How to Bring Your Tech Idea to Life
By 2020, the wearable tech industry alone is expected to be worth a whopping $32 billion. What’s more, the UK’s tech industry is growing 32% faster than its economy.
With these numbers in mind, it’s little wonder that you want to turn your potentially award-winning tech-based idea into a living, breathing reality.
You may have an incredible premise and a product that you know will turn heads and enhance the way we interact with the world around us, but where do you begin? How do you turn that glorious tech idea into something tangible?
If you’re a tech beginner and you need a helping hand, here are a few hints to get you on your way.
Prove your concept
To have even the remotest chance of your tech product becoming real and entering the market, first you’ll have to prove that your concept works, and there’s a place for it.
Before you start hiring a crack team of tech talent, look at third parties you can team up with or any of that other stuff, you’ll need to write a detailed brief explaining how and why your product or idea works. When putting it together, consider the following things:
● Is there a similar idea out there and if so, how does mine differ (how is it better or unique)?
● Where does it sit in the tech market? Is it an app, software, wearable, domestic? Write it down and elaborate.
● How will I go about creating the initial mock up? Will you use a tool to create a wireframe, will you hire a firm to create a prototype, or will you handle everything in-house? Make sure you think about this carefully.
If you can answer all of the above questions and write out workable solutions with confidence, not only will you know that your idea has potential, but you’ll also appear credible to potential partners, staff and investors.
Conduct research and assemble your team
Once you’ve written a detailed brief for your idea or product explaining its benefits and proving its validity, it’s time to delve a little deeper.
Speak to potential consumers via market research sessions and social media polls to find out what the public might like or dislike about your idea and how it might be tweaked or refined.
In addition to this, conduct patent research to see if your design would infringe upon someone else’s copyright or intellectual property? Visit the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website and look at any patents on items or products that are similar to the one you want to invent.
Once you’ve collected your data and carried out patent research, you’ll be able to map out of a timeline of how you’re going to develop your product and bring it to life. By doing so, you’ll be able to understand the kind of talent you’ll need to make it happen as well as the roles you’ll want to allocate to get things off the ground.
Often, the perfect tech team has the right balance of creative talent and analytical thinkers — consider that when assembling your team.
Sell your vision
Once you’ve written your brief, conducted your research, refined your idea and assembled your team, you’ll now need to sell your vision with a pitch.
Speaking to the Fast Company, Entrepreneur Glenn Llopis explained, “Converting your idea into a reality requires you to help others understand your vision. Selling vision is much like selling change.”
Gather your team and tell them why you’ve decided to bring your idea to life and outline its glowing potential; explain how you’re going set getting things done and let everyone know what they have to do to breathe life into your idea.
Once everyone’s on board and knows their role, you’ll be able to roll out your timeline, refine your idea further and finally, make it a living, breathing reality.
Finally, in the words of James Webb Young, “Do not make the mistake of holding your idea close to your chest. Submit to the criticism of the judicious.”
Always be prepared to take advice and do what’s best for your idea, being too precious will stop development and stunt growth. And of course, that’s bad for business, as well as your idea.
Now you’re one step closer to bringing your idea to life, you might want to know how much it costs to build a startup.
@Fliptin, we exist to enable ideas to be born and co-build with tech startups. If you’d like to find out more about our Cobuild Platform, bridging Fintech and IOT, please don’t hesitate to connect with us.
