the other steps or not, just start. The longest journey begins with a single step. 加油!
FYI, this discussion won’t go into detail about the specific tactics (what/how) to design a product — I will get to that in future blog entries…
STEP 1: Situate your mindset
Often our biggest hurdles are self-imposed. It’s always good to step back and apply a bit of psychology to ourselves to ignite progress. For example:
- Acknowledge fear: My “hardware is hard” (a much-overused cliché) list above may have prevented you from reading this far. Yes, its going to be scary. That’s normal, just take a deep breath and keep going.
- Expect the unexpected: Even if you are an expert, every project will be different and present unique challenges. Roll with the punches, and check your confidence. Remember what the wise fortune cookie once said:
- Don’t overcomplicate things: It’s easy to get distracted by details. Always ask yourself, “what problem am I really solving?” Focus on the problem! If you can define a problem clearly, you will often implicitly define the solution. Fight back against “analysis paralysis”.
- Look for inspiration but don’t let it be a distraction: read some how-to articles, attend some workshops, but don’t get carried away. The excitement of this process can be invigorating, and you may feel like you’re making progress by learning about “what to do next”. Find the right balance between distraction and motivation. Be self-aware about your own tendencies — observe if you the type who works best by focusing on problems privately or if you work better by discussing ideas with others — then situate yourself accordingly. Observe your “comfort zone”, but intentionally push yourself out of it when needed!
STEP 2: Develop a strategy, use it as a compass
To help make the scary (but exciting) process of product development more manageable, it’s important that you take a step back to define the “big picture” of what you are doing — be sure to think about strategy, plans, and tactics.
Don’t get bogged down with this as a huge planning exercise; instead think of it as a simple framework you can use as compass during your journey. Expect that your destination will change as you move forward, but look at this compass and compare it with where you are headed.
Make sure you write it down — on paper, electronically, or otherwise (post-it notes work great). Jot down your ideas/thoughts, organize them somewhat, bounce ideas off of others as necessary. Don’t worry about k getting everything perfect, this will be an ever-evolving work-in-progress. My favored approach to this is to sketch a framework like the one below, with an increasing level of detail as you move down the page. Boil it down to a single page so it is easier to digest, and so that you don’t burden yourself with too much detail:
Strategy is an often-misunderstood concept, with tactics frequently being confused with strategy. There is no strictly correct way to define a strategy, but it’s important to build one for yourself and use it as a tool to guide your day-to-day decisions when developing a product.
I think a good strategy should concisely define the how, why, and what of what you are doing, far beyond the product itself. Watch Simon Sinek’s Ted talk on “Start with Why”, and think carefully about his message:
“People don’t buy what you do, but why you do it”
Example: people don’t buy Harley Davidson motorcycles because they need a reliable vehicle to get to work; they’re really buying their own piece of the American spirit (one vision of it anyway). Hence, for Harley Davidson, motorcycles are the what, not the why:
- Why: The embodiment of the American Spirit
- How: Sell a lifestyle: Live and breathe the brand; communicate that brand through everyone it touches
- What: Produce motorcycles and brand accessories that are imbued with Harley style
Have a strategy for your entire project, not just the product. Are you building a widget or are you building the best-ever internet-connected widget products that uniquely addresses the needs of widget aficionados everywhere? Think about who the product is for, how it will provide a unique advantage (solve a real problem), and how your brand identity will communicate the story/why of your product(s). It’s OK for your strategy to include some details of how and what, but your strategy shouldn’t be a detailed plan, nor should it be the details of tactics used to implement the plan.
Sketch out a high-level plan based on the strategy, with clear metrics of what success looks like along the way (e.g. have 5 prototypes in the hands of a test customer by 2020, achieve sales of 1 million widgets by 2050, etc.).
Be sure that your plan includes objectives that are specific, measurable, attainable (realistic), relevant, and time-bound (aka SMART). Again, keep it simple, write it down, and keep iterating it as you go along. This should result in a simple framework to guide you and keep you focused, not be a giant detailed plan that you feel overwhelmed with.
Initially, don’t worry about figuring out the details of how long the project will actually take or how you will pay for it. If you have key milestones you need to reach (e.g. launch the product at CES 2019), list that as part of your plan. Identify areas where you “know that you don’t know”, and identify tactics on how to figure those areas out.
Keep in mind that you should develop this strategy (and high-level planning) primarily for yourself; so jot it down on a napkin or make a PowerPoint -whatever works best for you. It will help you address your own concerns and help discover issues that you never anticipated. Hopefully it can motivate you to move forward, and keep you focused on what’s most important.
A useful lesson that a mentor once impressed upon me: “Hope is not a strategy”. It’s easy to fall in love with the idea of your product, spend a lot of time and resources developing it, then have it wither on the vine because nobody ever heard about it or it never really solved a real problem that people needed. Another name for this approach is the “field of dreams strategy” a.k.a. “build it and they will come”. This approach is usually a recipe for disappointment, unless you are exceptionally lucky. Having a strategy, plan, and tactics will mitigate this risk.
STEP 3: Just start
Hopefully you’ve decided to suspend your concerns and started developing a strategy. So many things to do, where to begin? The answer is: anywhere.
The most important part is to just start — it’s really that simple. Even if you start with small/easy steps, you will soon find a mountain of progress behind you. You may stumble along the way. Whether you succeed or fail, you will surely learn a lot.
There’s a saying in Chinese, roughly pronounced “Jai Yo!”, spelled 加油. I’ve heard that it literally means “add oil”, meaning “hit the gas pedal and go”. Seems like a good thing to remember!
So, close your eyes and take the plunge. The longest journey starts with a single step!
Note: also published on the Relay Kitchen blog here: https://www.relaykitchen.com/blog
