NEWS & ARTICLES

Product Development Start-up Surgery

The lean start-up movement can be based on a single insight – the purpose of a start-up is to discover a business model that works.

Gone are the days where entrepreneurs know what the market wants. Entrepreneurs now need to work out the needs and desires of multiple demographics and psychographics rather than just male, female, age and location. Now data is horded and so readily available, the morphing nature of trends are cautiously tracked by consultancies eager to discover and advise what the market truly desires.

When kick starting a business every penny counts. Start-up’s not only need a huge amount of financial support, but also as much man-power as possible. Getting it right the first-time round is what sets them apart from their competitors. A lacking skill-set and any unwillingness to take risk is undoubtedly one of the most common failures a start-up may encounter.

Product Development Start-up Surgery

So, how do you differentiate between an established business and a start-up?  

Established businesses understand the competitive landscape, know their customers and their competition. Their in-depth knowledge of their surroundings provides them with the information needed to overcome the hurdles needed to succeed.  An established business aims to find ways to better their service/product whilst cutting costs without impacting the offering.

A start-up, of course aims to become an established company, but its role is much different. The objective of a start-up is to adopt a business model that works, and constantly question what the customer thinks and the product/service.

The one thing that established businesses and start-ups have in common is that both need to conduct product development and continuous improvement.

 

Product Development Start-up Surgery

 

It’s worth noting that start-ups set out to disrupt the market and those who dominate it. This need for disruption means that start-ups must have the ability to change quickly and pivot to tend the needs of its target market. Established businesses have long-term technical employees that have the deep knowledge of the product, its history, how customers use and its features. But is this straight-lined approach really the most efficient?

Start-up’s have a high likelihood that things won’t go as planned. The general idea is to develop a product, see how it performs, analyse any flaws and then pivot based on the results. The traditional model of in-house product development teams is not suited for the environment that start-ups operate in.

‘Internal product development teams tend to mind share around the status quo and resist change – especially if they come from established companies where product knowledge was valued.’

 

How can you help us if you’re external to our business?

That’s simple, we’ve had plenty of clients who have benefited from our outsider’s perspective. We have always been the ‘off-site, in-house partner’ to many small start-ups and blue-chip corporations who have thrived by taking advantage of our fully-engineered technical solutions designed specifically for manufacture.

If you haven’t already, take a look at the work we have completed for OPRO, and TravelShades.