Newcomers in electronic design often make common mistakes launching their startups in the field. If you want to develop a new electronic product but lack experience in this process, you probably need advice from experienced developers. This article suggests to you a list of common mistakes of newcomers and ways to avoid them.
Focus on the product and excessive perfectionism
One of the most common mistakes made by newcomers in electronic design is their focus on the product rather than the customer. Usually, inexperienced entrepreneurs want to create a ‘perfect’ product that will solve all the problems of customers. They keep thinking about the features and details of their perfect product, often adding more and more of them. However, this strategy leads to the failure of their product.
For one thing, they don’t know the needs of customers and create their products on the basis of their assumptions. For example, assuming that customers need one product that will address a wide range of their needs, while in reality, they can find this product too complex to use. So, test your assumptions about your product. Communicate with your potential customers to know your audience better. Involve customers in your product development, for example, create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) first and test it. By doing so, you will find out whether your product is actually useful for customers and what features are unnecessary.
For another thing, you are limited in time and costs. So, it is unlikely that your product will be perfect since each feature requires time and money for its development. Indeed, launching a complex product is a common mistake made by newcomers in electronic design. This mistake results either in the creation of an unpopular complex product with unnecessary features, or in the actual failure to launch such a product due to insufficient costs and time. You can avoid this mistake by simplifying your product and limiting its features. Estimate the cost and time needed for each feature you want to include in your product. Thus, you will realize that some of these features are unnecessary and too expensive. Also, in order to estimate the product, you can hire an experienced company. Applying to professionals increases the chances of your product’s success.
Underestimation of the mass manufacturing of a product
Another typical mistake of inexperienced entrepreneurs is designing a product without estimation of its mass manufacturing. Scaling the product from a prototype to mass manufacturing is a complex process itself, but without a careful estimation of this process, there is a risk of wasting costs. In order to avoid this mistake, consider mass manufacturing of your product from the beginning of its development and estimate mass manufacturing of each detail carefully. Pay particular attention to enclosure design and injection molding technology needed for mass manufacturing of the enclosure. Since injection molding technology is expensive, a complex enclosure design can result in wasting large amounts of money and time on mass manufacturing of your product. So, again, keep your product simple and avoid excessive complexity.
Lack of planning skills
The complex process of electronic product development requires planning, however, it is a mistake to think that everything will go as easily and quickly as planned. In reality, bringing a product to market almost always requires more time than anticipated. Keep it in mind and don’t expect to foresee all the pitfalls that can arise during the work on your product. Again, remember about the complexity of scaling for your product mass manufacturing that is even more cost- and time-consuming than the development of the product itself. Understanding the processes of product design and mass manufacturing will help you avoid unexpected delays.
Failure to communicate with customers
Finally, when you already know that electronic product development usually includes some pitfalls and delays caused by them, you will not give your customers promises you cannot fulfill. It is a common mistake made by newcomers in the industry to set the date of product realization long before the end of the process. Even in cases when your product is expected to be finished soon, do not promise anything until it’s ready. As was already noted, the product development process is full of uncertainties and unexpected challenges.
So, instead of overpromising, you should market your product and communicate with customers in another way. For example, it can be useful to inform customers about your progress. The best strategy is to start your marketing campaign as soon as possible. Especially in the case when you plan to gather resources for your product development on a crowdfunding platform. To sum up – promote your product but do not promise any concrete dates until everything is ready.
As you see, there are numerous technological mistakes of newcomers in electronic product development that you can learn from. Keep them in mind and increase your chances of success.