Manufacturing a new hardware product at scale can feel like “success,” but in consumer electronics and smart devices, for example, it’s also where risk peaks. Big brands have playbooks to contain and manage those risks. Smaller businesses, even well-funded startups and SMEs, rarely do. The safest path is a structured approach to user testing throughout New Product Introduction (NPI).
Launching at scale is risky business
The largest brands launch new hardware products and expect to sell at least tens of thousands of units within a few months of the launch.
What most people do not realize is that this is relatively costly and risky. Here is why:
- A new product comes with features or attributes that are new by definition, and that means a product manager cannot fully anticipate how people will use it, or how it will fare in its environment. As an extreme example, when the iPhone was launched, did anybody forecast that a large number of users would be using their phones more than 4 hours a day?
- A new product is made with new components and/or in a new way that may come with unforeseen weaknesses.
Think of the Galaxy Note 7 and its occasionally exploding battery. They pushed the boundaries of how much space should be around the battery in a phone. That disaster has cost Samsung about $5 billion.
Despite the risks, large companies carry on with this approach because they have playbooks (and budgets) for crisis PR, recalls, and Early Field Failure Analysis (EFFA). Some products running into trouble in the field is expected and planned for. However, smaller teams, even well-funded startups and SMEs, rarely do. The safest path is a structured approach to user testing throughout New Product Introduction (NPI).
What can smaller companies and even start-ups do instead?
Can they take the risk of releasing something onto the market that will disappoint users? What if they get some poor reviews? Will that hamper the commercial success of the product? That’s likely.
In the case of a company that invested most of its resources into launching a new product, that can be a disaster. Early customers do not trust a new product from an unknown company if they see evidence of buggy software, fragile hardware, poor customer support, and so on.
That is why we strongly suggest to our customers that they go through a structured approach to collecting feedback on their product throughout the new product introduction process.
A structured approach to obtaining user feedback
Here’s what that structured approach to obtaining user feedback can look like:
Early design: “Isn’t it too soon?” (It isn’t.)
At the early design stage, most people believe “this is too early.” However, with a bit of creativity and resourcefulness, many teams have collected an enormous amount of information even before building complex prototypes, for instance, by following the Pretotyping approach. It’s a methodology designed to test product ideas quickly and cost-effectively before investing in full-scale development. It focuses on validating whether a concept has market interest by gathering real consumer data on their behaviors and preferences. (See also concept validation tactics within our own DFM & Industrialization (NPI) approach.)
Consider fast experiments that validate problem/solution assumptions before you commit to tooling investment and long lead-times.
Semi-functional prototypes: start with target users
Once there is a semi-functional or mostly functional prototype, the engineers involved in product design and prototyping will naturally test it first. However, this is far from sufficient. When the prototype is somewhat functional, that’s often the right time to start gathering feedback from potential users.
What potential users? You should have an idea about your target market and the types of users, including demographics and psychographics, that you will target. Getting validation that the product actually solves the intended problem for target users is crucial. If the functional performance of the product is central to its appeal, spend time here… iterate until you get the desired feedback.
Or, it might be a sign your target market is wrong, and those users will not find value. That leads to a tough discussion: keep iterating on the product, or pivot to a different target market? Making these decisions now is much better than six months and $300,000 later.
Related reading:
- 4 Types of Pre-Production Prototype You’ll Make Before Production
- 7 Steps To Get Accurate Prototypes
Fully functional engineering prototypes: seek maturity signals
Once you have fully functional engineering prototypes, you can start to show them to pickier potential customers. They are more likely to judge your product and dismiss it if they feel it is not mature, so don’t show them earlier prototypes.
What you can do, though, is request a letter of intent or even a purchase order contingent on certain conditions. After all, these customers expect maturity, but hopefully, they are also ready to plan for actual purchases. The exception is visionary users who will be involved throughout the design and development cycle and will provide feedback; they are gold for a product manager or hardware startup founder.
NPI perspective:
Closer to mass production: validate in real conditions
Now, let’s say you have reached a more advanced point, and you are closer to mass production. Typically, that means:
- All the design and development work is completed
- The production tooling has been fabricated and validated
- You have samples actually made with production-intent processes
- Reliability has been validated
- The products have been tested as compliant with applicable regulations
What now?
If your product is really innovative and unique, the manufacturing and testing processes still need to be developed and validated through pre-production pilot runs. That buys you extra time to engage deeply with users while you finalise ramp-up (also known as “Customer Development” by Steve Blank in his book “The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Successful Strategies for Products that Win.” We suggest you see Chapter 2 for more information).
Related resources:
- How Multiple Pilot Runs Can Reduce Risks You Never Saw Coming
- What is the Pilot Run for Components and Products?
- You NEED to do Product Qualification BEFORE Mass Production
Work with 20–200 target users for 1–6 months
What a lot of companies fail to realize is that they need to work closely with typically 20–200 users in the target segments. Provide production-intent samples to these users and collect feedback after 1–6 months of use. Those samples might be sold for a profit. Some companies start earlier, even without parts off tooling, by using 3D printing based on a risk analysis.
The learning from real users in real conditions is priceless. Many companies are surprised by what emerges. In some cases, they simply adjusted marketing claims and user manuals to reduce certain risks. In other cases, they realised the product was absolutely not suitable for certain user types, and they looked for ways to ensure those users would not buy the product.
In the end, it all comes down to how much risk you are willing to take… and a new-to-the-world product comes with a lot of assumptions and risks.
Run in parallel:
- Reliability – How Reliability Testing Is Critical…, Ongoing Reliability Testing
- Compliance – US Consumer Electronics Compliance Basics, FCC Compliance Tips, How To Get a UL Mark
Need help?
Ready to structure real-world user testing and de-risk your launch?
Contact us for help with your project.
