5 HARD-EARNED LESSONS FROM LAUNCHING A PHYSICAL PRODUCT

The old trope 'hardware is hard', doesn't truly hit home until you're launching a physical product yourself. Unfortunately for some of us, these lessons need to be learned the hard way. Here are some of the hardest lessons we learnt launching our first product, the Flock Light.

1 - YOU DON'T NEED A PRODUCT TO TEST YOUR IDEA

This can be hard to get your head around especially if you are a product designer. But the hardest thing can be deciding if a product (hardware or software) even needs to be made in the first place. Former Netflix CEO Marc Randolph gives a great example of this in his DAOC interview. He describes just how quickly and cheaply you can validate an idea before you even start building a product... and the answer is... much quicker and cheaper than you think!

Very early on, someone suggested we test our biomotion idea by fixing some off-the-shelf lights to a crude 3D-printed harness, to see if people would buy it. So we made one. It was so ugly that we almost gagged at the thought of releasing it to the public, especially because we knew just how particular cyclists could be. We ended up scrapping what we called the "Frankenstein Light", but we took that sentiment and did something else instead: we created a Digital MVP of a more legitimate product. We produced a 3D model, rendered animations, and built a simple website that simulated a buying experience. With this, we could test buying intention before spending a dime on a serious prototype. After receiving over 400 signups saying ‘Yes, I would pay money for this when it's available’, we knew it was worth taking the next steps. The "Frankenstein Light" never saw the light of day, but we still managed to test our idea for virtually zero budget.

2 - ACTIVELY AVOID ‘SCOPE CREEP’

It’s so easy for designers to waste valuable time, energy, and money on design features customers don't care about. In our case, we spent months perfecting the Flock Light’s ‘grip clip’ feature, intended to make installation on your bike quick and easy. We were convinced it added value, even though it increased tooling costs and was the most problematic part of the design. We had gone as far as engineering & documenting the design for manufacturing before we decided to swap it out for a more standardised design. Not only did our testers not care, but they were relieved - they cared more about the light staying on their bike than about how easily it attached.

More features don't always mean more value, and ‘perfect’ to us isn’t always ‘perfect’ to a customer. We won't know what to perfect until a paying customer tells us. If you want to create a product of real value, don't just go on gut feel - find ways to override your design bias and validate or invalidate your assumptions with objective data. We used risk matrixes, surveys, polls, interviews and questionnaires. Take some time to find the best tools for your product and your customers.

3 - PRIORITISE YOUR FIRST UNIT OVER YOUR 10,000TH

In the early days, we were all about designing for scale - we were naive, over-confident and believed tens of thousands of Flock Lights would fly off the shelves as soon as we launched (we were wrong about that too). Making the product as quickly and cheaply as possible seemed to make sense. But we soon learned that high volume requires high upfront tooling costs, making it significantly harder and more expensive to get the first unit made ... and all before we knew if it would even sell.

So we pivoted to smaller-scale hybrid manufacturing, shifting from injection moulded parts to 3D-printed. Unit costs were higher, but we got a testable product to market much sooner without debilitating tooling costs and long lead times. If you’re serious about validating your product, focus on strategies that get your first unit out there, before you start worrying about your 10,000th.

4 - TAKING THE STAIRS VS THE ELEVATOR

Full disclosure: I borrowed this line from Bellroy founder Andy Fallshaw, who discussed it on a Startup Playbook Podcast. He describes 'Taking the stairs' as taking the time to build the right muscles and maintain control over the process instead of opting for the fastest route. This made a lot of sense to us, but we also knew we wanted to do both - take the stairs and the elevator, or balance deliberate learning with strategic speed. The challenge was knowing what to do and when.

For product assembly, for example, we took the stairs. We brought the process on-shore, managed a team directly, assembled products ourselves and engaged with customers one-on-one. It wasn't the cheapest or most scalable route, but this hands-on approach helped us quickly identify areas for improvement.

Now, looking down the barrel of launching new products, taking the elevator seems to make more sense, particularly since we're not exactly starting from the Ground Floor —we’ve climbed a few flights and this gives us the confidence and ability to move faster. Only time will tell if this is the right approach, but now we know we have both options available to us, and we know to ask the question: "stairs, or elevator?"

5 - NURTURE YOUR COMMUNITY

In the early days, Tim and I immersed ourselves in the cycling community mostly for the joy of it. Back then, we didn’t know what we didn’t know, so we were happy to spend time on things that weren’t guaranteed to yield a results, all in the spirit of customer discovery. It was tough, because we were continually doubting if we were investing in the right things. Now looking back on it, we are so glad we did. Because as it turns out, building trust with people takes time… a lot of time. And the community we did manage to build, turned out to be one of our biggest assets.

Firstly, they became our go-to source for cycling and safety knowledge. They provided invaluable insights, helping us test assumptions and fill gaps in our understanding quickly and easily. We learnt more about the people we were helping and how we could better help them.

They also became central to our marketing efforts; the first 1,000 customers helped us sell to the next 1,000 because they believed in our product. And most importantly, when things got tough (and boy did it get tough) they kept us motivated and energised. Their passion fuelled ours - invaluable currency in the startup game.

If you're considering launching a physical product, know this: it will likely be one of the hardest and most rewarding things you will ever do. But if you adopt the mindset that everything is an experiment, then every mistake is just another source of data, and more data points will help you make better decisions in the future. Best of luck!