Understanding the Product Market as a Small Business

Starting out as a small business can seem daunting as there are a lot of new areas to cover, learn, and gain experience from. One extremely important area for any inventor and entrepreneur is the product market.

If you’re planning on offering a new, innovative product with your small business, you need to understand the product market and how it can determine the success of your product and business as a whole.

What is the Product Market?

Before using the product market to help you understand your product and guide it to success, it is important to understand what the product market is. Like any other idea of the market, it is spread out into different fields.

Depending on the type of product you plan to invent (food, beauty product, clothing, etc.), what is out on the market already determines who your competition is and lets you know what is over or under-saturated on the market. 

Analyzing and researching your product’s market can serve as a helpful guideline that’ll be useful during the process of inventing your product and lets you know what audiences are already exposed to.

Why Understanding the Product Market is Important

A common mistake that a lot of inventors make is not doing the proper research before stepping into the design and invention process of a new product. Sometimes the product you plan on making or believe is unique and “never before seen” already exists!

Patent searches are a great resource and a smart move to make before inventing a product. If you’ve done the research for the idea of your future product, you can better evaluate the success of the idea and how well your product will perform within the market. After researching what is already in the market, you can then create a new product or redevelop a product so that it is improved in a way that is more efficient than what is available to consumers.

How to Expertly Enter a Market: A Mako Client Case Study

One of our clients’ journey highlights how proper research is integral to entering the product market as a small business and can lead to resounding success. Bob Ginther approached MAKO Design + Invent to create the Tri-Plunger!

The Tri-Plunger performs the same function as the traditional plunger, but because of its refined and unique shape, it stands out as a unique and independent product amongst the regular plunger. The Tri-Plunger is a great example of how to take something that is already on the market and refine it with an improved design to create a product that is more efficient and bound to stand out within the market.

Alternatively, it’s never a bad idea to test out how well your product can perform in its targeted market. A way to do this is to create prototypes and test out whether audiences within the market of your choice show interest.

Crowdfunding websites, such as Indiegogo and GoFundMe, are great resources that allow you to introduce your product to the world and see whether people are interested in the development of your product by helping to fund its creation. The greater the response and amount of support through funding or praise that comes through, the surer it is to say that your product is something that audiences anticipate and want to invest in once it is officially released to the market.

If you have a great new invention and you’d like to learn more about this process, get in touch with MAKO today and visit our website to find out more. Or feel free to give us a call at 1-888-MAKO, and we can set you up on a call with our product strategist!

About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!