A few months ago I was asked to be the featured speaker for the founder’s lunch at the Center for Entrepreneurial Innovation (CEI) in Phoenix. Never one to pass up a free lunch and a chance to spout off, I accepted and agreed to talk about one of my favorite subjects – product design for startups.
It turned out to be a great session, with lots of comments and questions from the founders in the room. I started with a look at what Product Design is, the standard Product Design Process, and then 10 lessons learned. Going over those 10 lessons really got the conversation going, so I thought it would be a good thing to share. So, while its still fresh in my mind, I thought I’d put it on the blog
First, What is Product Design
Before we dive into the 10 lessons, it is important to really define what those lessons apply to. What is product design?
Let’s look at the definition of each word:
- Product: “Something that is made or grown to be sold or used.”
- Design: “To plan and make decisions about (something that is being built or created)”
The “sold” part is important to me. The difference between a thing and a product is a product is a thing people will pay for. So my definition of product design is:
Product Design is defining a thing that people will want to pay money for that can be made at a price that is less than people are willing to pay.
The Product Design Process
There are hundreds of different product design processes, every design team has their own. As an example, here is PADT’s:
But most textbooks and such use some variation of the following as a starting point for a design process:
- Create Requirements
- Conceptual Design
- Prototype & Test
- Detail Design
- Finalize Design
One question that was asked is how this differs from what a researcher has been doing to get to a benchtop prototype of their product. For me, that is research and development. It feeds the first step in helping create the requirements. But what you are doing is not product design until you go from defining or building a prototype to test your hypothesis and move to defining an object that can be sold. Something that people will pay money for.
One more thing: A design is not a design unless it fully defines the product.
10 Lessons Learned for Product Design of Physical Products
It is now time to get into the meat of the topic, the 10 lessons learned. So here we go, in no specific order:
1: The Cost of Change Only Goes Up as the Design Solidifies
It is a well-known fact in the world of engineering that the further you get into a design, the more detailed the design is, and the more committed you are to different options, the more expensive it is to change. Startup teams need to recognize this and take the time to iterate early, test as soon as possible, and get your changes in as early as you can.
2: Excellent Product Design Incorporates Manufacturing at Every Step
There is not much to say about this. If you want a design that can be made and if you want to avoid spending money on costly changes when you start manufacturing, consider manufacturing at every step. Any time you make a decision, your team should ask, “How does this decision impact manufacturing?”
3: Product Design Is an Iterative Process
Startups often run out of money because the budget for a design process moves forward without any issues, without the need for any iterations. No matter how good you are and no matter how good your engineers are, you are going to have iterations. Plan for iterations, raise enough money for iterations and schedule for iterations. The worst thing that will happen is you won’t need as many as you thought, and you will have more cash for sales and marketing.
4: Focus on the Customer and What They Need
This starts with first making sure you know who your customers are. Create personas for them. Then go out and truly understand what it is they want. This is often called making sure you have Product Market Fit. For me, it is not just determining what they want, but what value would they place on a solution? Remember, a product is something people will pay for. How much will they pay for a given capability?
5: Do Honest Research
Everyone does market and competitive research. But it is really hard to do it honestly. We are human and what we tend to do is start with an assumption we like, then go do research to justify that assumption. This is why it often makes sense to outsource your research to someone who doesn’t know what you think is important. It’s hard, but be brutally honest in your research, even if what it turns up is not great news.
6: Source Your Partners
Don’t just pick partners for your product design because someone recommended them or because you really like them. Talk to their references, and visit their facilities. Take the time to choose the best partners for your product, not for you. Try to take emotion out of the process of finding people and companies you will work with. Once you have picked them, pay them on time, listen to them, and build trust with them.
7: Invest in Project Management
You need project management. You can do it yourself, you can have one of your employees do it, or you can bring in a fractional PM. Either way, use standard project management processes, or you will lose money, and your schedule will become a joke. Project management is not an expense. It is an investment.
8: Look at Lean Product Development
You may not be ready for such a rigorous product design methodology, but you may want to study it and adopt some of it. Then, when you have grown, come back and build out a strong team that understands Lean Product Development. It is an iterative, value-driven, manufacturing-centric iterative approach to design that works very well and really leans into some of the lessons learned discussed here. Toyota developed the process as the Toyota Production System and still practices it today.
9: Use a Real MVP
A Minimum Viable Product(MVP) is the place you should always start your product design with. An MVP is a product with the minimum number of features to get customer/market feedback. Feature bloat is a project killer, especially with startups that have to raise money to pay for everything. Make sure you keep your first product as simple as possible.
10: Product Design is Expensive and Takes Time
One of the most common reasons I have seen for product design to fail is not budgeting enough time and money. Founders, especially if they come from software or are influenced by the way software is brought to market, underestimate how hard it is to design a physical product. You can’t break the rule of physics, and all those moving parts, literally and figuratively, take time. There used to be a tongue-in-cheek rule for estimating cost and budget. Do you detailed cost workup, then multiply it times Pi. You will need at least three times as much time than you think.
Go Forth and Do Product Design
I hope you have found this short summary useful. One way to make sure your startup’s product design goes well is to hire a company like PADT to help you. For over three decades, from simulation to design, testing to manufacturing consulting, PADT has helped companies move from the bench to a product, something people will pay for. Reach out, our engineers would love to talk to you about your design. Give us a call at 480.813.4884 or email consult@padtinc.com.
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