Concept to Creation: How To Turn Your Ideas Into Products That Sell

1. Introdcution: Do you have an idea for a product but don't know where to start? Are you an artist and crafter maker who's reached capacity in your studio and what you can physically make yourself? Or are you an artist who'd like to see your creative expressions reflected on merchandise? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you read the right place. Welcome to concept to creation. How to turn your ideas into products that Sell I'm Cahill, product designer and digital marketer, have developed consumer products and licensing and merchandising for top tier brands, including 24 Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Family Guy and The Simpsons. I've also developed custom manufactured in private label products for my own brand. Law accessories in this course will cover the steps it takes to bring your idea to market. Essentially taken it from an idea to tangible form will cover a high level overview of the steps involved and familiarize ourselves with the different phases of product development. By the end of the class, you'll have a physical mock up of your idea and clear direction on the next steps in getting your product to market and you'll be ready to market your idea. In no time in this course you'll learn. Keep product development milestones, including identifying the gap in the marketplace that your product fills. How to conduct competitive research to position yourself for market domination. Creating the prototype testing phase. How and where to get feedback. Budgeting for your project, types of production and which is best for you and how to get the word out again. This classes for anyone looking to bring their product to market, whether that's the kitchen gadget and industrial gizmo, Artisan maker project or merchandising your artwork. So if you're ready to get that idea out of your head and onto retail shelves, then jump into the first lesson and let's get started. 2. Find A Need, Fill A Need: working in licensing and merchandising at 20th Century Fox. I had the pleasure of working on a film called Robots. It was a wonderful film that taught a valuable lesson. And even though I was a full grown adult, I couldn't help falling in love with this movie. Obviously aimed at kids. Perhaps it was the tinkerer in me that made the film resonates so much with me. But I love this movie and still watch the DVD from time to time. Even to this day. There's one particular scene in the film that I want to share with you. Let's take a look. You know I love to take, but all the tinkering in the world isn't useful unless it starts with a good idea. So look around for a need and start coming up with ideas to fill that me. One idea will lead to another, and before you know it, you've done it. See a need Fill in, That's it. Dead. I have to look for me. So by now you probably know why I chose to share this film clip with you. It's true by our very nature as creatives. We have ideas, lots of ideas But the other truth about creatives is that we observe our world in ways that others don't. We see the painting of the leaves and hear the rustle of the wind. We see the colors of the sky and take it all in what others simply let it pass by without a second thought. All of this information gives us a great gift that feeds our creativity, allows us to return it to the world in ways that add value. So I want to ask you to take a moment and think about your idea. What need is your idea? Feel who does it help? What is their pain point? What are they struggling with right now, and how does it help them? Why is solving this problem important? Answering these questions will serve as the foundation for all of your decisions going forward. As you develop your idea into a tangible product, it will help guide design decisions, budgeting decisions, even who you choose to partner with and why. So it's really important that identify these things now before we begin, you can write it down on the worksheet attached to this lesson, so go ahead and print out the worksheets and start a little binder for your big idea. You call it your big idea development journal. So thinking about who does it help leads to the task of identifying your target market. A target market is a group of consumers that your product is most likely to appeal to, and when you've identified what the pain point is that your product meets, you can then identify who's most likely to have this problem and target them by offering your products specifically to them. This is especially important because soon it'll be time to market your product. And you don't wanna waste precious dollars marketing your product to people who have no interest in it. For example, you wouldn't try to sell dog choose to cat owners total waste of time, right? Yeah. Okay, so now let's take a closer look at the gap your product fields in the marketplace. What specific area in the marketplace can you were your product dominate? In order to answer that question, you want to look at the market landscape of your particular niche and see what areas there needs. Current products are not meeting. This gap presents Ah, hungry market working your product be unique in a hungry market, a purple cow, As Seth Godin puts it, What makes your product remarkable? Attached to this lesson is a companion worksheet to help you work through these questions. Go ahead, download the worksheet and join me in the next lesson. 