Getting a new physical product made by someone else

I occasionally come up with an idea for a non-digital product or someone reaches out to me with a product idea, and we don’t have the skills or the bandwidth to make it ourselves, but we still want to get it made.

So what do you do? Here are some tips on how to get your product made by someone else.

Disclaimer: This is assuming that you are not trying to get any royalties from the product.

The requirement for someone to build something

First to start, for a product to be made, someone is going to have to say to themselves, “This idea is the best idea for me to work on.” For that to be true, they both need the skills to create the product (or the will to learn them) and to believe that working on the product is a good idea (normally has business or social returns).

So, this breaks down to two questions:

How can you find people who have the skills (or the will to learn the skills) needed to make this product real?

How will they assess this opportunity to invest their energy into this, and what information can you share with them?

How do you find someone to make the product?

To start with the question about finding the people who would make this, here are some ideas.

1. Look for companies that already sell something similar.

If you want an electronic thing for your keychain, look for companies that sell electronic stuff for your key chain. (Ex: aftermarket replacement electronic keys company). The reason for this is they already have all the people in their company to make and distribute something that requires circuitry, is made out of plastic, and is about the size of a pack of cards. This will be different if you want to have a portable phone booth made. For that, you may want to look at manufacturers of garden sheds.

2. Look for companies that manufacture something similar.

In our globalized world, most of the companies who “make” a product you buy, don’t manufacture it. Think of your iPhone, “Designed in California” by Apple, but made by hundreds of suppliers all over the world (mostly in China). Traditionally a company does all the product design, marketing, and brand building, then pays a manufacturing company to build the item. Over time, these manufacturers have started to design and market products themselves. This allows them to capture more of the value from each sale.

So, it is possible that a manufacturer could take an interest in your idea and make the product as their own. To get in contact with a manufacturer, one way is to go on Alibaba and search for a similar product to the one you want to have built. Then contact some of the listed manufacturers and share your idea.

3. Contact someone who works in the industry.

So now you have messaged a couple of companies and a few manufacturers. Next is to find someone who works at or worked at one of those companies or manufacturers and talk with them. To do this, you can go on LinkedIn and search for people who work at one of the companies you messaged. If they are out of your network, you can upgrade to premium [I work at MSFT but don’t get a referral fee :) ], or you can take their first name and google their name and the company name. Sometimes you will be able to find their personal website or twitter. Then you can reach out to them.

Okay, let’s move on to the next phase…

How do you help them assess this is a good opportunity for them to invest their time?

So now you have a meeting set with someone who works in the industry and who could really build this product. Now to understand their decisions making process, let’s get into their shoes to help see how they make decisions.

First, if they work at a company that is already making products, they probably already have a roadmap of things to build. These can be ideas that they have had for a long time, or maybe one of their retail partners is asking for a couple of more sizes or variations on one of their existing products. Or they are selling a bunch of products, but they are having some quality issues with manufacturing, so they are spending their time selecting the right type of adhesive to use on their product.

Okay so now you are in their mind, in order for them to change their plan, you will have to have them rethink their assumptions, and to believe that unless they follow your guidance, they are going to miss out on an opportunity that is bigger than the one they are currently pursuing. To do so, you will have to add new data to their decision process so they see the opportunity in a new light. Here are some ways to do it.

1. Offer to buy X of them at Y price.

To start, you should be clear that you believe in this enough to prefund the item. And also really think about how much you would realistically pay for an item. This can be a stopping point right here. When an experienced product maker hears about a concept, they know about how much it would cost to make. And if you are below or above that number, it will be noted.

2. Find others who say they will buy the product.

What is way better than the fact that you will buy the product is that X number of people like you have also said they would buy the product, and have described why they would buy it. You can do this by doing something like post the idea on Reddit and ask others to comment if they would buy it, why they would buy it and how much they would pay for it.

If you imagine you are a product manager, and you see a list of people expressing interest in a product that is in your space, you would take notice. They are basically doing your job of product development for you.

3. “Pre-Sell” the product.

Today with Facebook and Bing Ads :) #MSFT, it is very easy to spin up an ad campaign for a product idea quickly and then have the ads drive traffic to a sign-up form where people can sign up to be kept up to date on when the product launches. You can put up an ad for the product then spend $20 on ads and see how many people sign up. This data will give you an estimate of the customer acquisition cost for the product. This means how much the business will have to spend to sell one of the products. This is great data to share, as well.

Okay, hope this was helpful :) If you have any other tips/ideas on how to cause a product to be made, please message me or comment.

I hope you all have a brilliant day!