3 Ways to Unleash Your Product Team’s Creativity

New products are innovative, and innovation is fueled by creativity. Therefore it’s important for your product team to be as creative as possible. There are a number of things you can do to help encourage creativity at work. Google employs the 20 Percent Factor, by which they allow their employees to spend 20% of their work time on side projects as a way to amp up creativity in order to help them think more innovatively.

It’s not enough just to see the value in creativity; you also need to clearly demonstrate to your product team that their creativity is welcome. When your team sees creativity around them, they are more likely to be creative themselves. This is absolutely necessary in this day and age in which technology changes at such a quick pace.

Here are three ways to help unleash your product team’s creativity.

1. Offer Encouragement and Support

Creating an atmosphere of encouragement and support is an important way to show your product team that their creative ideas are welcome. Four ways to encourage innovation in the workplace include allowing time for brainstorming and problem-solving, sending a clear message that creativity, new ideas, and feedback are welcome, ensuring business processes aren’t stifling creativity, and doing what Google does and allowing employees to work on personal projects during work hours.

2. Team Members with Diverse Backgrounds

When you bring together team members with a variety of backgrounds, there’s a good chance they won’t all think the same way, and this will encourage creativity within the team. When people approach a problem from different points of view, you get more possibilities as to how that problem can be solved. This encourages discussions that will also improve creativity as the team works together to come up with the best solution.

3. Have Fun

Fun goes a long way toward silencing the inner critic and increasing creativity. Too much seriousness can make the creative process more difficult. A stressful or serious work environment doesn’t encourage employees to think outside the box. Instead, they will only look forward to the end of the day.

Create a fun environment by having regular get-togethers like lunches out, encouraging employees to socialize, celebrating small wins, and even creating a games area. Team-building activities like retreats are also a great way to increase the fun at work and improve creativity.

There are many more ways to unleash your product team’s creativity, but offering encouragement and support, choosing team members with a variety of backgrounds, and having fun are great places to start.

Technology changes at such a great pace that innovation and creativity are a must for any product development team. Pivot International has many years of experience creating and working with product development teams. We have experience launching a diverse portfolio of award-winning products into the marketplace, and we offer many product design and development services to help get your product to market. For more ideas on improving your product team’s creativity, contact us today.

4 Mistakes That Can Cost You During the Product Launch Process

So you’ve finally finished the design, development, testing and trademarking phases of your product design process, and you’re ready to launch.

That’s a cause for celebration – but don’t celebrate too much, yet. A new series of challenges await you and your product.

When you move into the launch phase, there are still many things to do, and many things to avoid. Just one mistake can be costly when it comes to a product launch, and there are few companies that can afford to take a huge financial hit on a brand-new product.

Here are some common mistakes that companies make when launching their products (for more, read our initial post on this topic, “Launching a Product? Avoid These 3 Critical Mistakes“).

Having a vague plan

Do you have an extensive, detailed and documented plan for how you want to proceed with your product launch?

If not, you need one, because it will help the launch go much more smoothly. While there certainly should be room for adjustment if anything goes wrong, it should still be a plan that you can adhere to and one that has definite steps and time to measure the success of the various steps.

Announcing too early

It makes sense to be excited about your new product, but that excitement can lead to things being done prematurely. If you announce your launch before the product is ready, which can certainly be a temptation, you’ve just created a deadline for yourself that you might not realistically be able to meet.

There’s a potential embarrassment factor at play here, as well. If you launch a product with design flaws because it wasn’t ready in time, that will do damage. And if you create anticipation, then move the date, that will erode faith in what you’ve created.

As tempting as it might be to set a short release date, patience is always better when it comes to making sure a product is ready before you put it into the marketplace.

Creating enthusiasm by overselling

Are you set up to deliver on the pre-release hype you’ve given your product, or have you oversold what you’re about to launch?

It’s a difficult balance to strike, but it’s important to make sure you don’t oversell your product with a larger-than-life launch.

Not targeting the right audience

Have you gotten the message to the right customers to make sure your product has gotten their attention? Sometimes a pre-launch strategy can be too wide-ranging and not focused enough on the most important demographic.

When this happens, the message about your product can fall through the cracks because it’s not getting noticed by the people who are most likely to buy what you’ve created.

Think of a simple, direct way to reach your consumers and trust it rather than casting the widest possible net.

