Here are some tips on how to decide between product ideas

If you went through my tips on How to Brainstorm an Idea, you likely have more possible products running through your head than you know what to do with.

Follow these tips to help you decide between them for better chances at success and profitability:

• Are you part of the target market?  Is the product something that you or your friends would use?
• Be careful of asking the opinions of friends and family though – most of them don’t want to hurt your feelings with criticism.
• Chose a product that is a want, not a need; these tend to be more profitable in the end.  Products that are a want tend to hold a better profit margin, even in down markets.
• If one of your ideas is a commodity – forget it.  Commodities are just a race to the bottom on prices, with the winner having a net margin of exactly 0%  Unless you have a special insight or benefit, I highly recommend you do not get into a commodity business.
• Choose a product where you have an unfair advantage whether through years of employment experience, a unique relationship, a manufacturing advantage, or a novel insight on a design flaw
• Get a rendering up on a website, drive traffic to it, and see if someone will buy.  This will help you decide between a few different ideas.  Take them all the way through the shopping cart process, but then show them as out of stock.  Don’t take somebody’s money if you don’t have the product.
• Crowdfunding! Nothing says winning idea like someone prepaying for a product months in advance.  This helps to cover tooling & mould costs as well as initial order costs.  This is very popular these days.
• Do not proceed to the manufacturing stage if you are unable to sell people your product during design, prototypes, crowd funding, or factory sample stage.  Many garages throughout the world are filled with boxes of product that won’t sell.

Have you now decided on your idea?  You could learn more about the product design approach.

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