Lets go over some basics about prototyping starting with “duck tape prototypes”. Duck tape prototypes are the very first physical representations of your idea. This phase can be filled with lots of satisfaction for optimists and visionaries or disappointment for the pessimists and short sighted.

Duck tape prototypes are made from available materials found at Home Depot, the grocery store or around the house. The parts are altered using a dremel, file or epoxy putty. These newly altered parts are then assembled using epoxy, super glue and duck tape (hence the name).

These prototypes might not work. The limitations of using existing pieces, the alterations that change the structural integrity and the complications of bonding different shapes and materials will produce defects.

Are they failures? Do they have any value if they don’t work? Well I think Edison said it best when asked about his many failures at building a light bulb… “We have only found 586 ways that won’t work and won’t have to be tried again. Soon, we will find one that does.”

These prototypes are very important at the very beginning. They might not prove the concept, work well enough for testing and look nice enough to present to investors but they add value in many other aspects. You can discover if the method is right, major design issues and experiment with different materials.

It may take many or just a few duck tape prototypes to get a sense of what design will actually work. Then the deisgn, engineering and manufacturing aspects come into play….

Inventors, engineers and designers often become paralyzed by perfectionism. Getting your product just right has benefits, but also some real costs and evaluating them rationally instead of just constantly going back to the drawing board is important. To do this analysis an inventor needs to fully understand the costs of heading to market with an imperfect product or redesigning.

The costs of perfectionism:

1.  Time to market:  As you make revisions, there are other people willing to go to market with an imperfect product.  If you have ever been working on a product for years and some thing similar but not as good launches, this lesson is a hard one to learn.  Lets say that you launch 6 months later than you competition with a better product, now you are faced with the daunting task of trying to unseat them at retailers.  The conversation will probably go something like, but we have something similar and it selling (well or badly, it doesn’t really matter) and we have already set up operating arrangements with them.  There are lots of examples of products that were late to market and surpassed a first mover (they are well publicized), but as a whole most items on the rack were the first to market.

2.  Development costs: No matter how you decide to improve, whether it be a CAD redesign, a new industrial design, or another prototype these are all extra costs.  Often it isn’t the first redesign that affects the projects overall budget, but when you start redesigning and redesigning it becomes a habit and costs will escalate.

The benefits of perfectionism

1.  Product Improvement.  Hopefully after going back and redesigning the product works better, looks more pleasing is cheaper to produce or another important product characteristic.

2.  Easier Market Launch:  With a perfect product, marketing, selling and getting retailers should be easier.  There will be no bad press about this function or that because everything will work beautifully.  And of course the market is much less likely to reject the idea if there are no flaws.

3. Personal Reflection:  Knowing what you put out into the market or in front of potential licensees is important for your brain.  The anxiety of knowing that one more thing should be done disappears if everything is just right.

Other things to think about

Products rarely go through one generation.  If your product is successful, improvements will be necessary no matter what.  In fact, there is a number of cases when redesigns and subsequent versions made more money than the original (IPod!).  Often times going for perfect is also an indication of focusing on technology push (the solution) over market pull (the problem).  If your focus is on solving the problem, then you know when the product is good enough because it solves the problem.  However, when you are focused on the solution the drive to improve upon a solution beyond what is actually required is a common tendancy.

Where does this conflict come from?

Often this issue arises when you get inventors with different backgrounds.  A former corporate inventor who worked in a business setting knows that the bottom line of development costs drives product launch as much as development actually being done.  While heartbreaking the first time, an inventor in this position realizes that the product will either sink or swim and often the further development would not have influenced the market acceptance.  An entrepreneur inventor focuses on development costs and first to market.  These forces drive the entrepreneur to deliver a product that is good enough, while knowing that improvements can be made for the second version.  When inventing is your hobby, redesigns and further development is part of the fun.  Unfortunately this is often where inventors get stuck, spend a lot of money only to find that their product has been launched an move onto another idea.

How Do You Know If You Are Done?

The quick answer is prototype, test and ask the market.  If you have something that works and people like, then you are done.  If you get substantial (you will never please everyone, but when 9/10 people from your target market say X, its substantial) feedback leading you to a different direction then you might want go back and work on it.

IS YOUR PRODUCT DONE?