Have a question or two about product design? Check out our most frequently asked questions below.
Forecasting total go-to-market costs can be very difficult and can become even more ambiguous if the product or service relies on solving problems that are yet to be known. Based on our experience, design usually accounts for between 25-35% of the costs incurred to get a product ready to sell. It’s quite common for the variance between two projects we’re working on to be greater than 15X – the equivalent of $20,000 – $300,000. Presenting a range like this is not helpful to our clients so, at the beginning of each interaction, we spend the time gaining a deep understanding of the project goals. From here, we can design the projects specifically around what’s feasible for our new partners. Knowing that design is only likely to make up for 25-35% of the total product development cost, we also spend time going over potential total cost projections to help our clients eliminate as much ambiguity as possible. When it comes to introducing a new idea to the world, there are always going to be unknowns but we work hard to give our customers the clarity they need to move forward with confidence.
Similar to the question about cost, because we work on such a wide array of challenges, we always estimate timelines on a project by project basis. Simple non-electronic products requiring minimal research could take as little as six weeks to design while innovation-oriented projects may be ongoing for more than two years. Within a day or two of first meeting a new client, we will provide a rough idea of project timelines. These timelines then become further refined in our project proposals.
Prototyping is an instrumental part of product design and happens throughout the process. There are many different types of prototypes that are covered in our comprehensive blog post about prototyping or our prototyping services page.
Whether in the infant stages or well established, we look to partner with clients that are serious about introducing new ideas to the world. Innovation is the result of a tremendous amount of hard work and is more about mindset and discipline than it is age or size of the company. No two clients are alike and we carefully design each project to be mutually beneficial. We want to be proud of the ideas we’re helping launch and, as a result, our work isn’t for everybody.
We’re happy to evaluate projects that have started elsewhere. There are a number of great designers on freelance platforms like UpWork who don’t have prototyping capabilities and we’re happy to plug in where their services leave off. Having said that, a great deal isn’t always so and, very often, we receive CAD files that were never meant to leave a computer screen. Clients are often disappointed to hear that their files are nowhere near prototype or production-ready and end up spending much more to get to the prototype stage than if they’d hired a quality freelance designer or agency from the outset.
Need more information, or ready to start your next project?