What It Really Takes To Create A Product People Love

I can tell you from experience, it doesn’t take long before you realize product development is not a walk in the park.

Six years ago, ThirdLove consisted of my husband Dave and me. Once we brought our Chief Creative Officer, Ra’el Cohen, on board, we had to figure out how we were going to take the idea we’d envisioned for a better bra and actually execute it.

At first, we had no idea how to create the product we had in mind.

Whether you’re creating apparel or hardware, there are certain processes you just can’t rush.

While we’ve grown from three people in an apartment to hundreds of employees across three offices, bringing a new product from concept to reality still often takes us well over a year.

We recently developed and launched a new line of extended bra sizes, and I think the process behind that is something any new entrepreneur can learn from.

Here’s what it looks like:

It starts with data collection.

You may have a good idea of what your customers want, but you can’t know for sure until you start collecting data and speaking with people.

That’s why we launched our online Fit Finder back in 2015. Once it was up and running, we began collecting data on customers’ sizes, fit preferences, and pain points — and using it to create the best possible product. We quickly realized that even with our half sizes, we weren’t offering enough options for all the women who were coming to our site.

So, in 2017, we decided to begin developing extended sizes to meet the needs of our customers.

Then comes the technical design.

The first step here is creating a design based on your idea of what the product should be.

You send that to your manufacturer, and they create samples for you. Next, you go out and solicit feedback from your customers. For our extended sizes, we had hundreds of women come into our offices to beta test 25 different sizes.

The essential part of this stage is taking customer feedback, analyzing it, and making adjustments based on what you hear and see.

Of course, you hope the next iteration is perfect — but there’s no guarantee it will be. If you nail the technical design right away, this process may be relatively short. But it also may take you several attempts to get approval from customers and feel like you’re ready to launch.

Once your product design has been approved, you start manufacturing.

It’s an exciting time, but one that requires even more patience.

The manufacturer has to go out and get the raw materials, ready their facility, manufacture the product, and finally QC all the units. It’s a time-consuming process.

Our team has also spent many hours doing our own quality control. When you’ve finally ordered a massive amount of your new product, you want to know for a fact that it meets your specifications and standards of quality before you spend the money to ship it.

And if you’re manufacturing overseas, you also have to think about how you want to ship your product. If you choose to have it flown, the product will be in your hands within days. Shipping by sea will take 4–6 weeks, but it will also be less expensive.

Once you have the product on hand, it may feel like you’ve reached the finish line. But, of course, you’re not quite finished.

Finally, you market and sell the product.

When a woman comes into our office for fittings, we always like to spend time talking about another aspect of our product or company. We may show her some mock wire frames, ask for her feedback on some images, or even film a customer testimonial.

Whenever you have a customer in your office, you should be leveraging their insight as much as possible.

All the information you get from your customers helps you market and sell your product. It’s always a good idea to ask them about your marketing campaigns and the language you use in your advertisements.

Raw data is certainly useful, but don’t ignore qualitative input from real people. You’ll get some surprising answers when you’re face-to-face with someone who buys and uses your products.

You have to listen to your customers. Because at the end of the day, it’s not just about creating a product, patting yourself on the back, and moving on to the next thing. It’s a constant process of listening to customer feedback and using it to build something better.

That’s the only way to create a product your customers truly love.