How to Get Your First Product on the Market

The outlook for American start-ups is looking up. After reaching a 40-year low in the wake of the Great Recession, entrepreneurial activity has been on the rise again since 2015, the annual Kaufman Index states. But even in the best of times, surviving the start-up phase can be challenging.

Here are some tips for getting your first product on the market and getting your business started on the right foot.

Market Research

The No. 1 reason why companies fail is that there is no demand for their product, a CB Insights poll found. To avoid this pitfall, it’s vital to do solid market research in order to establish demand for your product before putting it into production.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) recommends starting your market research with some of the available free government sources of market data. These include the SBA’s Business and Data statistics page, the SBA Office of Advocacy’s website, the U.S. Census Bureau, EconomicIndicators.gov and FedStats.gov. Other free resources include Google’s Marketer’s Almanac, Nielsen MyBestSegments, Pew Research Center and Ubersuggest.

Use these types of resources to identify the size of your target market, clarify the characteristics of your target demographic, research sales figures for products similar to yours, discover market needs and identify which selling points are most attractive to your potential customers. You can also conduct your own research by using online surveys, talking to industry leaders and reading customer reviews of competitors’ products.

Rapid Prototyping

Your market research should also include test-marketing your product on a small scale before rolling out full-scale production. The first step toward this is creating a prototype for your product. Prototyping can be time-consuming and expensive, but you can speed up the process and cut costs by using innovations in rapid prototyping such as 3-D printing services.

In order to do rapid prototyping, you will normally need to develop a digital blueprint for your product, which can then be used to produce a working model. The easiest way to do this is to work with a rapid prototyping service.

Finding Materials and Parts

To build your prototype and put it into production, you will need to locate suppliers for materials and parts. You can often save costs by finding suppliers who will produce parts for you instead of buying your own equipment. For instance, Apple Rubber specializes in designing customized o-rings and seals for companies and producing them in quantity.

For cost efficiency, compare suppliers before settling on one. In addition to comparing prices, look for qualities such as a reputation for good customer service, reliability, ability to meet shipping deadlines on time and guarantees of quality. Online resources such as ManufacturerUSA.com can help you identify and compare suppliers.

Setting Up Distribution Networks

In order to get your product onto the market, you will also need to set up your distribution network. Two basic options are selling directly to your customers or selling indirectly through one or more tiers of dealers. If you sell directly to customers through a website or catalog, you will keep more of your profits, but you will also be responsible for your own marketing, storage and shipping. You may be able to outsource storage and shipping responsibilities by using a drop shipping or order fulfillment service. If you work with a chain of dealers, you will need to split your profits with them in return for their help with marketing, storage and shipping. You can also combine these options by doing direct selling from your own website or catalog as well as working with distributors.

If you’re looking for shipping services, today’s leading options include UPS, FedEx, USPS and DHL Worldwide Express. Increasingly, these shipping services will also do 3-D printing for you to streamline your production and distribution costs. If you’re looking for distributors to work with, the American Wholesalers and Distributors Directory is updated regularly, or you can use online distributor directories, such as MyLocalWholesaler.com.