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Who likes chemistry?  Did your hand shoot up?  Mine didn't.  Except when people throw away lots of money on manufacturing because no one bothered to explain to them that when it comes to your materials and tooling, generally speaking, there's no going back!  You've got to nail down your product's materials before you tool for injection molding.  (Check out this Wikipedia article for a great description of injection molding and tooling)  You might be able to haggle with your manufacturer, but there's no haggling with mother nature.  The size of the cavities in your molds, where the molten plastic is injected into to form the shape of your product parts, depends on the cooling rate of the material.  As the material cools, it expands into the cavity.  The mold is built to account for that.  Trying to change to a material with a different cooling rate just isn't going to work.

On certain projects, we like to ask a lot of questions in regards to materials.  Usually, we're trying to reduce costs for clients by throwing out suitable alternatives.  We want to understand what qualities they like about the materials they want.  If there's a cheaper option that accomplishes the same goals--your company Christmas party might be a little bit nicer this year (we're accepting invitations). 

Occasionally, we'll get design packages from U.S. designers that call for very expensive materials to be used in products that are meant to retail at a competitive low price.  The designer was undoubtedly trying to design the best product for their client--materials included.  But this can be expensive when you go to mass production--yes, even overseas!  If you're going to have parts that are injection molded (which a vast amount of products taken to market do), you have to be certain about the materials you want before you build the tooling.

My high school chem. teacher would be proud of me for this post.

Steven Blank is a retired entrepreneur, and teaches both Entrepreneurship and Customer Development at Berkeley’s Haas Business School and Stanford’s Graduate School of Engineering.  He has been involved in 8 startups over the course of his career.  His book, "The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Succesful Strategies for Products that Win"  is a great presentation about rethinking the product development process and is certainly worth checking out if you are looking to fall in the second group presented here, rather than the first.  Consider the following products:

Segway:  Thought their market was everyone in the world who walked and confused world class public relations with customers with checkbooks.  Still searching for their real markets.  Cost to date: $200 Million

Apple’s Newton:  They were right about the Personal Digital Assistant market but five years too soon.  Yet they spent like they were in an existing market.  Cost: $100 Million

Sony’s MiniDisc players:  A smaller version of the CD wildly popular in Japan.  The US isn’t Japan.  Cost to date: $500 million after 10 years of marketing.

R.J. Reynolds’ Premier and Eclipse smokeless cigarettes:  Understood what the general public (nonsmokers) wanted, but did not understand that their customers didn’t care.  Cost:  $450 Million

Motorola’s Iridium satellite-based phone system:  Engineering triumph and built to support a customer base of millions.  No one asked the customer if they wanted it.  Cost:  $5 Billion.  Yes, billion.  Satellites are awfully expensive.

And, there are many more in the Products that never were column…

A few in the Winners’ Column:

Proctor & Gamble’s Swiffer:  A swiveling, disposable mop-on-a-stick.  Sophisticated planning and consumer research have resulted in a $2.1 billion market in 2003 that could double by 2008.

Toyota’s Prius:  They’ve found a profitable niche for their electric hybrid car.  As a classic disruptive innovation, sales will grow and Toyota will continue to eat the existing US car companies for lunch.  In its first five years, sales grew to $5 billion.  By 2015, hybrids could make up 35% of the US car market.

General Mills’ Yoplait Gogurt:  Yogurt in a tube.  The goal was to keep their yogurt consumer base of toddlers and little kids for as long as possible.  Research led to the tube packaging, making yogurt easier to consume on the go. 

Seth Godin writes one of the most consistently insightful blogs on marketing and the way ideas spread.  I am continually impressed by his ability to take my thinking in new directions.  An excerpt from his book, "Free Prize Inside" was published on Fast Company's website. 

In it, he describes a process called "EdgeCraft", a method of overcoming brainstorming sessions which yield little.  The process involves taking your product through small innovations to the edges of what exists out in the marketplace. 

The free prize is the element that transcends the utility of the original idea and adds a special, unique element worthy of more money and notice.

The way to find these ideas is what I call "edgecraft." It is a methodical, measurable process that allows individuals and teams to identify inexorably the soft innovations that live on the edges. It can be done quickly or over long periods of time. And you can even do it by yourself (I do my edgecraft in the shower. It has the added benefit of dramatically increasing personal hygiene).

Edgecraft is a straightforward process:

1. Find an edge--a free prize that has been shown to make a product or service (in someone else's industry) remarkable.
2. Go all the way to that edge--as far from the center as the consumers you are trying to reach dare you to go.

Moving a little is expensive and useless. Moving a lot is actually cheaper in the long run and loaded with wonderful possibilities. It's easy (but pointless) to open your store another 30 minutes a day. It's more difficult (but possibly a fantastic strategy) to open your store 24 hours a day. Little changes cost you. Big changes benefit you by changing the game, but only if you go first.

Brainstorming might create the occasional breakthrough, but edgecraft can inexpensively and quickly churn out lots of ideas--good ideas and sometimes great ideas. Ideas you can rapidly implement. If people aren't blown away, they won't talk about it. If they don't talk about it, then it doesn't spread fast enough to help you grow.

There are hundreds of available edges--things you can add to, subtract from, or do to your product or service.

I found this approach to be a wonderful break from the traditional product development step of "brainstorming" ideas.  Typically, analyses of possible product features consist of small feature developments in different directions.  This is very common with an inventor or small company building a business off of one product, as they want their 'product benefits' list to be as long as possible.  I've witnessed companies try to add features to their products with the hope that the product will serve a different, useful purpose after it breaks.  While this is interesting from a recycling perspective, if it's not the top one or two selling points of your product, it will probably only serve to detract from the top selling points.  Why not make a more lasting impression by taking the top 1 or 2 selling points all the way to edge with the hopes of giving people something that truly stands out?