The process between coming up with an idea and manufacturing a new product that’s ready for launch is significant. It can be a daunting process, and it’s one that you can’t afford to get wrong – quite literally.

If you’re prepared to spend your precious time, valuable resources, and even funding to see your idea come to fruition, then it’s worth doing everything you can to analyse your idea’s likelihood of commercial success at an early stage.

Nobody can predict the future, but there are certainly some key steps that you can follow to help establish whether or not your idea has commercial potential. Innovation doesn’t necessarily equate to profit, and this process allows you to ditch the bad ideas while carrying forward the most promising ones with confidence.

Your product needs to sell and generate profit. Follow these steps to make sure that it does.

Seek Feedback at an Early Stage

It’s only natural that you’re excited by an innovative idea that you think will be a real game-changer. Unfortunately, it’s this excitement that can very easily add bias to your working process.

Before anything’s manufactured or approved, you need to solicit objective feedback and get as many professional opinions as possible. Your idea only becomes a business opportunity when it’s confirmed that it has business potential – until that’s confirmed, you have very little to work with.

This is important: don’t rush out to patent an idea; don’t build a website for an idea; don’t begin marketing a product that doesn’t yet exist. Your resources are limited – save all of this for an idea that definitely has commercial potential.

Seek honest feedback as early as you can. Friends and family might share similar bias to you, they might be too polite to criticise your product, or they might simply lack the business knowledge to properly analyse your idea.

Get a professional third-party to sign an NDA and provide objective feedback that you can work with.

Explore the Market and Develop a Business Plan

Is the feedback encouraging? Does it look as though your idea may have commercial potential? Excellent! It’s time for the next stage – developing your new product idea and exploring the market.

To begin with, list down all of your assumptions and objectives so that you can create a clear business approach in a structured business plan.

What’s the purpose of your idea? Does it solve a problem? Who would benefit from your idea, and who does it solve problems for? How are these people currently solving these problems? And is there likely to be any demand for your product? Can you offer something different, innovative, and better than what already exists? If you can, then can you identify any partners? Would anybody else be willing to buy into your idea?

It’s highly likely that you’ll have to conduct some market research to find the answer to these questions. Does your idea already exist? And if it doesn’t, can you identify a gap in the market and make the most of that opportunity?

Potential issues will reveal themselves in this business plan. If there are some tough questions to answer at this stage, then it might be worth re-considering your idea after all.

Analyse Your Own Personal Circumstances

If everything still seems positive at this stage, then you’ve good reason to feel confident. However, don’t forget to step back and analyse your own situation too.

Are you currently in a position where you can commit to the next stage? Study the costs, time, and the level of effort that will be involved in turning your idea into a product. Can you commit to the next stage?

What can you bring to the table personally? Will you need to outsource several key procedures? That has an impact on cost. What can you contribute financially, and are you in a secure enough position to take a business risk? Do you even have enough time to carry this forward?

If any of these factors affect your ability to launch the product, the idea may have potential still, but you have identified a weakness in the 'team' developing it. Maybe that’s what needs addressing?

Build a Prototype and Work That Feedback

At this stage, it looks like you’ve found an idea with commercial potential after all! But before you get carried away, test the market and try to improve from there.

Develop an initial product design and prototype. Let potential users test the prototype. Analyse feedback and use this opportunity to refine the design.

Explore the route to market and look at the wider business plan. Do you need to secure additional funding? Where will your product be manufactured? How will it be manufactured, and how will it be distributed? Do you have a full financial map planned out? And have all of the costs been captured?

Once everything has been assessed, tested, and verified, you can move into the manufacturing stage with confidence. Launch your new product and if everything’s gone to plan so far, you can hopefully enjoy the reward for all your hard work.