Product Design
Get a 3D CAD Design of your IDEA. The most cost-effective way to do this is to have an experienced product designer/engineer design your product with manufacturing in mind. Designing your product for manufacturing up front will save you a lot of time and money. Therefore, choose your designer wisely!
Prototyping
Prototype your Idea from using the 3D CAD Design. Depending on your product, the easiest and most cost-effective method to prototype your idea is by 3D printing. There are other methods to build prototypes which include: CNC machined prototypes, Urethane Cast prototypes, and home-built prototypes.
Testing
Test your Prototype. You will want to ensure your product works. The main items to test for are form, fit and function. This step is the best place to ensure your product functions like you intended.
Iterate
Iterate steps 1-3 to get your product functional like you intended. When iterating you will want to maximize the time spent designing and prototyping in each iteration so make sure you update your design for any/all changes you need after each testing phase. Be careful not to change too many variables if you are trying to troubleshoot.
Expert Tip
Don’t spend too much time iterating, the goal is to get your product to a MVP (minimum viable product) stage so you can validate that your product is needed/wanted by potential customers.
Customer Validation
Validate your product is needed or wanted by potential customers. There are different ways to go about customer validation. The goal of this step is to gather as much feedback as possible before going to the next step.
If your prototypes can function like a production product, send out a couple to potential customers to ensure your product solves a problem and is easy to use.
If your prototypes can’t function like a production product, show the function of your product to potential customers with photos and/or videos.
Manufacturing
If you gain enough information to make you feel comfortable that your product solves a problem and customers will use it then it is time to find a manufacturer. There are many different manufacturing methods so make sure you know what manufacturing method your product was designed for in step 1 so you can successfully find a manufacturer. One of the most common and most cost-effective manufacturing types is Plastic Injection Molding. If you want more information on the steps involved in getting you product manufactured follow us for more useful information!
Marketing/Sales
Once you have your product manufactured then you can figure out the different ways you want to sell it. The quickest and easiest way to sell your product is through ecommerce channels. This can include your website and/or 3rd party ecommerce platforms such as Ebay, Amazon and Etsy. This is the most exciting part – watching customers buy and review your product that you worked so hard to get to market! Pro Tip: if you want your product to grow organically and be successful always make sure to offer the best customer service to all your customers.
Here are BeraTek, we have perfected this 7-step process and have created and sold more than $2,000,000 worth of product through ecommerce channels in the last 3 years. VuSee, Power Perch, Hold and Go Slow Cooker are 3 of the many products we have developed, manufactured and sold. When you are ready to take your idea to market, reach out to us. We would love to help! info@beratek-industries.com