So, how do you develop a product? What steps do you take? The old adage is that you discover what needs your customer has and fulfill those needs. While on the surface, that is the very basics of creating a product but, it Is not as easy as that. There is a lot more involved.

Discovering your customer’s needs can be a very difficult thing to do. Your customer may not even know what their needs are and if they could even tell you, those needs can change from day to day. If it was so easy to find out what their needs are, wouldn’t everyone be supplying those needs? Then where would you be? It seems to me that there has to be a better way to find out what is needed and to develop a product. So here are 10 thoughts on product development.

1. Listen to what they are wishing for – Customers won’t come right out and tell you what they want, often they don’t even know what they want. However you can get a clue as to what they wishing for if you only listen and talk to them. If you hear them say something like, “I wish I could…”, “I wish I knew…” or “ You know what would be nice?” This is when you want to listen and take notes because these are your customer’s needs and desires coming out. If you get one or two people asking for the same thing, there may be many others who aren’t voicing their opinion.
2. You won’t meet every need – When you do begin to discover customer’s needs, realize that you won’t be able to meet all of them. You won’t have the time to fulfill all of the desires. Also, you won’t be able to satisfy every customer’s desire to their satisfaction. Choose what you are going to work on and focus on that specifically.
3. It’s a process – Developing a product is a process. You will not be able to sit down and crank out a complete product in one sitting. Instead you will come up with a concept and then begin to include other ideas and thoughts. Little by little you will develop it into a rough draft or a prototype that you can scrutinize a little closer. You will then adjust that rough draft into something bigger, better and more improved.
4. Brainstorm – Take your ideas and play with them. Brainstorm and get creative, whether you do this alone or in a group. By brainstorming, you can generate new and fresh ideas. you can use these ideas in your product and see what kind of doors it may open. Failing to brainstorm would be limiting yourself and not giving your product idea the energy it needs to succeed.
5. Adapt your product – Once you have a rough draft of your product, you may find that you can adapt it in some way to better meet the needs of your customer. Don’t be afraid to change and adjust your product to meet their needs. Being to rigid and set in your ways is one sure way to set yourself up for failure.
6. Ask questions – This is hands down, the best way to discover things about your audience. Now, you don’t necessarily want to come right out and ask, “So what are your needs?” This may work on rare occasions but, more often than not, your customers don’t have a clue what their needs are or can’t articulate them. Instead, the better thing to do is to continue to ask relevant probing questions that continue to dig deeper and deeper. These will continue to give you more insight and help you to uncover answers and needs that your audience didn’t even know they had.
7. Be one of your own customers – This is another great way to discover what needs are important, be your own customer. That is become active in the field or area of interest that you are supplying. What needs do you have in the field? What problems are you running into? What changes would you like to see? You are most likely not the only one wishing for these things. If you can supply a product that answers these questions, you already have a market, knowledge, experience and credibility.
8. Study other products – Are there similar products out there that just fall a bit short? Take a close look at these and see where their strengths and weaknesses are and build a better mousetrap. Find the best and the worse out of each of the products and develop that into your product.
9. Focus – Remain focused on developing your product. you may face a number of obstacles and objections along the way, don’t get discouraged. Realize that you will not meet every need nor will you please everyone out there. There will be some who will not accept what you are offering for no other reason than spite. Stay focused and continue to work on your product, knowing that you are helping others and in the mean time, you can get paid for your troubles.
10. Make it amazing – You don’t want to spend all of your time working on this product, pouring everything you have into it, just to have it be dull and receive a lousy response. Instead, Make it amazing! Give it some flair, have it stand out and capture people’s attention. This may take some work and may have to be another process after you have developed a rough draft but, by making it amazing, you will create the desire that people are looking for.

Whatever steps you take to develop your product doesn’t matter, as long as you are doing something. Waiting for the ‘perfect idea’ to fall into your lap is NOT doing something, that is procrastination and failure. There is no such thing as the perfect idea, you have to go out and create every idea. The ideas you create will not be perfect either, there will be flaws in them but, you will strive to make them the best you can.

So what steps do you take to create a product?