Often people ask to meet with me over coffee to run an idea by me that they have for a new technology product or service. I always enjoy these interactions and I like the idea that an entrepreneur is taking the time to screen their idea with people. This is a critical step in the product development cycle but not the only one and it often surprises me what entrepreneurs don’t know about this process. To that end I thought this month I would cover my view of the product development cycle.

In my opinion the product development cycle consists of the following steps:

• Idea development
• Idea screening
• Concept development and testing
• Business analysis
• Beta testing and marketing testing
• Launch

So let’s delve into these steps in a little more detail.

Idea development

Think about a problem that you want to solve for a business or a consumer behavior that your product/service will cater to. Then do some basic research using a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities & Threats).

Idea screening

Key at this step is to determine if your idea has legs so to speak before devoting more time and resources to it. Reach out to mentors and people you trust to get their feedback on your product/service. Try to get a sense of the potential market opportunity for it, including market size, growth opportunity and competitive pressures. What will it take to build?

Concept development and testing

So you have determined your idea is worth pursuing, so now need to develop the marketing and engineering details of the product/service. I would look into any potential intellectual property issues and check out patent databases first. If everything looks good on that front then start by figuring out in more what your target market is and how you plan to go after it.

What features are key for launch?

How will users react to your product?

How are you going to produce your product?

How can you build it most cost effectively?

How will you support it?

If it is going to be a physical product then build a virtual prototype. If it is a web-based service or mobile application then build an alpha version.

Test it with prospective customers.

Develop marketing strategy.

Business Analysis

Now you need to develop the product pricing strategy. Estimate what you should sell it for based on competitive and customer research. Then estimate sales volume based on the size of the market you are going after. The next step would be to estimate your profitability and break-even point.

Beta testing

Develop a physical prototype or mock-up, a beta version if it is a digital service. Start testing in typical usage scenarios and establish a group of beta users to further test it. Then make adjustments based on your testing and feedback from your beta users. At the same time you will be implementing your process for customer service and technical support of the product. If is it a physical product you are establishing your supplier, distribution and logistics systems for it.

Launch

The actual launch of the product is the final step of this step. Before that you are finalizing your marketing strategy, producing whatever advertising and promotions your will be doing to support the launch. If it is a physical product you are filling your distribution system. If it is a digital you are prepping your technical infrastructure for launch making sure you are ready for the influx of users and can scale effectively. Once all of this is in place then you launch and release the hounds.

There is definitely more detail to each step which I have outlined and some of these steps can be broken out into more steps but I think is a good overview of the process and hopefully you will find it helpful.

If you disagree with what I have outlined or have more to add I would love to hear from you. Also you have any areas you would like me to cover please let me know.