Launching a Product - How does new product development fit into an overall business strategy?

Hello, my name is Ian Peterman. I'm your host, and on today's episode, I want to talk about how new product development fits into an overall business strategy. So developing a new product is great. It can be produce a product that works really well is something a lot of people set out with a goal of, but it's also really important to think about how it fits into an overall business strategy in order to make sure that you're not just creating a new product for fun, you're actually creating a product that's going to be an investment that gives you a return and fits within what you're trying to achieve with your actual business. It's, you know, exciting and fun and to just go, oh, I'm gonna launch a product, I wanna develop a product and make this happen. And you can get caught away with, oh, I'm developing the product and forget that there is a business reason to be developing that product. There is a business in order to have that product continue to be produced, continue to be sold, and continue to be used. You have to have the business side. And so I just want to take a little bit today and talk about how to make— be aware of and what that looks like when developing a product and how to fit it into your business strategy. So I'll talk about increasing your market share, increasing revenue, a little bit about competition, how to— whether it's achieving your company mission or not. And of course, increasing visibility. So the first thing I want to talk about is increasing market share. So typically within your business strategy, there's always going to be some part to grow, and one of the ways you can grow is increasing the amount of market share you have. Basically, how many people are actually going to be interested in your company, your products, and buying from you relative to everyone else. So when you're looking to increase your market share, you want to think about your product, and the product needs to fit within your business strategy. So if you're trying to expand your market and get into— maybe get into a second market that you're currently not in— if you're developing a product, you want to make sure that that product is going to connect with that market. and ideally be able to connect with your existing market if you can make that work. Obviously, some products, they just don't cross industries. They're very— this product is for one market, this product is for another. But if you're really trying to stretch into a new market and increase your market share, you want to be doing that in a way that doesn't disassociate completely because you want to make sure that people are aware of your brand because you're trying to grow your company as a whole. And so being able to have it tie back with your, you know, main base basically of customers while still attracting maybe some additional people, you want to be aware of how that's going to work. And does the product that you're developing right now increase your market share in the way that you want to do it next? You know, maybe it does jump into a new market or it will attract more people, But maybe that's some section that you want to be going after in 3 years. So you want to be aware of what it's going to attract, what it's going to grow, and make sure that's in alignment with what you're trying to do with all the rest of your business efforts. The second thing that I want to talk about is increasing revenue. So obviously you want to be increasing revenue, you want your business to be growing, you want to be helping more people, launching more products. Making a bigger difference, whatever it is that you want, it's going to require increased revenue. And of course, that's part of your business strategy. So when you look at a product and you want to start developing it, you want to look at the revenue side. It's going to take this much investment and we're going to estimate this many sales and looking at how quickly that revenue is going to start coming in and how long it's going to take to recoup that investment is absolutely part of how you sometimes choose which products to develop when. You know, you look at maybe you're starting up, I mean, it's your second product, third product, and you need quicker growth. So you look at short-term, lower investment, higher return products that you can develop immediately. And your long-term strategy might be, yeah, we're going to start development of a product. It's going to take 18 months to develop it, and it's going to take a year or 2 after that of sales just to recoup everything, and then we'll actually be in the positive. And so you want to think about what is the business strategy, what does the business need right now revenue-wise, and in the next 6 months, 18 months. even out 3 years, possibly depending on where, how far you're looking at financially. And you wanna be thinking about how does my product fit into the revenue strategy for the company and what's gonna be the best fit. And I've, I've definitely sat down with clients and companies that are set up and they, and we make that decision. We go through it. Well, this, there's 10 different products we can develop right now. They're all within our brand. They're all in the right market area that we're wanting to go after. They fit everything else. How do we cost out everything in order to make sure the revenue side of that product development process is gonna match and not sink us into a hole that's gonna be really painful for a couple years before we get out of it? So that's something you wanna be aware of as part of your business strategy. What is the financial, the revenue side as it relates to this new product that you're gonna start investing into? Third thing I wanna talk about is competition. So