Getting your product – whatever it is – from its initial prototype to store shelves is a very involved process. If you look around online you can find plenty of articles on the cycle of product development, so right now we’re going to skip the first few steps and assume you’ve already passed through Idea generation, product scope, and prototyping.
After Prototyping – Initial Design
So, you’ve made a prototype of your product. Right now it’s just a mockup, something to show people the idea you’ve got and demonstrate its function, but it’s not quite complete yet. Now you’ve got to get it into that more complete format. Now you need to make it look like something that could be on a product shelf. So, the first thing you need to do is get everything you need to make your product, and actually make it!
Depending on how developed your prototype is this may take more or less effort, but in many ways, this is the first real stress test of your product. You’ll probably find yourself making changes to the product itself – maybe using cheaper materials, or altering the order in which things are put together – and this is where you’ll have to actually start paying people for their time. Artists, designers, materials, all of these things cost money and if you’ve got stakeholders this is the time you’ll need to convince them that your product is worth investing in.
Throughout this process, you should keep up constant contact with your shareholders and the people who have an investment in your product. Not only do you need to keep them invested, but if you need people to test or experience your product these are probably going to be the first people to do it – and soliciting their feedback is going to be important for maintaining their interest in the long term.
Depending on your product and industry, your priorities and decisions in this stage may vary, but the most important step is maintaining investor interest. Without those investors, you will get nowhere – especially if the only investor is yourself – and having someone to report progress to is a great stimulus for actually making progress. Finally, if you don’t have any investors, this is definitely the time to start getting some because you’re going to want them for the next phase…
Product Testing
This is possibly the most important phase in the process of getting a product to the shelf. With enough money, connections and support, any product can get on the shelf, but quality can only be obtained through repeated and rigorous testing. Let’s face it, if your product relies in any way on consumer opinion, maintaining an acceptable level of quality is going to be critical.
By now you should already have gotten some initial feedback on your product – even if it’s just from the concept or initial design stages. Review this feedback and make sure that what you’ve made is meeting or addressing those queries and concerns. Then, find someone within your group to try the product out. Be open about it, tell them what it’s supposed to do and supposed to achieve and let them tell you if it does that. If those initial tests are successful, then you’re ready to start releasing it to wider audiences.
The field of Quality Assurance Testing is a field in its own right, but in short, you need to give as little input as possible, find people who are as close to your target audience as possible, but also give them clear guidelines on what sort of tests you want them to do and what sort of feedback you are looking for. Tests like this need to be done in every function of the product, possibly including the supply line and even should be a part of market research. How many tests you’ll have to do will vary based on the product, but the most important thing is to get enough tests for consistent feedback, which usually requires at least twenty or so tests for numbers to start getting meaningful.
Now we hit the final stage.
Commercialisation
This is it. The final step is before your product gets on the shelf. You’ve got the product, you’ve tested it, and now you’ve got to make it accessible.
At this stage, you should be working on producing the product and making deals to get it on shelves. If your business is entirely online, this is when you should start marketing your product, releasing websites and preparing everything for the actual launch. If you haven’t already done so, this is where you’ll need to be in touch with fast-moving consumer goods industry (FMCG) branding agencies or similar to get your product from the supply line and into the hands of consumers. Think you don’t need them? Well maybe not, but there’s a lot to cover in the commercialisation phase. Not only do you need to have pleased your investors, but this is the stage where you need to have found your target audience, completed your market research, gotten clear benchmarks for the cost of production, set up the supply lines, set up advertising, set up any and all automation, contact all the companies you may need to work with and strike deals with all of them. And all of this may be happening while you may still be working on product testing. This is potentially the most intensive part of the process, negotiating between a range of staff and companies, and every part of it needs to be done right. You only get one launch day and that launch needs to make an impact.
Once this step is finished, you should be days away from your launch date. Congratulate yourself on making it this far. You’ve successfully launched your prototype.