While you worry about the launch, let Pivot International worry about the design, development and manufacturing of your product to make sure it’s everything it can be. Click here to find out how.

Pivot International offers contract product design and contract manufacturing with global and US based manufacturing facilities. Pivot’s global team of mechanical, electronic and software engineers, physicists and optical designers all have many years’ experience designing products from concept through to manufacturing.

Launching a Product? Avoid These 3 Critical Mistakes

You had a great idea for a product, spent years designing, developing, and improving it, and cannot wait to finally get it to the marketplace. Before you do reveal your great idea to the world, you want to give it the best chance to succeed.

There are any number of ways a product launch can fail, but with a little bit of forethought, most of them are avoidable. Here are three of the biggest traps companies fall into when launching a new product or service.

Failure to test

You’ve been developing this product for a long time, and the whole team loves it. The problem is that you might be too close to be objective about it. The only way to know how the market will respond is to test it. No matter how brilliant your idea is, ultimately the real test of its success is whether or not customers are willing to pay for it. Everything else is speculation. Would you rather find out that you need to make changes after a full launch, or while you still have time to fix anything that might limit sales?

But that’s just one aspect of testing. You may also find out that while customers do like your product enough to pay for it, they may like it even more if it had different features, came in a variety of colors, etc. Don’t assume you know what’s best for the market. Let them tell you.

Ineffective marketing

It is almost a cliche in the marketing world to say that people don’t buy products – they buy results.

Yet it’s surprising how many companies fail to demonstrate the results, or benefits, that their products will supposedly offer customers. If you’ve created a quality product, make sure you let people know what benefits or results they can expect by buying and using it. Don’t assume that it’s obvious.

Most people are too busy with their own lives to take the time to figure out why your widget is going to make their lives better. It’s your job to communicate specifically how it will impact them and why they should spend their hard-earned money on it.

Being unprepared for success

Most businesses are afraid of their product dying right out of the gate. But what if your product is so successful that your supply chain cannot keep up with orders?

If your marketing strategy has convinced the consumer to say yes only to find out that your product is on backorder for months, it’s really easy for them to buy from a competitor, decide to wait and then forget about you, or simply come to the conclusion later on that they do not want or need it.

But worse than all of that is this: the reason the customer was going to buy from you in the first place is because you’d earned their trust. If your product is then unavailable, you’ve lost that trust. Buying decisions are often made in the moment, and all the good you did with marketing can be destroyed by your inability to deliver the goods.

There is always a lot on the line when a new product comes to market. You owe it to yourself and your company to give it every possible chance to succeed. For more, read our post “5 Expert Tips for Launching Your Product on Time.”

4 Tips for Saving Your Product from a Disastrous Launch

We’ve talked before about how important it is to have all of your ducks in a row before you launch your product into the public consciousness and the marketplace, because that moment can define your product more than anything else.

No matter how much work you put into the invention, design, engineering and marketing of your product, it might end up not mattering at all if you launch it incorrectly. That could mean rushing the launch, but it could also mean mishandling the timing or the strategy. As difficult as it might be to be patient, it’s better to take your time and succeed than suffer from a bad launch. Here are some examples of bad product launches and how they can hurt your product, and your company.

Don’t sacrifice thorough design testing in order to keep your launch date

Remember all those news stories about the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and the design flaws that caused the phone to explode, catch fire, or overheat and burn the user’s hand? This was a disastrous issue that very probably could’ve been caught during the development process;there were two simple mistakes in the design process that caused the issue.

Those issues had not been resolved by the time the launch date was released, but Samsung released the phones anyway, resulting in a public relations nightmare and costing the company untold millions, both in recalling the product and losing the trust of consumers.

The lesson here is both to be thorough in the design process, but also to be willing to push back your launch date if need be.

Make sure your technology matches your concept

Fitbit, one of the most popular fitness monitoring systems in the country, has had at least two occasions when the idea behind what they were trying to do might have been bigger than the tools they had to create it.

The Fitbit Force, for example, was recalled after it caused allergic reactions in some consumers who used it, and the next products they released, the Charge HR and Surge monitors, had to be recalled because they were showing wildly different and inaccurate results in terms of heart rate and calories burned.

These failures caused repeated recalls, damaging the company’s reputation and financial bottom line. Perhaps the worst part of this instance is that the mistakes occurred repeatedly, suggesting a consistent misjudgment of the reliability of their technology.

