Online Business L(a)unch™ > Business Idea: Develop Your Product

Develop Your Product

Congratulations! You finished you homework - did some research and finally  found your potential market with some particular problems, unmet needs or/and wants! Now you have to develop the product or service to solve this problem or meet these needs or wants.

But remember, to ensure that people will buy your product it must meet that particular need in a manner that either saves or makes your potential customers money or appeals to your target audience so much that it would cause them to spend money on your product!

You have 2 choices now: 

1. Invent a brand new product or service

Inventing a product or service which meets an existing but unaddressed demand can create an excellent business opportunity.

For example, one entrepreneur recognized the amount of work hospital personnel went through to prop patients up in their beds. He then invented the mechanical hospital bed. Another inventor realized that it can be difficult to organize closets efficiently. He invented a closet organizer, which is now sold in most building supply stores.

Start with asking yourself few simple questions:

What services or products are needed but don't exist?

What consumer needs/wants could be met by a new invention?

What ideas do I have that I could develop into inventions?

Is there market for my invention?

If you’re having trouble coming up with product idea by yourself, try brainstorming - widely used method of generating new ideas. Very often best ideas come from a group of people discussing hundreds of ideas, and then creating a good one out of all of them. To brainstorm successfully you need to gather together a small group of people you could trust. 4-8 people would be enough.

 Just pick one specific problem or particular need on which you want to come up with your solutions, set a time limit for the session (15-30min) and ask everyone to suggest ANY idea they can think of. When brainstorming, try not to react negatively to any idea; any idea is welcomed, no matter how crazy or weird it may seem.

Link numbers of ideas together; see if you could use the ideas you developed earlier to form new ones. Remember at this stage you are after quantity (not a quality) - simply try to come up with as many ideas as you can. Don’t worry if you never tried brainstorming before. The only way you can learn how to brainstorm is to do it! Just be sure to have someone to write all the ideas generated during the session down – you don’t want to loose any of them!

2. Improve an existent product

It’s always nice to invent something completely new but this process could take months if not years! Besides only few businesses are based on a completely new idea that no one has thought of before. Keep this in mind and do not spend too much time on trying to find something that isn't currently being done. A much better strategy for most new entrepreneurs is using older, tried and tested ideas.

Choose any existing product or service that needs improvement and find a new creative way to approach it and make it better. After all, there are very few products or services that cannot be improved!

Observe products or services that could be made more effective to save time, effort or money. Start by looking closely at the products and services you use: is there anything about these products that need to be improved? Is there anything that has not being offered yet but would be valuable for people? You might be able to do this better because you're cheaper or because you're adding another dimension to what's on offer.

Focus on what products you might buy and what value you could add to them; how you could change these products or how you could use them to create a profitable business.

 Next : Sample Business Ideas