Creating a Product Development Process - Product People
I?put out a lot of newsletters and content about ideas for individual products or new niche opportunities. But say you already have a company that makes products, and you want to get better at, what do you do then?
You, my friends, need a great product development strategy.
This applies just as much if you have a solopreneur business dropshipping, to a small 3-10 person DTC business, to a growing business hitting millions a month.
To give us all some guidance, we're going to learn from the only designer who could possibly get us to worship the style of a vacuum cleaner, a hair dryer, and an air purifier... Dyson.
Dyson transformed the way we all look at everyday objects... These look equal parts futuristic and 80's sci-fi movie kitsch... And they work extremely well.
The coveted Dyson Airwrap
The Dyson product development strategy might not be perfect for your business, but it’s certainly worth looking at as a framework to develop your own version for concepting and refining products.
The Dyson Product Development Strategy
Specify
Plan
Design*
Build
Test
Analyze
*This isn’t always a seamless process. It took James Dyson 5,127 tries to get the first vacuum right!
So… how does Dyson do it?
Specify
Dyson says that every product starts with a problem to solve and that when designing a product their engineers consider the following 8 elements:
Aesthetics
Cost
Customer
Environment
Function
Materials
Safety
Size Plan
A good exercise for a new product is to have dedicated planning sessions for each of the items listed above, and write a plan and questions for each into a document.
Plan
Dyson projects run on a tight schedule and there is time built in for the product to be tested and improved again and again.
They know they won’t get it right on the first try and build in time for the product to fail and improve as they go.
Setting a list of milestones, objectives and target dates, with responsibility assigned for who is responsible for those deadlines helps build a basic timeline and ensure projects get started with accountability.
Design
Dyson Engineers work in teams, brainstorming solutions. There are no bad ideas, and everything is written down.
Then they work on sketching out the design together. Sketching helps them figure out how each of the parts will fit together.
Pro tip for my new entrepreneur friends who might not sketch... Hire a CAD artist on Upwork, you can find them for $20-50/hr and then they can help you visualize ideas freelance and REALLY change the game when communicating with factories.
Build
Dyson engineers make 3D prototypes right away during their design process. They often start with crude cardboard prototypes and then move towards Computer Aided Design (CAD) and later to 3D printing.
Worth noting: Abstract ideas are great. Concrete objects are better.?Push to the prototype stage sooner rather than later in any development is something I always suggest.
Test
Dyson engineers often test their prototypes into destruction. They want to not only test their design specs but to make sure the product will survive use at home.
After products are tested, they will be rebuilt and tested again repeatedly until the engineers are satisfied.
This is a big thing smaller, newer brands fail at, don't forget to test!
Analyze
Once Dyson engineers are confident in the design of the machine, it goes into manufacturing. Once again, it will be put through a rigorous testing phase.
It’s inevitable that the product will fail at some point, but the engineers will analyze this data for improvement.
As a smaller company, this step should serve as a reminder to observe, survey, and check-in with your users and their experience to put loops into iteration.
A product isn't done when it's released... merely its first iteration is completed.
领英推荐
?? FACTORIES ??
The basketball playoffs are here... get ready for next season and start scouting a product now. Here's a ton of basketball and sport options on Alibaba to consider.
Some ideas I would look at:
- Specific products for coaches and parents to help teach, with step by step playbooks
- Niche relevant designs on jerseys/balls etc (memes, luxury patterns, photogenic for content)
- Small teams & players with cult followings could have fun fan merch
Opportunities in social and ecom:
- Running “challenges” that would look particularly cool with a specific product (night content for instance)
- Quizzes and contests to drive email signups for top of funnel
- Themed store drops for parts of season
Products:
Custom shorts are growing more and more common and there's tons of dope styles, but these particular ones are only 10 MOQ for a custom logo which makes it super easy to launch. This factory is a gem!
Custom balls, $10 at 30 quantity, so many fun items you can do here for various niches, at decent quantity. Make sure to specify your size!
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Custom-white-leather-basketball-with-black_1600065406877.html
Glow in the dark, customization at 100
Guangzhou Healong Sportswear is a great option for custom jerseys, just make sure you have your sizing dialed, and provide sizing to them. Die sublimation jerseys have a low MOQ (10) and look great.
Pro tip - measure sizing!
Snapbacks and hats. Good snapbacks with multicolor embroidery have high MOQs (think 1000, try to negotiate down), but plenty of options with less.
Made for Tik Tok
Light up nets:
Glow in the dark nets:
Glow in the dark ball:
Magnetic tactics board... someone could do something sick with these, I've never seen one tricked out, but a fun gift for any coach.
Agility ladders and rings. As low as $2.20 each at 100 MOQ, this is a great product for margin, and to bundle with content like a manual or video series of drills, or an accountability program.
?? BUILDERS BUILD??
BB17- Buying an Ecommerce Business: $1k/mo > $8k/mo in 1 Year
The gang is back to do a 1 year recap on Colin’s wife’s eCommerce acquisition, Glowless. Our first episode about this was in the early days of the podcast, but it remains one of our most popular.
Stoked to see what you create!
– Oren
P.S.
Check out 2 newsletters from my best friends Colin & James
Free Smoke - A Cannabis Business newsletter by Colin Landforce:?https://freesmoke.xyz/
NanoFlips - Learn the art of buying, growing and selling websites:?https://www.nanoflips.com/
Entreprenuer
2 年I appreciate us looking to Dyson, and vacuums, for product innovation. When we were doing drones I remember being at CES and thinking "Holy shit, at least we're not marketing washing machines". Meanwhile, Dyson's innovation on an equally boring category is incredible. They're a leader in hard goods product innovation, period.