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Sep 02, 2023

New Product Development Process in 8 Easy Steps

So, you want to make a new product for your business. But where do you start?

So, you want to make a new product for your business.

But where do you start? Products don't fall out of thin air, and it takes more than a few hours scrolling Amazon's best-sellers to come up with an idea. Instead, new product development requires investing energy in a roadmap to build a product that can make a difference for your business.

You need a process to get you from wanting a new product to selling one.

If you need a product to build a business around or add to your current product catalog, this step-by-step product development process will save you time, money, and headaches.

Let's get started.

Table of Contents

Step 1: Do You Need a New Product?

Step 2: Build Your Customer Avatar

Step 3: Product Research

Step 4: Finalizing Your Product Idea

Step 5: Product Specification Sheet (Don't Skip)

Step 6: Packaging, Name, and Logos

Step 7: Protect Your Product Idea

Step 8: Chose a Supplier

If you’re reading this article, it's because you want to develop a new product. But do you actually need one?

Here are some questions to ask yourself before kicking off the product development process:

Ultimately, you need to understand if you have the appetite for risk. Whether you’re developing your first product or your fiftieth, making a new product is an investment, not a quick-revenue win. So, ensure you are passionate about the problem the product solves. Otherwise, the new product development process won't be enough to get you through the challenges that will come.

Don't make a new product just to have something on your goal sheet for next year. Make sure your new product matters.

In order to have a product, you need customers that are willing to buy it. Otherwise, you’ll have a stockroom full of products and a serious marketing problem.

No matter how cool your friends think your product idea is, new product development requires you to start with thorough customer research. Before you even think about the look and feel of a physical product, create a customer avatar for your "potential" idea. A customer avatar is an imaginary representation of your ideal customer.

If you’re a brand new business, you’ll have to rely on industry data from your competitors to formulate an avatar. For established businesses, a customer avatar could be based on existing customers or an ideal customer you’re trying to reach.

To start building your customer avatar, ask yourself these questions:

Once you answer these questions, start formulating an avatar. The avatar will look unique to your business. For example, if you’re a lifestyle brand hoping to sell a premium yoga mat, your customer avatar will look very different from a business selling tech gadgets.

Here's what your customer avatar process might look like for your lifestyle brand:

So, let's build a customer avatar for your lifestyle brand from these answers.

Hazel Healthy Age: 29 Profession: Corporate Marketing Manager

Hazel is a single young professional working in the city. When she's not at work, Hazel likes to explore new restaurants with her friends and venture outside of the city for long weekend getaways. Because of the strenuous demands of her job, Hazel spends the majority of her free time on health. She's a member of a neighborhood gym and participates in health classes at a local park put on by the city. Her day job requires a professional dress code, so Hazel likes to keep things casual with athleisure wear on the weekends so she can go for bike rides, long walks, or pop in for brunch with friends.

Now, you can use that information to determine the price, quality level, and design of the yoga mat. Is the product a must-have or a nice-to-have for Hazel? How do you turn it into a must-have? Set the scene of what experience Hazel would want in terms of website, packaging, store layout, and social media promotions.

As your new product development roadmap continues, you can further refine your customer avatar to speak their language, market to them correctly, and fulfill their needs.

Now that you have an ideal customer to focus on, it's time to do more research. New product development is all about understanding your customers’ needs or solving a problem for a potential customer. Your research starts with studying the competition.

There's a debate on whether to research your competition before or after knowing what product you want to sell. While there's not a 100% correct answer, competition research should help mold your product development, NOT define it.

We suggest you develop your product idea first and then research the competition. That way, you can avoid being so fixated on the competition that you end up making a copycat.

Here are the 6 steps for studying the competition:

Find a spare wall or whiteboard and create a vision board for your product. Create a folder of all the inspirational images from products you’ve come across, then print them out (old-fashioned, we know) and display them visually. While a digital vision board is handy, there is a powerful effect of interacting with printed imagery that can spur creativity.

A vision board should include:

Don't let keyword volume determine your product but use it to understand what people are searching for and notice trends. Use keyword tools like:

Keyword research can spark an idea for an additional product feature, marketing language, or a new variant.

Now that you understand who you’re selling to and how you can differentiate from the competition, what will your new product look like? How does it function? How will the customer feel holding it?

Before calling a manufacturer, you need to remind yourself why you’re making this product.

Every brand wants a flagship product like Levi's 501, Nike's Air Force One, Nespresso's coffee machine, or Apple's iPhone. Authenticity and individuality were the drivers for these flagship products. None of these brands created an icon by following a trend.

You can create an icon by starting a trend. If you chase what will make you money, you’ll pretend to be something you’re not. And trust us. Consumers are experts in spotting inauthenticity. Brands don't decide what becomes an icon—consumers do.

When you have an idea, you must act fast. Chances are there are other people in the world with a similar idea, and the ones who get rewarded are the ones who take action.

That doesn't mean you have to launch a business around this idea, but you have to take it to the next stage to see if it's validated. So, adopt speed as a creative trait in your process, and don't let perfection be the enemy of progress.

But here's a secret–you don't have to launch every product idea. That's why speed is your friend. Keep moving forward until the concept is no longer validated, and then end it.

Allot time in your calendar each week for product development. If you don't have time, then delegate a team member. For competitive spaces, develop your new product until it's 80% ready, then launch. But if you’re going into a new space (we call this the blue ocean strategy), then obsess over the final 20%.

Pro tip: If you have a seasonal product or business (swimwear, Halloween-themed brand), work backward on the calendar from your ideal launch so you have optimal time to develop a new product.

This is the most crucial part of the new product development process.

Completing a specification sheet for your product will be necessary when reaching out to suppliers, educating your team, testing your product, and pitching to investors. A product spec sheet includes details like:

The creation phase of the product development process is when you have to put your money where your mouth is. This starts with product packaging, names, and logos.

Pro Tip: Ask your audience or current customers what packaging, colors, and names they prefer for your new product.

Business can be brutal. And just because you have a brilliant new product idea doesn't mean it's free from being stolen or copied.

Yep, it's time to lawyer up. Well, at least trademark up.

Read our guide on Business Trademarks 101: Registering Names, Logos, and Phrases to learn what you need to know to secure your brand. Then, as always, we suggest talking to a legal professional to ensure you’ve confirmed your proprietary rights or aren't infringing on someone else's. Industries where you need additional protection and approvals are health, beauty, and pharmaceuticals.

To keep your product idea protected, make sure you follow these tips:

Ultimate defensibility is by building an influential brand. They can copy your product but not your brand.

The last step in the product development process is probably the most crucial business relationship you’ll have besides a co-founder–your supplier.

Finding a manufacturer to bring your product vision to life should be taken seriously. Picking one based on a 10-minute Alibaba search could cost you thousands of dollars and set your product launch back months. This is the decision that will set your product apart from the competition we discussed in step three. And if correctly selected, your supplier can become a trusted partner to help scale your business.

Here are some tips when selecting the supplier for your new product:

Now, you have a product development process but are you ready to create your new product? Get more examples and expertise in our new product development course. Taught by sourcing specialist Kian Golzari, you’ll learn the strategies he's used to source more than 2,500 products and work with 100 of the top sellers on Amazon.

In the course, you’ll learn about branding vs. selling, a method to validate your product idea, and contracting with a manufacturer. Sign up here to get his strategies.

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