you want to think about your business strategy as it pertains to competition. Certain companies base their product development partially on their competition. So a great example, of course, is Apple and Google. They release products to compete directly with each other constantly. One releases one kind of product, it's not that long before the next company introduces products specifically to compete with that other company's product. Now, some of that is just the market. So once a new product is entered into the market, then you're going to be behind if you're not creating something that fits the latest and greatest technology or interests of the consumer. It also can be based solely on a specific competitor. So not everybody that makes a specific smartphone is competing in all of those ways or in every single feature. So you want to be aware of what is your competitive base, what are you looking for in terms of a product to compete against other companies, and what is it going to take competitively in order to ensure that you're releasing products that are actually interesting to consumers and you aren't falling behind. You don't want to be the person that's developing a product 5 years after, after it became popular. Being behind is not good. So be aware of what your competitive business strategy is, and that will help you to think about what product you should be developing and how your product lineup that you're planning on developing should be launched in what order. 4th thing I want to talk about is company mission. How does your product fit into your company mission? Is it going to help you achieve your company mission, especially in today's world where company mission, your vision, your values are being looked at? They're on display, and they're what people care a lot about. They have for a while, but they really care about it to the point where it's, it's now something we can't, can't really avoid or choose to look away from. So thinking about How does the product that you want to develop fit with your company mission? Is it going to help you push that mission forward and achieve it, or is it going to possibly derail it, or even just be a sidestep? Even— is it just going to be neutral? It's not going to make your mission more apparent or help mission move forward, but it's also not going to hurt it. And neutral isn't always a good thing. It's— Really, sometimes neutral is bad in terms of what your mission is and what your customer base expects. You know, it's like producing a product that is just okay. Well, if that doesn't really match with your brand, if you're not just an in-the-middle brand, you can't really get away with that. That actually can detract from your brand. And when you detract from your brand and your mission, you can start disconnecting yourself from your true customer base, and you wanna avoid that. So thinking about what is your company mission, what are you trying to achieve, and how does that product fit in your company mission and help propel that mission forward? Last thing I wanna talk about is increasing visibility. Not every product you launch may increase your visibility. When you're small and you're wanting to obviously get as much attention as possible, Get out there to be right in front of the right people. And you want that visibility because you need it. You're not a big company. You don't have a large amount of visibility already. You want to think about what is your business strategy? What is your marketing strategy? And are you in a period where you should be increasing visibility as quickly as possible? That's a big push. That's part of what you're aiming for right now. Or are you in a, in a slower period in terms of visibility where you're not worried about that as much? You want to build more supportive products that are maybe, you know, accessories to a primary product, or, you know, they're just second, second group of products. They're not your primary, not your hero products. They're not big visibility, they're not big PR products. But you got to be aware of where you're at in your marketing and business strategy in terms of, do we need a product that's going to create a lot of visibility for us right now? Is that going to help us as an overall business more than something that's going to be less visible. So I hope this gives you an idea of how your new product development can fit into a business strategy and what you should be looking for in terms of making sure that your product that you're actually developing right now today actually is helping your business strategy overall. It's going to help the company overall grow in the direction that you want in the time that you want it to. And that's something that's, it's very important. A lot of companies and a lot of startups spend a lot of time developing and putting resources into a product that isn't the right fit at the right time in their business lifecycle and in their business strategy. And it doesn't mean it's a bad product, but wrong time of a product can be a real detrimental hit and slow you down. And it's better to think through this process and be more strategic about it. And so that's, that's something that I do with my clients is really just help make sure everyone's aware of what is the business strategy and does the product that we're developing actually fit in. And I'd rather not develop a product for you that doesn't help the business overall, because at the end of the day, if we put the business into a tight spot because we developed the wrong product at the wrong time, it's a lot of pain that we could have avoided. Avoid it. So hopefully this gives you some things to think about as you're thinking about your next products and what your strategy is to developing new product. 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. Thank you.