Make consumer safety a top priority

Remember the scenes in Back To the Future II when Marty McFly hopped onto his hoverboard and floated through an exciting chase scene? That was pretty cool.

But the launch of the actual Hoverboard, though accompanied by a great deal of press, proved to be almost fatal when, much like the Samsung phones, the boards began overheating due to a flaw in their lithium ion batteries.

The manufacture of these boards was a first-time innovation, and there were no safety guidelines in existence for the company to follow. But in a case like that, it’s incumbent on the company to create the standard for safety and make sure it’s as high a standard as possible. It’s quite simply a responsibility if a company is moving into uncharted territory.

Be sensitive with the timing of your release, as well as your marketing materials

In 2016, the video game company EA Games released a new, highly-anticipated game called Battlefield 1, which took place during World War 1, and accompanied it with a tweet of a GIF featuring a soldier being engulfed by fire from a flamethrower, with the text “When you’re too hot for the club.”

In addition to being in extremely poor taste, the tweet went out just two weeks before Britain’s Remembrance Day, a holiday similar to Veterans Day in the United States.

Needless to say, an embarrassing controversy erupted, resulting in reams of bad press for the game and the company.

It’s important for a product to be innovative, safe and effective, but it’s also important that its timing and marketing are beyond reproach.

For more information on making your launch run smoothly, read “5 Expert Tips for Launching Your Product on Time.”

5 Expert Tips for Launching Your Product on Time

Being on time is crucial in just about any business situation, but when it comes to a product launch, it can be essential. Getting your product to market on time, tested, marketed and ready, makes the best possible first impression on your potential consumers, and it’s one of the most important moments in terms of public perception of your product.

And as you might have guessed, most of the work to ensure that that launch happens on time should have already taken place behind the scenes without many people in the marketplace knowing much, if anything, about it. Here are some of the things you can work on beforehand to make sure you get your product out into the world on time.

Create a generous timeline

As anxious as you might be to get what you’ve just created out into the marketplace, and as confident as you might be in your ability to do so, it might be a good idea to allow yourself more time than you think you need.

Unforeseen circumstances are called that for a reason, and there are bound to be things that pop up unexpectedly in something as multi-faceted as a product launch. Having some extra time built in to your schedule can come in handy.

Make sure your marketing strategy is flexible

Nothing makes a good product fizzle out more quickly in the marketplace than a poorly planned, poorly executed marketing plan. If no one knows your product is coming before it’s launched, that doesn’t bode well for a successful debut.

Make sure you’ve done as much marketing research as possible so that if need be, you can change that strategy on short notice. If you don’t think you’re getting the results you anticipated, be flexible about changing it rather than leaving it as is and hoping for the best.

Beta testing

How did your product test in the beta phase? Were there any last minute issues with what you’ve made? Were there any changes that sprung to mind after the product went through that more rigorous testing phase?

Any information that might help you make your product better is important, and it’s vital to get it as early as possible before you put your product out into the market.

Perhaps the best way to ensure that this testing happens on a timely basis is to be as involved as possible. There are responsibilities that can be delegated, but a smart entrepreneur keeps an eye on the beta testing phase.

Communication

The larger theme of communication is present in our discussions of marketing strategy and beta testing, but it’s worth focusing on more specifically throughout the entire product manufacturing process.

How in-contact have you been with your supply chain? How often have you communicated with your sales staff? How many progress reports have you given to your investors?

In other words, is everyone included in the process of manufacturing your product on the same page? Is everyone working towards the same goal? Teamwork is crucial when it comes to launching your product on time.

Research your competition

There are bound to be other companies working on products that are similar to yours. What do you know about what they’re doing? Have you done research on what innovations or changes or new wrinkles they might have added to what they’re making?

If you have to delay your product launch because you find out at the last minute that some vital change has been made to a product similar to yours, you’ll look unprepared and your competition will look far more cutting-edge. Don’t get caught up short by your competitors.

Pivot International is a company designed to help you with all of the issues we’ve mentioned above. From design to development to engineering to manufacturing and marketing, Pivot can provide a start-to-finish process that takes care of your product and its launch with precision and skill. Click here to find out more.

5 of the Most Commonly Asked Questions About Bringing a Product to Market

So you’ve been through design and development, gone out and found your investors, found your supply chain, set up your offices, manufacturing center and your sales staff, and you have the idea, funds and infrastructure to bring your product into the marketplace.

