There’s no easy way to answer this question, or we’d all be millionaires. Keep an idea notebook with you at all times, and try to keep track of times when you’re frustrated with something small and inspiration strikes. Maybe you’re lying on your back in the sun and having trouble holding up your book? What simple product might address your need?[1] X Research source While it might seem like an effective shortcut, polling consumers about what they’d like in terms of particular products tends not to pan out. Again, if people knew what great products they wanted, we’d all be millionaires.
Write out your vision for the product as you see it, but also be willing to compromise when you come up against the practical concerns. Maybe hoverboard technology is a little complex at this point, but you find a guy with experience designing immersive video game technology. Hoverboard 3D! Alternatively, try designing products yourself. The designer of the Revolight, an innovative bicycle lighting system, designed the prototype himself in the garage, and it made serious money on the Internet. Pick up the skills you don’t have and try it yourself.
Again, think about the product in terms of need. If you’ve got a problem reading your book in the sun, you might automatically think of a little chest-prop for your book, but what about eye protection designed for reading? What about digital alternatives? What about keeping the pages free of sand?
Building a prototype is not a small or simple task, especially if your product requires mechanisms, electronics, or firmware to function. Consider hiring a product development team that would produce a fully functional and neat prototype that would impress your backers and investors. If you’ve got a good history of developing products, you might think about taking your product design to venture capitalists and gaining some money on the basis of your track record.
As you use the product, keep a journal or a voice recorder with you to keep track of your experience of the product as you’re using it. You might tend to remember all the bad or all the good later on. Don’t just use the product, abuse it. If you’re thinking about going into production, you’ll want to find out what your product is made of, and whether or not it’ll stand up to people throwing it around, dropping it, and the other trappings of real-life ownership. Is it fragile? Could it use some reinforcing?
Age range Socio-economic status Level of education Hobbies and interests Prejudices and opinions
If you want to do an informal feedback session, treat it as seriously as the product warrants. Your parents and your friends will likely tell you that your new beer is “Delicious” to be nice, but also give it to some serious beer drinkers to find out whether or not you’ve got the stuff. If you conduct formal focus groups, do several runs with different groups of people. Your audience may be slightly different than you originally anticipated. Listen and gather feedback.
In some cases, you might find it more effective to allow someone else to gather feedback about your product from testers. You may be inclined to defend your product against criticism, whereas a more unbiased researched will have an easier time collecting this feedback.
The feedback you gather will likely not have great ideas about ways in which the product needs to be changed, but you can listen to the criticism that occurs and come up with your own ideas about how to address those complaints. So people found your book prop somewhat complicated to use? How can it be easier?
Cost of operation Overhead Outside expenses Worker salaries
The more you can decide about your marketing strategy before turning to an agency, the better. The best products can be sold on the strength of their usefulness and integrity. Good products sell themselves.
Come up with a rubric for measuring the quality of the products as you create them. [6] X Research source You’re not always going to be around to test them, so come up with a list of things to look for so that someone else can be the quality maven in your stead.
