Developing a Product and Bringing It to Market

Tamarack Technologies, Inc.

Paul H. Raymer

“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” Why would anyone need to build a better mousetrap? Is the world being overrun with mice? Do the existing mousetrapping approaches not work? What’s wrong with them?

Developing a product is full of questions like these. Determining the right set of questions and following them with the right set of answers is the key to developing a successful product. What does “successful” mean? In terms of this discussion, “successful” will be taken to mean that the product solves the problem that it was designed to solve, and in doing so, is accepted by the market.

Many products developed by enthusiastic entrepreneurs do not succeed because they ignore or overlook some key parameter. Products are systems from their initial concept through the design process, manufacturing, marketing, installation, and product support. Changing one component or element must only be done in considering all the elements in the system. And there must be constant feedback from the marketplace.

The Edsel was a product that was developed without a thorough consideration of the market. Coca-Cola considered and analyzed the market for “New Coke”, but missed the fact that the product should only be an additional product and not a replacement product. The development process was driven by the fact that the chief executive wanted to make his mark on the history of the company, and he certainly did!

Tim Maloney’s “Waterwall” product was a beautiful, sculptor’s approach to a heat storage product but it wasn’t something that enough people wanted in their houses to make it successful. It solved the technical problem reasonably well, but pricing and distribution stopped its success.

Even Dow Chemical’s “Enerphase” heat storage system with a huge amount of marketing and technical muscle behind it couldn’t make the leap to success.

There are dozens of products that raised their heads into the market only to fade away into the great museum of “really neat” ideas: Zomeworks “Beadwall”, a night insulation system that injected and evacuated polystyrene beads from between two panes of glass, Insulating Curtain Wall from Thermal Technology Corporation, a night insulation system that self-inflated when lowered over a window, Otto Fabric “inorganic fiberglass” glazing and collector surface materials, and dozens more in the energy field. All of these products made it through the idea and development stage and raised their heads in the market. Dozens more products never make it past the great idea stage like Blue Sky’s Cloud Mover or my own Acoustic-R Meter that was thought to be able to hear the materials in a wall to determine its “R” value.

What is it that lifts a product from, “Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a product that . . . ” to a commodity like KleenexÒ or PlexiglasÒ or StyrofoamÒ? It is a system of four components: a great idea, good engineering, good marketing, and luck. There is a huge difference between building a “better” mousetrap and inventing a mousetrap in the first place. Inventing the first mousetrap means determining the potential market and then convincing it that it needs a mousetrap, that in fact it needs your mousetrap. Determining if there really is a market for the product prior to development, is the best place to start.

The “seat of the pants” approach to product development eliminates all the planning and formal feedback loops and goes straight into the process of product development. Virtually all of the products that I have worked on have followed this path. The products arise from a problem expressed in an industry I am familiar with – a new idea, something that has been missing or a problem that seems to have been badly solved. “There’s got to be a better way!” The problem with this approach is that it relies on a very limited point of view. For a product to achieve market acceptance, the market has to be broader than family and a small circle of friends or colleagues. Unless one is not seeking to make a living making the product. The primary difficulty is that without planning and accurate market feedback, there is no way to really know what the market wants, what is most important, what is wrong with existing products?

Proceeding through a more formalized approach to product development can be very rewarding. It can even indicate whether or not the product is worth developing at all! Here are the formalized steps for successful, commercial product development based on a model created by Shaun Meredith of Dome Solutions, Inc.

Product Description: The product description establishes the direction of the project. It formalizes the “Wouldn’t it be neat if . . .” criteria.

Key Business Goals: What is the target date for market introduction? Is there a key cost criteria?

Primary Market: It is vitally important to determine if there is truly a market for a product meeting the description before the development process begins. In a ‘seat-of-the-pants’ development this might be as simple as determining who would be interested in buying a better mousetrap. Identifying the market helps to identify a marketing approach, what trade shows to attend, what magazines to advertise in. Home shows might address the mousetrap audience; “Better Homes and Gardens” might be a place to advertise to get to the homeowner market. A far more scientific approach is to assemble a focus group or groups and ask them a series of penetrating questions. A difficult element in this process is to be sure that the right questions are asked and the answers clearly and completely understood. This would help to the avoid the “New Coke” disaster

Secondary Market: There should be a secondary market that would allow the product to move further than just one level of product penetration. Pet shows might be a place to sell a mousetrap to snake owners.

