The first step you’ll want to follow deciding on a methodology. You can’t go wrong with just grabbing a sheet of paper and start jotting down ideas. Write down what problem there is that you want to solve. Maybe it’s famine or water cleanliness in Africa, or maybe it’s a device to stop humans from hurting themselves while sleepwalking (see my product that I designed at University which does exactly this!)
You’ll want to do some research into whether the product is viable. Is there a market for it? are there a lot of existing products which achieve the same function you are trying to build?
Now, the next step is looking at realism. The real World consists of boilers, cars, retailers, accountants and tax. Products that are designed are still just that, products. And real world products are often subjected to an ungodly amount of legislation. Anything you want to produce and sell will often require you to do safety and regulatory due diligence before you can make your first penny.
And for a lot of individuals, the cost of this is just not worth the effort and money. Think of the electronics industry for instance. If you want to produce an electronic gadget that runs off a simple 5 Volt power supply, you still need to do FCC testing (in the USA) or CE mark testing here in the UK. That can cost thousands of pounds, and is just not worth it for start ups.
However, if you produce something that is worth a lot, it might be worth forking the cost of testing to get it to market.
You’ll want to design the product, so think CAD, PCB design and coding. Once you’ve done this, create the prototype. This can be a working model as well as an aesthetic model to show what it will look like. Just get the product out there and show as many businesses as possible what it can do. Then sell sell sell.
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