Is my company designing the right products?

So now you have decided to embark on an illuminating journey of developing a product of your dream and feel ready to tackle the challenges of hardware entrepreneurship, what is next?

Before putting any time, effort and resource into development, I highly recommend you take a step back to answer the question: “Will I be developing the right product?”

Rushing a product to market often leads to disappointment for both customers and your company. Slow down, focus on real user needs, and you'll develop something people truly value.

So how would you do that? Start with empathy. Speak to potential users to understand their biggest pains and desires, NOT your own assumptions. Listen without judgment and the insights will surprise you. I often heard hardware entrepreneurs talking about the products of their dreams; if the latter are based solely on their own perspectives rather than the intended end users, one can imagine the probability of those products being developed meeting user and market expectations.

Brainstorm many ideas, however wild. Quantity always beats quality in the early stage of product conceptualization; don't edit early to filter out any potentially innovative ideas. Map concepts to user insights discovered, especially the unarticulated ones; this is usually where true innovations will arise.

Once product concepts are narrowed down, refine them through conducting user validation testing, not opinions. Understand user behaviour objectively with planned tasks and questions, not passive surveys. The iterative user-research-validation-refinement cycle drives the best product trajectory. The above is only the beginning. There happens to a highly structured and comprehensive product development process that Amazing Lab has been practicing with all our clients, and it is proven time and time again that it helps minimize development risks while shorten time-to-market. We will explore that together next.

Kevin Ko

#amazinglab #hardwarestartup #rightproduct #userinsights