“Ask no questions, and you will be told no lies” Charles Dickens Great Expectations Ask your average product development engineer how long a project will take or how much it will cost, and you may get wishful thinking. Sometimes people tell you what you want to hear versus what you need to hear. In order… Read More

Small companies in niche markets know they can design better products, but can they sell enough of their products to pay back their investment? When unit volumes are low, the cost of developing the product can sometimes exceed the manufacturing cost. Here are a few tips for reducing product development cost in a small company:… Read More

I just finished reading the book “The Three Rules“. This academic team attempted to find “rules” of biz that are ALWAYS true. They found three: Rule #1: Better before Cheaper Rule #2: Revenue before Cost Rule #3: There are no other rules. “Better before Cheaper” means that if you are faced with a choice between… Read More

A potential customer has been talking to us for at least half a year about helping his company fix a problem that their engineer just couldn’t solve, The engineer was always just days away from figuring it out…for six months. The engineer finally gave up and we got our first look at the issue. Turns… Read More

There are many more ways to pay for product development than you may realize, including not paying for it at all. What is right for your situation will depend on your exact circumstances. You may wish to review the following before starting your next product development project. 1. Employees: Most of us are familiar with… Read More

We often get calls asking if we can design a prototype, or, have we ever worked with the X Y Z technology? After a few probing questions, what we learn that this company really need is a product developed, not a prototype designed—at least not yet. Developing a product is different than designing a product… Read More

Decision making is fundamental to any professional activity. The study of “decision bias” is a fascinating subject. These studies show that the root cause of most faulty decision making is a wrong assumption. One of the most common faulty assumptions in the product development world is that the development budget and time is an obvious… Read More

Small companies do not have a significant sales volumes to offset development cost. They must keep product development budgets reasonable, without sacrificing quality. However, they often have smaller and inefficient teams. They also have less than complete processes and long product life cycles. What should a small company do? Here are the top 3 methods… Read More

As I am sure you know, Finish Line only develops products for small companies. Just because you’re a small company does not mean you should hire a cheap engineer. In fact, doing so will likely end up costing you more. To be clear, I am not advocating you hire an expensive engineer either, or that… Read More

A Requirements Document (RD) is the first step to creating a great product. Because it is the first step, a RD has the greatest leverage of all product development activities. A small error in direction at this stage can make a big difference in were the product ultimately ends up. Good is the enemy of… Read More