How to Develop a Physical Product: A Short and Sweet Guide

Manufacturing a physical product is not cheap, so you can’t afford to bring a sub-par product to market. While having an excellent idea for a product is crucial, there’s also a lot more you need to think about.

So what exactly do you need to consider when designing, producing, and marketing a physical product? This article tells you everything you need to know about the physical product design process.

1. Define Your Target Audience

Before you can start the physical product development process, you’ll need to develop who your target audience will be. The reason for doing this is simple. You need to establish if your product is even going to sell.

In some cases, you might find that your target audience simply isn’t large enough to justify starting the product development process. In other cases, you might find there’s simply too much competition out there for you to enter the market.

You can’t afford to cut corners in this area. Before you develop a product, you need to know you have an audience out there who will buy the product. If you have doubts at this stage, it may make sense to bring in a consultant to help.

2. Come Up With a Design

Next, you’ll need to come up with a design. You should not rush this stage in the process. Physical product design involves a lot of trial and error, and it’s unlikely you’ll get things right the first time around.

It’s essential that you create at least one prototype product before starting your business launch. Generally, a prototype will reveal issues with the design you were not expecting. This allows you to go back and make the necessary changes before you source a large-scale producer.

3. Source a Producer

Finally, you’ll need to find a company that can produce the product in large quantities. These days, many companies like to work with contract manufacturing in China.

This is because China offers good quality manufacturing at reasonable prices. With that said, you might also consider developing your product a little closer to home.

It all depends on what you’re producing and how much of it you want to produce. Before signing a contract with a producer, you should ask them to produce some samples.

If you’re happy with the provided samples, you should sign a contract with the company. It makes a lot of sense to work with a legal consultant, especially if you’re working with a foreign company.

Produce a Great Physical Product

If you follow these tips, you should be able to design, produce and market a successful product. Keep in mind that physical product production can be a long-drawn-out process.

Don’t expect to start a new business and have the production lines rolling within a few weeks. If you want to learn more about other business-related topics, check out the rest of our blog posts.