3. Peeking At Your Neighbor: Competitive Analysis: So now let's take a look at our neighbors. KR competitors. What are they doing? How are they doing it? And how can we do it better or different? Well, I'm not suggesting that you stifle your creativity in any way. I also want to caution you against creating in a vacuum, because in the realm of commercial art and design, we have to keep in mind not only what we want to make, but also what the consumer wants to buy. Your happy place is where these two worlds meet. Therefore, conducting a competitive analysis is an important step in developing your product for several reasons. It helps you understand what the market wants. I e what they're buying. See how you can differentiate yourself from what's already out there and gain a competitive advantage zero and further on your ideal customer and where they're hanging out, uncovered new and emerging trends. Then maybe you can capitalize on. So what's the first step? Number one. Identify your top 10 competitors. If you think that no one is doing what you're doing, think again. While they may not be a executing in the exact same way that you are, there definitely meeting that need for your customers in some way. Find out who those companies are and write them down. If you're still stumped on how to find your competitors, hop on over to Google and type in what you're producing. Who comes up that are also selling what you plan to make a sale. Quick, spite it. Once you find a brand, you can use insights tools like Symbol, a web dot com or similar sites dot com to see a list of other websites that are, you guessed it similar to that one. You can also look up industry trade shows or conferences in your niche and see who the presenters are. Do any of the companies or brands offer the same thing or similar as to what you're planning? The launch? The next step is to spy on your top 10 week. No, but seriously, you need to find out what they're up to. And how do you do that? The West way to spy on our I mean research your competitors is to hop on over to their website. What are they talking about? Do they have a business law? If they do, check it out have they been featured in the media? What is their product line and what did their price points? You can see how quote unquote popular they are on the Web. A couple of ways to methods in particular that I like are the visit buzz sumo dot com and type in their website URL. Take a look at the mentions they've received across the Web. Another way is to check their back link profile with a tool like ma's dot com. Backslash Link Explorer formally open Side Explorer. When you use these tools, you're seeing how popular your competition is by looking at who is linking to them. Ah, site that creates a back link to your site is basically giving you a thumbs up and telling their audience that you worth knowing about the more back links you have from sites relevant to your niche. The more popular search engines like Google think you are, and as a result, they show your sight to more people because you're officially one of the cool kids. This intel will come in handy later when we get into the marketing phase of the process. Lastly, it's time to take a cold, hard look at where your product stacks up against your competition. Now, this is no time for rose colored glasses. Honestly assess where your product fits. Is it offering something different or better? And if not, how can you incorporate one of these points of differentiation so that you do have something unique to offer your future customers? Why would a customer choose your product over one of your competitors? You just identify. Feel free to download the worksheet attached to this lesson to note your answers. Next, you're going to get ready to prototype your product, so hop on into the next lesson and let's continue. 4. Let Me See: Drafting A Prototype: So now let's look at an overview of our prototype options. How will you create the mock up prototype? If you're an artist on looking to create merchandise featuring your artwork, then you're likely already familiar with tools like Adobe Photo Shop in Illustrator to create your designs. Now it's time to place that awesome artwork on some sample pieces to give others a visual example of what you're looking to produce. One of my favorite tools to create mock ups. It's placing dot net. They have hundreds of ready made applications that you can upload your artwork to, and almost instantly it takes a few minutes to render and download, but almost instantly have a mock up of your idea. Ready to share for straightforward applications like T shirts, mugs, throw pillows, leggings, etcetera. The print on demand vendor that you partner with will have mock up generators as well. If you're creating a pre production prototype, think about how you'll get it produced. Are you going to make a handmade prototype in your home studio or workshop? Or are you going to send the file off to have it Custom made either is fine and is determined by your own capabilities as skill sets. If you want to create the prototype yourself re sources such as a multiple plastic, come in Handy Thermal Morphin system or for two products available on Amazon. If you're planning to send it off and working from a sketch of your idea, you'll first need to get a professional rendering to draft. It is best a partner with the professional can designer or industrial designer. For this step, the file that you sent to the prototype company is very literal and will not be able to interpret what you intended. It will on Leigh read the data that's actually there. So assuming this is not your area of expertise, go ahead and spend the money to have a professional create your drawings. You guys will work closely together so that the drawings represent exactly what you intended before sending the file off pro tip check in your surrounding area or local community college for maker labs. Some areas have nonprofit organizations that offer access to shop tools to help you build your inventions. There's usually a nominal fee and a helpful staff to get you off to a good start. If there's not one in your area. Sites like Thomas net dot com m f g dot com can help you find manufacturers to reach out to now. What about three D printing three D printing? Also notice rapid prototyping. Transform your digital design into a tangible object and a suitable for a wide array of projects. Shape Ways dot com is a popular site to upload your project and have a three D representation or model produced and sent to you. What about overseas production? Having your items mass manufactured overseas is also a viable option. Working with an overseas manufacturer will be more cost effective. The US based production, but also comes with an additional set of challenges, including