Launching a Product - How Can I Validate My Product Design?

Hello, my name is Ian Peterman, CEO and founder of Peterman Design Firm, and today I want to answer the question, how do I validate my product design? This is something that we work with clients on every project, is how do we validate that the product design is working? This We talked about this before, you know, you do this invest-test process repeatedly. You want to be validating and proving that your product is still good, that it works, that it has the functions and features that it should, that it still fits the market, that the market hasn't changed so much since you started that it still is a good fit. And so there's many, many different ways to validate, but there's some specific areas where we do validate products on. And so, you know, you can validate based on features, you can validate based on function. Does it do what it's supposed to do? Can you actually use it? So there's, you know, validation in terms of user testing. So you take it to a user group and you let them use it. Does it work? Does it do what it's supposed to? Is it able to perform how it's supposed to? So that's where you get into product testing. And there's many different kinds of product testing running a huge, huge range depending on the product it is. So you could have things where you're testing for, can sand get into my product? Can dirt get into it? Does it get wet? Is it waterproof? What those exact tests are depends on your product and what you're trying to achieve with it. And so setting up a validation process and validating the idea is really important to making sure that you develop the right product for the right market in the right way. And this is a huge— a big step, and that it a lot of people really don't pay attention to is validating that there is the right market for the product. I talked with a lot of inventors and a lot of startups that, you know, they have a good idea, they think it through, it works for them, it solves a problem for them personally, but they don't go through the step of validating how well does it work for someone else, how does it you know, I created this thing, it solves a problem for me, but how does it work for other people? And so this early step of validating, you know, is the idea good for a specific market or for a group of people is really, really important. And so one of the first things you can do to validate your idea and make sure, yeah, this idea is worth spending money and effort on is by starting with, you know, doing things. You can go as fancy as you want. You can do questionnaires and you can bring in people and do study groups, but start from an idea level of just talking to people and saying, hey, I have this product idea. It's going to do X. What do you think? And you just start super basic, right? This is before you have cash into it. This is, this is early stages. Even if you're in a corporation, you can be a huge company, but you start with asking the question, hey, we have this idea. We have this product idea. What do we think? What do you guys think? What? Ask people, get an opinion. And you know that stage is just it's so vague of an idea. Yeah, you can go ask a bunch of people about it because you're not really giving away technical details. So a lot of concern about unless unless something really groundbreaking that has potential certain things there definitely want to be aware of. But a lot of time. You know, it's totally fine to go ask your friends, family, hey, my product will do X. What do you think? What do you, what do you have interest? Does it interest you? Does it solve a problem for you? Does this, do you have this problem? So part of it too is also validating, is there an actual problem that this product is solving? Figure out, yeah, there's a problem. This problem exists. It exists for enough people that creating a product to solve that problem is actually worth the time and investment. Or no, there's like 3 people on the planet that have this and it's not gonna be huge. Nobody— it's not a big enough problem to where people will actually be willing to spend enough money to pay for one of 3 products made. It's something that's small and, and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and so it's not going to have a market. It's not going to be something that people are Enough people are going to purchase because it's not solving enough. It's not solving a big enough problem. And so validating that, so validate your idea in terms of, is it solving a problem? Is the problem big enough? Is it, is it worth investing in? Because you don't want to waste some money on something that's not going to. And in validating, does it, does your idea resonate with people? Do you tell somebody about the idea and they go, oh, that's cool? Or do they go, yeah, that's amazing, I love it, let's do it right now, can I buy it from you? And that, that is validating the idea, and you know that you have a product that's going to be worth something. And I've talked to people that have that reaction, that they go, okay, well, I've talked to 20 people and 15 of them asked me if they could buy it today. Well, That's, that's a pretty immediate need. That means there's a hole in the market. There's a strong need in at least your group of people that you've talked to for your specific product right now. It's an absolute— it's something that's there. And then, you know, we can get into the details, validating price, making sure that market research and, and your pricing structure and things like that match the market and what people are willing to pay. But That initial validation is the first part of, okay, well, there's something here, let's pursue it. And then you wanna start looking at how you invest money into developing a product further. And then through the product development process, there is validation through the entire thing. So it's validating, hey, the design, we've covered all the features that should be there, we've put all the features, the design features, design look is all there, And it's good. It's everybody agrees on it. Marketing is happy with it. You know, whatever it looks like, maybe it's all all you. But either way, you're from every perspective. You say, okay, it's good for this stage. Then you have engineering validation of, okay, well, the materials selected, they will hold up to what we're trying to do with it. It is going to work functionally, and then it's price and pricing and adding in all those validation points. Yes, we can build it. Yes, we can do it for the cost that we want. And all of those validation points will end up resulting in a final validation of, okay, well, we built it, it's here, it's production ready. Is the market still here? Does the company still have funds to launch the product? Do we have all the resources in place and can we successfully launch it— launch this now, or do we believe that we can? And that validation, that's the last kind of check before you flip the switch, turn on manufacturing and marketing and all those things that really is what is going to be your long-term ongoing costs. Those are not going to go away. And once you start it, it's a lot more expensive to stop it and deal with it. So that's your final validation. And when you go through that process, there's lots of little steps. There's your exact validation process. in the product development side of things is going to be potentially very different than other people. And so, you know, that's something that will depend on your project. And once you were to have your project reviewed by a professional, and when I review product, I go through and it's okay, well, you have these things that you want to meet. You want it to go underwater and you need sand to not get into it and you need it to talk to GPS and Wi-Fi and it's smart products, Bluetooth enabled, all these things, then validating is saying, well, did we add Bluetooth? Did we add GPS? Can we stick it underwater and it still work the way you want it to? And each of those scope items, so to speak, those, hey, we need to have XYZ, those become your validation points and you go, okay, well, did we do this? Yes. Does it work how it's supposed to? Yes or no. Right. And did we, can we actually launch the product with that? Is that feasible? So a lot of the validation comes with that. You can work through, you can often get kind of a handle on early on when working through a feasibility study and roadmapping, things that we try to do as early as possible, the best to be done right at the beginning. And those will help create those points of, okay, we can check whether it's— we've validated it and based on these metrics. And those are all determined based on your specific project. And if it's something that's really basic products or you have expertise in, definitely do it yourself. Do this as much as you can. If you're a startup or an inventor, Do this as much as you can in the beginning and figure out whether it's worth investing in. And then the next stage is if you get to that point where you're like, well, I think I can, let's see if this is really, really possible, or this is going to be really good. Let's validate this idea is worth investing. Then bring in a professional. Something I do with, with my clients is this feasibility and roadmap, and that's validating it, saying, okay, yeah, you have an idea, we can do it. It'll work, it'll be good. These are the roadblocks we've identified, and this is how we can actually create a good product from this, and additional checkpoints that you'll want to go through and validate at each point to ensure the product is actually on its way to being the successful product it should be. Hope this answers your questions on how to validate your product idea. Hey, thanks for watching. We really appreciate our viewers, and if you haven't subscribed yet, please do subscribe to our channel so you can get more great videos like this in your feed. And like the video. If you want to learn more about the Peterman Design Firm, please check us out on our website, petermanfirm.com. You'll find link and information in the description, and of course we're on all social media as well, so check us out there. All right, thank you.