Assumptions: Certain basic, seemingly obvious assumptions need to be made about any product. In the case of the mousetrap, one has to assume that there will be mice. If the device needed power, one would have to assume that there would be a source of electricity, etc. This is one of those obvious steps that seems so basic that it can easily be overlooked.

Stakeholders: Who cares? Housewives who can’t rely on their spouses to remove the dead creature? Animal rights activists who believe that existing mousetraps are inhumane? Farmers whose barns are overrun. Or pet storeowners who need mice as a commodity to sell to snake owners. These are the people who will truly set the path of product development.

Identify Customer needs with explicit weighting factors: What is most important about the new product? Price? Size? Speed of killing? Odor masking? By establishing a scale of 100 points, each of the features can be weighted.

Target specifications with measurable product criteria: Certain elements of the product’s success should be measurable. For example, how long should it take to remove the captured mouse from the trap? This can be specified in minutes. How much sound should the trap make when it is triggered? This can be measured in decibels. If one of the main features of the trap is to keep the dead mouse from smelling, criteria should be established that could measure the level of odor. This can then be weighed against the odors generated in competing products.

Competing Products: A series of competing products must be determined. This is simpler in the case of a better mousetrap than it would be if this were the original product. In case this is an original device, other entities that perform similar functions can be brought in for comparison such as a cat or a hawk. These items can then be compared to the proposed product as to features that they might perform better or worse. This can be a simple one to ten scale.

Initial product approaches: With all of this information, approaches to the product design can be brainstormed. Any approach no matter how far fetched should be considered here. From this point on, changes become increasingly difficult. Even a very unusual approach can add substance to the final product. Once an array of approaches has been established, the ‘best’ one must be accepted and actual product development can begin. Considering the ‘system’ nature of product development, the component design must not only optimize the performance of the device but it must also simplify and optimize the production process. It must also carefully consider future servicing unless the product is an inexpensive throwaway. Utilizing the same component in a number of devices increases potential purchase volume and simplifies assembly and future service. Sometimes a component designed for a completely different purpose can be re-employed. The widest example of this in our production process was using a cafeteria tray as the cover for one of our fans. We saved a great deal of development money, and the tray was the right size and material and strength and cost to satisfy our requirements.

Refine specifications: With the product approach selected, the real product specifications can be refined. These are guideline specifications, targets to shoot for, limits. Once the actual product has been developed, testing will establish the performance results.

Plan remaining development: At this point, the decision has been made that the project concept will work and if the product specifications are met, the market is very likely to accept it. (Market acceptance is never a “sure thing”.) The critical path steps to final production can then be determined and development can proceed.

System level design: Finally the first step in actually designing the product. This should be the overall package or system design.

Detail design: And then the drawings and schematic diagrams and software can be developed and produced.

Testing and refinement: Build the prototype and find out if it will really catch mice, if it will really meet the goals. This step is a development loop with its own adjusting feedback.

Product ramp up: Production. Marketing. Production. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Part of this depends on what sort of financial support is available.

And it’s just that easy! One of the most interesting things about this process is the constant feedback loop to the market. To develop the product in isolation from the market is a virtual guarantee of failure. It is critical that the developers are constantly listening to the actual market, not to their own feelings.

By the way, another critical factor in product development is money. It costs money to develop, manufacture, and sell a product. The more money that is available, the more likely it is that the product will be a success, although that is not a guarantee. A thorough analysis of competitors (the market) and customer needs can greatly enhance the chance of success. Some products can be developed in partnership with other companies or potentially even for other companies with deeper research and development pockets. One of the difficulties here is protecting the product concept during the negotiating process, prior to actually having a working product. Without a completed design, an accurate patent can’t be applied for and the patenting process can be long and drawn out and can give a competitor actual designs to work around. Fortunately, unless the product is truly an obvious gold mine like the cure for all cancers, most large companies are not generally interested in getting into a long-term tussle even with a small operation. Still it is a scary and potentially risky process to offer one’s creation with no protection.

Certainly products can be developed and successfully brought to market with little funding and a lot of luck. Success can be greatly enhanced through the use of planning and carefully listening to the market. There can be substantial monetary rewards for bringing in a success, but more than that, there are great emotional rewards seeing something you have conceived, created, and produced operating in someone else’s life. It is a little like riding on the New York Subway and hearing someone whistling a song you have composed or reading a book you have written. But the path is certainly not an easy one.