Strategic Ways of Finding your First Product Inspiration
On the look for the next big thing — your first product inspiration that can set you on track?
Building a business is easy, but running a successful and sustainable business is hard. To run a sustainable business, it is essential for you as a business owner to understand how demand and supply works. Unless there isn’t a demand for something in the market, it is less likely you will have a good turn over.
To understand the demand side, it is important to understand the challenges your customers face, and then build a product to address those challenges. Inspiration can be drawn from anywhere. But following through with it and converting it into a flourishing business, needs both passion and hard-work.
Here are some places where you can pick up product inspiration:
Product inspiration from solving a customer pain point:
Any product or service you have to offer has to address or solve your customers' pain point. Hence, it is crucial to first identify and then build a product to address these challenges. Once you have tapped into this aspect, you can also make a business out of selling similar or complementary products or services. For this, first, identify the problem you wish to solve. Then look up similar products that are already present in the market. Conduct research and understand the shortcomings of these products. Once done, you will have an idea about what your product has to be, and the problem it will address.
Product inspiration from your professional experience:
Working for long hours for someone else would have helped you learn a few tricks of the trade. If you have domain expertise and passion in a particular field, you can make a business idea out of it. Original ideas and content will always help you stand out and gain more customers. An ideal example of this would be the field of digital marketing. No business is complete without content and digital marketing. You can create an agency of your own, and convert your expertise and passion into a flourishing business.
Product inspiration through intensive research:
If you have an idea but are unsure about how to convert into a business model or product, then market research is your go-to place. Identify your target audience and conduct thorough market research. Here, you can ask these customers, inputs about your products and whether they would pay for your product. This would help you validate the standing of your product and whether it will work or not. Additionally, research about similar products and understand their offerings and shortcomings. This will help better your product to ensure that this is what your customers want from you.
Product inspiration with high ROI:
To build a sustainable business, it is crucial to have a high Return On Investment (ROI). This would mean, you can pick a product which you can build from scratch. Raw materials are often available at cheaper prices, as compared to the prices of the end products. This makes for an ideal product when made in bulk, also accounting for higher ROIs. For example: if you are into the jewellery making industry, raw materials in bulk would hardly cost you a dime. But, the end product would go for higher prices, making for larger profit margins.
Product inspiration by finding trending products in marketplaces:
This is an easy way of finding inspiration on the internet. Once you have defined the particular space you want to venture into, identify your product niche as well. Once this is done, you can look up a popular website or aggregators, to find similar products which have a high demand. Once you have identified these products, you can compare their specs and offerings. Additionally, you can identify the problem areas customers face with these products, and build a product which addresses this problem specifically. This would help customers pick your product over those of others.
Product inspiration based on keyword search:
There is no denying that SEO helps to rank your website and products better. But, did you know you can also use a keyword search to help identify related searches by customers? Keyword searches can help you understand what is the current challenge or product they are looking for. This, in turn, can help you understand what is the problem you can address and solve, thereby making it an easy way of identifying your product motivation, to convert into a functional product or business model.
Inspiration is easy to find. Following up with a working model, finding a place to showcase and sell it, is the task.
With Instamojo, you can do just that.
Use our free online store, to showcase and sell your products. Additionally, you can use our payments and Smartlinks to collect more than just instant payments. Collect customer details, GST details, customize your payment links to match your brand and more. You can also use our free tools, custom made to help your business scale and grow.