🚀Three top tips to get through the first 18 months of hardware product development 🚀
Yesterday, Daniel Shor, Research Director, Europe for Innovobot Labs, ran an insightful workshop for our Hardtech Innovation Accelerator participants. As a mentor for the accelerator, a mechanical design engineer, and a haptics researcher, Dan shared invaluable knowledge about how to succeed during the first 18 months of hardware development.
💡Here are his top three tips💡
1️⃣ User-centric requirements drive technical specifications:
Make sure your product requirements are user-centric. They should be driven by real user needs, grounded in data and research. Product requirements represent a promise to solve your user’s specific problem, while technical specifications are your roadmap for delivering on that promise. Aligning specifications with requirements is essential for managing budget and maintaining focus. This will help you avoid devoting resources to features that don’t map to a user need and are therefore not necessary. Your MVP (Minimum Viable Product) should include the smallest set of features necessary to meet user needs effectively.
2️⃣ Documentation is crucial for long-term success:
Early-stage documentation may seem tedious, but it saves time and frustration down the line. As a general rule, for every hour spent prototyping, spend four hours validating, and up to ten hours documenting. This includes not only what you did but why you did it, any challenges faced, what worked (and what didn’t), and assumptions made along the way. Think of documentation as your safety net—if a key team member left unexpectedly, would their knowledge still be accessible to the team? People may come and go, and if the work isn’t documented, knowledge will be lost and you may end up doing the work twice. This documentation will also be helpful if you ever need to retrace your steps down the line.
3️⃣ Prototype with a purpose:
Engineers love to build, but in early stages, less is often more. When developing a prototype, keep a specific test or question in mind. The goal isn’t to create a perfect or full-scale model each time but to learn as much as possible with minimal resources. Build just enough to gather the insights needed for each stage—anything extra can waste valuable resources.
🙏These principles underscore a user-centric and resource-conscious approach to hardware product development.
🤝Thanks to Dan for guiding our accelerator participants and sharing his knowledge! Dan and Innovobot have been part of the MotionLab.Berlin ecosystem for several years. Workshops like this highlight the importance of partnerships in innovation and remind us of the wealth of knowledge we are so lucky to have within The MotionLab.Berlin ecosystem.
➡️ Interested in getting more valuable tips from experienced founders and experts like Dan? Our ecosystem memberships provide access to one of Europe’s largest hardtech communities. Link in the comments below ⬇️
