Fail Fast, Succeed Faster: Why More Failures Lead to Better Hardware Innovations

Failure has a bad reputation, especially in hardware product development, where budgets are tight, timelines are rigid, and mistakes can be expensive. But here’s the truth: failure isn’t just a stepping stone to success—it’s the foundation. The best products on the market today were built on countless failures, each one pushing the design forward.

From my experience leading electro-mechanical product development across multiple industries, I’ve seen how embracing failure can lead to groundbreaking innovations. Whether it was developing lithium-ion battery-powered products or a countertop beverage machine, every successful product went through dozens—sometimes hundreds—of failed iterations before hitting the market. Those failures weren’t setbacks; they were progress markers.

Why Failure Fuels Success

1. Accelerates Learning: Rapid prototyping and iterative testing help identify design flaws early, preventing costly recalls down the road.
2. Refines Design: Every failure forces engineers to explore alternative solutions, often leading to unexpected breakthroughs in performance, efficiency, or manufacturability.
3. Enhances Risk Management: Controlled failures in testing allow for stronger product validation before launch, ensuring safety and compliance.
4. Drives Cost Optimization: Value engineering—targeting cost without sacrificing quality—relies on testing limits and failures to find optimal materials and designs.

Fail Smart, Not Just Fast

The key isn’t just failing often—it’s failing intelligently. Blindly repeating mistakes without analysis leads to wasted resources and frustration. The most successful engineering teams I’ve worked with used structured failures. By integrating tools like Smartsheet and Autodesk Fusion PLM, or Wrike, they systematically documented failures, identified patterns, and made data-driven design adjustments.

For instance, in one of my projects, reducing the product development timeline from 18 to 14 months came down to better tracking and learning from failures more effectively. By optimizing the prototyping process and embedding a design-thinking approach, we turned failures into faster, more precise iterations.

The Bottom Line

More intelligent failures mean more innovative success. If you want to build something truly revolutionary, you need to test, break, learn, and repeat. Fail fast, learn faster, and improve continuously. Because in hardware development, the real failure is never trying at all.

About Joe: A forward-thinking technology enthusiast with a passion for innovation and a track record of driving results in complex technical and business environments. Joe is currently working as President of a central Connecticut based contract manufacturer Fonda Flexible Manufacturing LLC…?