Does your product idea have a market?
How to find out if your big idea really has the potential to be a success
I’ve been designing and engineering new technology products for 11 years, and have learned that coming up with a product idea is often the easy part. The real challenge lies in taking this idea and crafting it into something that has a clear market and the potential to shine.
Although your idea might seem amazing to you, not everyone will see your product with the same eyes. It’s vital that you really understand what problem your product solves and how it will sit in a competitive market once on sale.
This doesn’t mean running your idea past a group of friends as you collectively massacre the Covenant on Halo 3. There’s nothing wrong with asking your friends, or even your mum if they see potential in your idea, but you need to be analytical.
It’s easy to get caught up in the emotion of a great idea and everything that might follow.
What’s needed first is to identify the products potential. That’s when you’ve really got something to get excited about. So what can you do to test if your product’s got what it take to shine?
Go and meet your market
Don’t target friends or family. Go out and talk with people who have no vested interest in your emotional state. Ask them to be honest if it’s something they don’t like, and if you do get positive feedback, you’ll know they’re being genuine.
I find that it helps to speak to a couple a people you don’t know well, but who are good friends with each other. They tend to bounce ideas off each other and won’t feel as pressured to answer what they think you want to hear. Do this a few times and I guarantee you’ll get feedback on your product you hadn’t considered.
Google, Google, Google
You don’t need to buy a $10,000 report from Gartner to get information about markets relevant to your product idea and the problem it solves. Sensible Google searches will throw up a treasure trove of interesting market data. In fact, many analysts provide free executive summaries, which can be a goldmine of top-level market data that give you a real sense of market potential.
Take stock of what skills you have
Building a Flux Capacitor is a great idea, but unless you’re Doc Brown you’re unlikely to be travelling back to the future.
If you don’t have all the skills you need to make the product a reality (and chances are you won’t), think about where you can get them. Get advice from colleague lecturers, your old university professor, or industry professionals on Twitter who are often willing to help if you ask nicely. It’s people with relevant industry knowledge who will help you decide if it will fly and steer it in the right direction.
Be better than the competition
Very few ideas are truly original, and it’s likely that someone else is already making money from it.
It’s then important to identify where your idea is different, and if that difference is big enough to displace the competition. Don’t be too proud to admit when someone has beaten you to the draw. Better to know now than in 12-months — minus your savings.
Make sure you’ve got the funds to see thing through
I’ll touch on this more in my next post, but it’s important you have sufficient cash to bring your idea to fruition — even if it’s only to the prototype stage. The good news is, there are plenty of places you can look and lots of people interested in backing a good idea.
This is part of a series of lessons learned while developing nio Tag, the world’s first Bluetooth security tag. I’m currently raising money to produce nio Card which upgrades your wallet and phone to have NFC and more on Kickstarter.
