Take Your Product Idea From Concept To Manufacturing With This Simple Framework
Discover our approach for building prototypes using 4-week cycles that can get your product ready for manufacturing in just 6 months while saving 50% of development costs.
Get ready to transform your idea into a real product with this simple framework aimed for inventors and entrepreneurs like you.
This is Part 1 of a 3 part series on how to build your product idea. These are the links to the other 2 parts Part 2 (Our approach) and Part 3 (Starting with Product Builds).
Despite working in the development and manufacturing of consumer products throughout my 12 years of professional career and having myself a list of great product inventions in mind (actually stored in the cloud for convenience, I need to free space in my brain for new ideas), I have always been more attracted to software products such as apps or online platforms due to the relatively easiness of launching (or at least testing) your idea in terms of time and investment.
I guess having gained this knowledge about physical product development and product manufacturing made me too conscious of the hardships to take a product from concept to manufacturing and the huge investment required in most cases. But that has somehow always bothered me because I love to design and create physical products even if they are not my own ideas, so I needed a friendlier method.
That’s the reason I started investigating about the frameworks and methods used in software and other fields that could help on getting physical products developed and manufactured in a more dynamic and cost-effective way. I was hoping that this would at least help inventors, entrepreneurs and even early startups that don’t have the budget or investment that big brands and established companies have available.
After doing quite a lot of research, getting some specialized (and expensive) training, discussing with experts in those fields and applying some of that knowledge with various clients, I can finally share my own approach on how to build product ideas without having to spend years and huge amounts of money in the process.
The development journey
Before I dive into my approach, let me briefly introduce to those who are not so familiar with a common product development process, the overall journey that until now most inventors and entrepreneurs would have to go through to get their idea manufactured. A process which is still the one that most companies and multinationals follow to develop their products today.
As a side note, I won’t get into the patenting process here since it is not something that will change anytime soon, so, unfortunately, it is a necessary evil that will remain a headache for most inventors and entrepreneurs. It is the same situation in software, except that they are able to live without patents in most cases by being able to deliver new and improved versions of their products to customers extremely quick, this is how they protect their new ideas. It sounds like a better approach instead of having to deal with an old, complex and expensive process to protect invention ideas.
The main process consists of a series of stages that are rigorously planned at the beginning of the project and all activities and time-frames specified are strictly followed throughout. Along those stages, the product is developed sequentially and the project only moves to the next stage once certain criteria and milestones have been met, it is called stage gates. In these stage gates the project is reviewed by stakeholders and if the previously defined goals and criteria are met the project moves to the next stage. The usual stages on a product development process look something like this:
The above is very briefly the list of the main activities that occur sequentially along the stages. As you can imagine, everything is carefully planned at the beginning and assumed to go smoothly and nothing changing along the way. Unfortunately, that is never the case and the plan usually keeps changing until it becomes useless, the priorities and requirements get more and more confusing, and the urgency to deliver becomes the main driver throughout the process. This causes many quality issues to surface in the final stages where changes are costly and in many cases can kill a project or even a business.
Apart from the obvious delays, increase in costs and quality problems, some other less obvious problems come with that approach, especially for inventors and entrepreneurs, such as:
- Lack of regular user feedback along the process since there is no product to show until the end of the development, which can be many months or years from the time the market research was done. This causes a clear disconnect with the Market needs when the product finally hits the market and sales usually suffer.
- Not being able to show progress on the actual product limits the chances to get investment before going to mass production which is when the big chunk of the development cost is needed.
- Motivation suffers as a result of not seeing a working product until the very end which leads many to abandon before it’s completed.
Examples of a different approach
Let me show you a couple of real cases of companies that are using a more agile approach to develop their products. Despite having bigger teams and budgets than the ones you would have, the fact that they are embracing a new way means that this is where the future of developing products is going.
WikiSpeed
The first one is more of an experimental case but somehow pioneer to the use of agile methodologies (SCRUM in particular) to develop and manufacture a car from scratch using development cycles of just 1 week to introduce changes into the car. This is quite outstanding considering how traditional automakers release face-lifts of cars every 2 to 3 years and full new car models in about 3 to 5 years. What they are able to deliver on each cycle is a fully working version of the car with the new changes implemented, so they can perform functional tests immediately.
Read more about it here
Saab Gripen Fighter
The military project Saab Gripen air fighter was developed using agile methods from the beginning. They are able to release new versions every 6 months compared to other fighter projects in which seeing a final product can take several years. They were also able to save billions of dollars in development costs due to higher flexibility to changes.
Read more about it here
My goal has been to adapt all of these methods and frameworks to meet the needs of entrepreneurs and early startups with limited resources but with an increasing focus on validating their ideas early with their customers and generating opportunities to attract the funds needed to build their products.
Our approach
Therefore I have developed this approach to guide you on how to build your product idea with the above in mind. Our approach consists of delivering value incrementally through continuous product builds, based on these 4 pillars:
- Product Levels. The different type of product increments that will be delivered after each product build. They have different purposes based on what you want to check and where you are in the development process.
- Goal driven Builds. Each product build should have a clear and specific goal of what you want to achieve with that product increment. The goal links to the features that will be included in the product for this particular build.
- Full technical consideration. As opposed to traditional development, where technical specifications, testing, and manufacturing considerations are done only in the final stages of the development. However, here we would consider all the technical aspects as if the product in the build was going to be manufactured.
- Dynamic and agile tools and resources. We use documentation and tools that are simple and quick to use and provide value instead of consuming time. At the same time, we use on-demand services and resources that can simplify and accelerate certain tasks at competitive costs.
What is Product Build?
A Product Build (PB) is a time-boxed development cycle in which a product increment or product iteration is designed and fabricated. The usual time-frame that we like to work with for a product build is 4 weeks, but it will ultimately depend on the context of the build. Sometimes the build requires some parts to be ordered or some tools to be manufactured which can increase the length of the build, although in those cases the increase in time is mainly due to waiting time and not necessarily effective design time.
What are we able to achieve with this approach?
- Build functional product versions in 4-week cycles
- Reach manufacturing ready products in just 6 months
- Save 50% of the project’s cost and 6 months in development time on average
- Build quality in the product continually
- Get you involved in the making so you can instill your vision
In the next part, we will dive into the details of this approach and show you how to get started with it.
Access to Free Resources
If you want to get started building your product idea with our simple framework, just access our free resources area and embrace a new approach for dynamic entrepreneurs and startups.
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Go ahead to the next part to dive into our approach Part 2 (Our approach).
