From my experience of designing, developing and manufacturing new products over the last 25 years, here are the five biggest mistakes I see over and over again:
Pushing the product into the market without fully evaluating, testing and certifying it properly, resulting in customers finding problems that should have been addressed during development. People are always anxious to see their new product in the market and for it to start generating revenue, but fixing problems after the product has reached the consumer is often enough to kill a product, a brand and even a business.
Making assumptions about what customers want instead of asking them. Many startup's don't want to 'waste' money on market research and end up putting products on the market that don't fully meet customer needs or expectations.
The product is a success but the company cannot support the growth. It does not have the financial, technological, organizational or logistics resources to support rapid growth and becomes a victim of it's own success.
The product is innovative and maybe even brilliant but there is no existing market sector into which it easily fits. There is a lot of expensive market education required to enable consumers to understand what the product is and how it can benefit them. Without this spend, a great product can become a huge failure.
The product is revolutionary but there is no clear definition of who will buy it and at what price. With over 1.75 billion websites globally, selling a product online requires a lot of focused market research and targeted advertising.