language barriers and business ethics. You may want to keep your business local, in which case overseas manufacturing wouldn't be option. But choose was in best alignment with your business purpose and your goals. When working with an overseas manufacturer, have some best practices I can offer based on my personal experience. Include one. Always start with a sample order to get a feel for communication style and responsiveness first by asking a few initial questions, but don't overwhelm the manufacturer with a litany of questions in your initial communication. Remember, English is not their first language, so keep questions and sentences simple and to the point to avoid misunderstandings. It's the best shot of getting your question answered directly. Number three. Use a platform that will hold the transfer of money in escrow until the transaction is complete, and number four do not risk any investment you cannot afford to lose. Do you have an idea for a product that's an improvement of already existing product? In this case, you can consider private labelling and custom manufacturing as an option. Ah, private label product is a generic product manufactured by a contract or third party and sold under your brand name as the brand owned ER. You specify everything about the product, what goes in it, how it's packaged, what the label looks like and pay to have it produce and deliver it to your store. With custom manufacturing, you would specify any changes and improvements to the existing product. Keep in mind that changes should be significant enough to make it uniquely your own print on demand is when you work with a supplier to customize blank stock products like hats, T shirts, leggings, mugs and mawr with your artwork. In order to make a custom product specific to your brand, you provide the artwork and they making ship the product to your customer. When it sells, you set the retail price for the item and keep the difference between what you charge the customer to purchase and what the P. O. D. Charges you to make the item. This is a very appealing option for artists who want to keep their focus on producing their art while also getting maximum mileage out of the applications there are can be utilized on and enjoy. So considering these options, how are you going to prototype your idea? Next, you're going to set about testing and tweaking your prototype to fine tune any hiccups you encounter. So join me in the next lesson. 5. Testing, Tweaking & Feedback: s. Now that you have your prototype ready, it's time to test it out. Start using your prototype as you intended and see how it responds. Does it react the way you wanted it to or expected it to? Does it hold up to rigorous juice? Try to put yourself in a user shoes who would not have an intimate knowledge of its functions and features like you do. How easy is it to dig in and start using? Is this self explanatory? Well, will it require a learning curve to use? You're not going to like what I'm about to say next, but try to break it. How easy is it to misuse? These are things you want actually encourage before you get to final production. Basically, you want to uncover as many snacks as possible in this round before you invest in a full production run. Now identify a group of test users and give it to them. Observe how they interact with the prototype. Do you have to do a lot of explaining? Can they get it to work as easily as you can? This is all the gather feedback about your design. Try to be as impartial as humanly possible at this state. Another good way to give feedback is to do product demonstrations. Where can you go to put yourself in front of a larger audience and have them test out your product? Farmers market Local Are Fair Inventors Clothes Amita What's important here is that you're gathering feedback from people outside of your inner circle, people that are more likely to give you unbiased feedback on your product. You may want to enlist beta testers as well. If it's something that the value is received over time and not in one setting, you may want to leave it with them for a few days and come back with a few survey questions to log their experience with the product. If you're focused on merchandising your art, your task here is simply to create a mock up and ask for sale. That's the quickest way to validate your idea. Attend a local vendors fair or farmers market and sell your wares. Take note of the reactions and comments you get from potential customers and use it to make adjustments or improvements. In the next lesson, we'll take a look at important budget considerations, so join me in the next 6. Budgeting: How Much Will It Cost?: you worked out your idea, but you still have to get it produced and marketed. How do you plan for that? With the budget, of course now budgeting can get pretty extensive and highly detailed. We will not cover all that entails in this course, which is just an overview of the product development process. However, I've outlined some key categories that you want to be mindful of. This is not a complete list, but gives you some things to keep top of mind. As you create your budget, consider enlisting the services of an accountant, bookkeeper or score volunteer to help you map out a realistic budget for your product. Some things to consider. Cost of the prototypes. Cost of initial production, run and or supplies. Packaging, marketing materials, advertising, promotion, I e. Travel vending events. Trade shows in Florence or marketing Xterra. Your online presence, which includes your website. Domain hosting sales and marketing tools, software's payment processors, etcetera, e commerce and or physical presence fees. Insurance taxes, of course. Your fixed costs and your variable costs your physical space. A warehouse. These are just a few in the next lesson will cover scaling how to plan for success. So join me in the next lesson 7. Scaling: Go Big or Go Home?: Now let's cover the task of scaling your idea. So let's imagine that you've put your idea out into the world and it's in high demand, so much so that you can't possibly go on filling the orders