You have a great idea for a new product or device that you want to develop. Prototype It!
There are many prototyping and manufacturing methods out there. Before you choose which process you want to use, know there are benefits to prototyping your idea first. The best time to prototype your idea is before you spend the money and time developing it. Early prototyping provides countless benefits, which are listed below.
1. Cost-Effective
Developing a prototype is typically much cheaper than developing the final product. If you produce an initial prototype, you can determine if your idea will be viable before investing too much money into it. If your prototype fails miserably, you can either scrap the idea or start over with a better one. Either way, you save money and time by not continuing the development of an un-viable product.
2. Determines Feasibility
The last thing you want is for your idea to fail. Prototype it, and see if the whole project will be profitable and well-received.
An early prototype can determine whether or not your design is actually feasible or whether there are any obstacles that need to be overcome before you can move on with the development process.
3. Gives You a Deeper Understanding of Your Design
A prototype reveals how different factors affect your design and what needs to be changed or improved before manufacturing it for real-world use. A prototype also allows you to test new concepts and ideas that might not have been foreseen in the planning stages.
It can even give you new ideas on how to improve your design in ways you hadn’t thought of before. Your prototype may lead to an invention or innovation that no one else has thought of yet!
4. Allows for Constant Modification
With a prototype, you can continue to make changes and test out new ideas as necessary throughout the entire development process—you’re not locked into one way of doing things with your design.
5. Protects Your Idea
If your idea is unique enough to patent, a prototype can help you perfect it for patenting purposes. A working model of your invention will show how novel an idea truly is while also showing how it works. Patenting is also wise for any design that may be in a kind of high demand.
6. Makes Marketing Easier
If your prototype is working and you intend to market it, a working model will make marketing easier by eliminating the guesswork for potential investors or customers. It also makes selling your product more tangible for people who are on the fence about buying it—they can see, touch, and even test it before committing to a purchase.
7. You Can Test It With Your Target Market
This is good if you already have a target market in mind. If you intend to market your product, a prototype is essential for testing with your target market. If your customers respond favorably to the finished model of your invention after experimenting with a working prototype, then you know exactly how to market your product.
Just think, if you had an actual prototype of your idea, you can have people test it out in real life, allowing for valuable feedback about the best ways to sell the product so that it’s appealing to consumers. You’ll be able to get a better understanding of how people will use and interact with your product by prototyping it first, rather than just imagining that they will do so.
8. Shorter Development Time
By creating a prototype, you’re much closer to developing your product than if you tried to design it from scratch with no type of example.
9. Easier Collaboration with Designers and Engineers
If you don’t have a physical device or model for your idea, it can be very difficult for manufacturers and engineers to understand what you want them to make. With a prototype, there’s much less confusion and miscommunication between everyone involved in the design process.
10. You Can Test Your Prototype’s Commercial Viability
A prototype allows you to understand how viable your product is in the market. It’ll let you know if people will actually buy it, which is a great way to save money before developing it fully.
If that doesn’t convince you to prototype your idea, then nothing else will! Now that you know these ten great reasons why prototype your idea, go do it!
