How to test and assess the demand for hardware products before starting the factory
Making tangible, real-life objects that can be touched is often much more risky than developing software. Once you’ve created 10,000 thingamajigs, it’s a lot harder to make changes to them than it is in the software world, where you can send an update if you want to change something.
So in the world of manufacturing, the question is: How can I make sure I’m building the right thing for the right audience?
Last week, when I wrote about Prelaunch.com’s $1.5 million fundraiser, I asked the company’s founder, Narek Vardanyan, what he thinks are the biggest hurdles in hardware development.
Measuring the right users
To really understand what your customers want, Vardanyan recommends studying what your prospects are actually doing, not what they say they’re going to do.
In an ideal world, that means getting them to buy or at least make a deposit for your product. Actual purchase intent is more valuable than someone simply saying, “Yes, I would buy this.”
“You need to make decisions based on the actual behavior of people. You have to make sure that the data you are tracking is coming from the right types of people,” Vardanyan said. “Working with people who are putting money down acts like a filter: you keep only the people who really want to risk their money. In other words, your potential customers.