Now what?

Though it might seem that the hard work is done, it’s really just beginning, especially if this is your first venture into the market. There are a lot more uncertainties out in that realm than there are in the processes of designing, developing and manufacturing your product.

You’re bound to have questions, but you should know that you’re not alone: Every new product designer does. Here are some of the most common questions that you will have to answer before you bring your great new idea to the marketplace.

Who is my target market?

This is a vital question, and it’s surprising how often this comes up. You need to have a specific demographic in mind for your product – otherwise you’ll be casting too large a net. This is a case where investors might be able to help you. Anyone who invests in your product will probably have a pretty good theory on who will be buying it.

How do I get my product noticed?

There are bound to be other products with similar functions or audiences competing with yours, no matter how unique your idea is. It’s vital to seek out all of the social media, marketing and advertising options available to you, and don’t be afraid to think outside the box.

Yes, that’s an overused phrase, but that doesn’t make it less relevant. Be prepared to move outside of traditional marketing methods to make your product stand out.

What’s the most inexpensive way I can bring my product to market?

In a sense, this question might be an indicator of a self-defeating strategy. Obviously, every good entrepreneur tries not to spend more money than they have to, but take a closer look at what this question really implies. A product launch is probably not something you want to be frugal about, and product manufacturing is CERTAINLY not one of those things, either.

This is a do-or-die moment, and as much as you might be nervous about spending your investors’ money, this is the time to do it. Skimping on quality, or sales staff, or marketing, could be fatal mistake for your business, all the name of saving money right now instead of making money down the road.

How important is the launch date?

Missing the launch date, or delaying your product in any way can be a bad sign to investors and to the buying public. It might send the message that you’ve had second thoughts about your product or your manufacturing process or even your funding?

First impressions are vital, especially in business. Meeting your launch date with a fully prepared product and a fully equipped company behind it could be your only chance to impress the people you’re trying to attract.

In other words, avoid delay at all costs. Don’t worry about being early. Worry about being on time.

When should I become concerned about my product’s performance?

Patience is perhaps the most important part of a long-term strategy. It’s easy to be discouraged if the early indicators are poor, but that’s just what they are: Early indicators. As difficult as it may be to remain calm and keep working, it’s important not to cut your losses too early.

It’s a sign that you don’t have faith in your own product, and that will reflect on the product, your business and your investors. Yes, it’s probably someone else’s money you’re working with, but they had faith in your product, and so should you.

To learn more about taking your product to market, read “A Brief Guide to Taking Your Product to Market: What Happens After Perfecting Your Product?“

How to Sell Your Product

Inventing a product is one thing – selling it is something entirely different.

There are some lucky product developers who are blessed with natural talent for both inventing and marketing/sales – however, the vast majority find themselves in need of some assistance when it comes to figuring out how to actually sell the product they’ve spent so much time on.

There are a couple of different avenues you can take to get your product into the market. It’s important to note that these avenues apply only if you’re retaining all rights to your product, and not licensing to another company. If you’re licensing it, that company will handle all sales and marketing activities.

Ecommerce

The internet’s made life easier in about 100 million little ways (that’s an estimate, of course), and one of them is connecting businesses with potential customers.

If you’ve got a product that you’re ready to sell, it’s possible to get it on the market in literally hours. All you have to do is use an online marketplace like Etsy, Amazon, or eBay, assuming you meet all the site’s specific criteria for sellers.

In general these online marketplaces are best for smaller runs of products, which means they can be a great way to test whether your idea is commercially viable. Starting small means you don’t have to make a huge financial investment up front, plus it allows you to garner feedback so you can make adjustments to your product as needed.

The same is true of setting up your own website to sell your product. This is a bit more time- and resource-intensive, but it can be worth it if you’re fairly certain your product has market viability. Having a nicely designed site for your product can help it gain credibility – and that, plus a customer base, can help you when and if you need to approach investors or retailers.

Retailers

If you want to see your product on physical store shelves, the best choice in most cases is: start small.

Unless you’re working closely with a company that already has a relationship with Target or Costco, don’t expect to get your product in national retailers for a long time, if ever – that kind of exposure can take months or years to work up to, and selling a product through a retail giant is still an exception, rather than the rule.