yourself. What in the world are you going to do now? You guessed it. It's time to scale. But before you map out your scaling plan, there's an important reflection. Step that happens before you make the commitment. First, ask yourself how you'd like your ideal life to look. You might think this is a pretty woo question to throw into a lesson about scaling, but it plays an important role. And here's why. You want to consider your long term goals and what your balance of business goals and lifestyle goals looks like. Do you want to be a solo preneurs? Have a small TV or have a large business? Do you want to maintain production in your studio or garage? Would you like to expand to a warehouse or outsource production and just manage the oversight? Would you like your products to be sold locally, nationally or globally? Do you want to be an active business owner or license it out to another company to produce , and you collect royalty on sales. The next set of questions, you might ask yourself will help you determine if it's the right time to skill your business. Question Number one. Is there enough demand for your product to do you know exactly what your customers want? Three. Do you have the right systems in place to scale? Four. Do you have the right team in place to scale? Five. Do you have the technologies and tools to scale? That's six. Are your finances in order? Answering these questions will help guide you in making decisions about how you plan to scale when the time comes. Other things to consider are your cash flow needs. Sales projections, customer service fulfillment, legal impacts, commerce in other countries. Local of federal regulations. As you get more customers, you'll eventually come to a point where you can't handle all of the orders with the systems you have in place now. And although tons of sales is an exciting challenge toe, have you still have to figure out how you're going to meet this new demand? Scaling is all about capacity and capability West systems. Do you have in place to handle this. You can avoid some stress down the road by thinking through what you plan to do with scaling becomes necessary. Seeking the advice of consultants, advisers, board members, investment bakers and potential banks for a line of credit before you need it is a good idea. According to Brenda Baron of Go Daddy's the Garage, there are six questions to answer. To find out if you're ready to scale up. Are you turning down business opportunities? Are you constantly hitting or exceeding your sales goals? Do you have a proven business model? Do you have the right business systems in place? Are you able to keep up with expectations and demands? And are you ready? Toe Automate. Now let's talk a little bit about how you're going to produce a scale. There are a few different options. Small best production or low volume manufacturing usually describes a small production run of about 500 to 1000 units of less for a For a list of small bats manufacturers, you can visit Maker's row dot com when working with an overseas manufacture for ready made custom manufacturing m o que or minimum minimum order quantity is required to make an initial purchase order at an agreed upon unit price. Mass manufacturing is the production of large amounts of standardised goods, typically on an assembly line or some type of machinery. And licensing is a business arrangement whereby you grant permission of temporary access to your intellectual property to 1/3 party. They produce your work in mass on various applications previously agreed upon, and then they pay you a percentage of the sales a k A royalties from their sale of those items. Now don't be overwhelmed and try to figure this all out. Now it's really not necessary. I just wanted to touch on it so that you know what's ahead and have it in the back of your mind. For now, what's most important is that first step, which is to get the idea out of your head and into something tangible that you can show and demonstrate in the next lesson. Get ready to build your prototype. Hubble knew, and let's get started 8. Class Project #1: Create A Mock-up/Prototype: So for your first class project, you're going to create and share your prototype. It can be as rough or as polished as you want it to be. There are no rules of finesse here. Level of complexity is not what's important. Just the ability to visually communicate your idea intangible form as long as it communicates your idea. You successfully completed the project. When you upload. Be sure to tell us what it iss. What does it mean? What gap does it feel and who does it serve? 9. Class Project #2: Getting the Word Out: for a class. Project Number two. We want to know how you're going to market your idea. Complete the attached marketing worksheet to map out your marketing plan, which marketing and promotional efforts will use to get potential buyers to know about your project. Once you've completed the worksheet, take a snapshot and upload it to the class project session. Sharing the top three marketing methods plan use. 10. Conclusion: So that concludes our class. We've uncovered the various faces of product development. Some resource is to move your project from concept to creation form and identified three ways in which your markets your idea. Thank you so much for watching. I hope that you've gained some clarity on your next step in the development process of bringing your big idea the life. Remember to download the worksheets and upload your class project. That's where you can get feedback from myself and your fellow classmates as well as encouragement to keep pushing forward. You can leave any questions you may have in there as well, and I'll circle back to answer them. We want to see your project out into the world and all retail shells and the very best way to keep your enthusiasm up and momentum going is to post your class project. If you enjoy the class, take a moment to leave a quick review. It's the best way to tell us to let us know that you found value in the class and would like to see more classes like this one. Thanks again for watching and best wishes in your design endeavors