Usually, your time will be much better spent in pitching smaller and/or local retailers. They’re much more able to take risks with new products because they can just order, say, 5 at a time to see how they perform.

This also takes some of the pressure off of you, as by starting small you stand a better chance of keeping up with demand. This is something larger businesses will want to see if you decide to approach them later down the line.

Finally, small businesses are a wonderful way to solicit feedback. The store owners will likely be willing to share their own thoughts on the product with you, as well as let you know what customers have said. If you’ve got a good relationship with the retailer, this information can prove invaluable as you continue refining your product and your marketing plan.

And if you do want to approach large, multi-location or national retailers, be sure to use your network. Use LinkedIn, talk with colleagues, and go through your contacts to see if there’s anyone who might be able to help you get an introduction at the retailer.

Getting your product onto the market doesn’t have to be hard. All you really need – at least, at first – is to get it up online, so you can start making a few sales. Having that customer base will make it much easier to get your product into brick-and-mortar stores, whether they’re small boutiques or massive chains.

For more on selling and marketing your product, check out our ebook “Turn a Great Idea into a Thriving Business.“

Three More Lessons on How to Keep Your Product from Becoming an Infamous Failure

It happens to the best of us: We come up with a great new product, launch it confidently into the marketplace, and … it flops. Horribly.

It’s all part of the job when you’re a product designer, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier when it’s your product that flops To help you avoid that fate, take a look at this list of some of the worst product fails of all time, and the lessons you can learn from each.

1. New Coke.

Many a lament has been written on this sad can of cola, which blazed brightly and burned out within just a few months back in 1985. After Coca-Cola had already earned massive success with its flagship drink over the 99 years of its existence – it was first sold to customers in 1896 – the company decided to change the formula. The result was a drink that consumers generally referred to as “New Coke.”

Why? Pepsi had started moving in on Coke’s market share, so the company thought it would try something new. But the product didn’t take off the way Coke thought it would and the product was pulled from the shelves. The original formula was reintroduced as “Coca-Cola Classic,” much to soda drinkers’ relief.

The lesson? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If your product is doing well, you probably don’t need to tweak it much.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t take a risk. If New Coke had taken off, after all, it would be one of the greatest stories of a risk that paid off in product history. But if you are going to take a big risk like changing a product that’s already performing well, be ready to take some losses and rework your strategy in case it doesn’t pan out.

2. Cosmopolitan Yogurt.

Cosmopolitan magazine, which is one of the most popular women’s magazines in the world, tried to branch out into a totally different product area when they came up with their own branded yogurt. The reason behind the decision was a survey that yielded the information that “65 percent of Cosmo readers had used edibles in the bedroom.”

How that led the company to yogurt, and not, say, chocolate, no one knows. But Cosmopolitan Yogurt launched at a significantly higher price point than competing brands, with zero marketing, and was pulled from the shelves 18 months later.

The lesson? Go with what you know. If you’ve worked in the auto industry for 30 years and have an idea for a better kind of windshield wiper, chances are it’s at least a decent idea.

On the other hand, if you’ve worked in the auto industry for 30 years and you come up with an idea for a new shampoo, you might want to take some time researching that before jumping in with both feet. It might change the shampoo industry forever – or it could be an idea that’s better left unrealized.

3. Coors Rocky Mountain Sparkling Water.

Some brands are so associated with their product, that it’s almost impossible to separate them. Take Coors, for example – as the maker of one of the highest-selling beers in the world, the company’s name and logo are instantly recognizable. You see or hear “Coors,” and the average person thinks “beer.”

However, in 1990 Coors decided to break into the growing bottled water market with Coors Rocky Mountain Sparkling Water. This was supposed to piggyback off of Coors’ beer, which the company advertised as being brewed with Rocky Mountain spring water.

The jump was a bit too much for consumers, and sales were sluggish. Coors ended up pulling the product within a few years, cancelling the trademark in 1997.

The lesson? Make sure that all the products under your brand name make sense together. If you’ve got a recognizable brand with a single product, realize that people are going to strongly associate that product with that brand. Therefore, as you branch out into different products under the same brand name, you want to make sure that you don’t go too far afield.

If you’re working on your next product and want to give it the best chance at success you can, Pivot can help. In addition to our product design staff, we’ve got marketing and business development pros who can help you avoid a New Coke-like disaster. Contact us for a free consultation.