Small companies do not have 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 for… Read More

To outsource or not to outsource? It’s a question that arises again and again in small companies. Why? Because technology is evolving rapidly, and many small companies are struggling to fund the fixed cost of a full-time team with the necessary diversity of skills needed to stay competitive. For years, small companies have been developing… Read More

Some of the myths about raising money are all too familiar. “I just need to be introduced to the right person.” “I will put my idea on one of those crowdfunding platforms.” “Once my prototype is done, everyone will want to fund me.” Or, my favorite, “We will bootstrap with [students/interns/work for stock] people.” Raising… Read More

“The future ain’t what it used to be.” Yogi Berra Sometimes product development projects do not live up to their initial promise. Knowing when to shut down a project can be an important ingredient to success. Most new product ideas start out with great expectations, but over time, some start to fade. Worse, this process… Read More

The prototype is all done and it seems to work well. Now, how do you get the prototype manufactured reliably and at a reasonable cost? If you’re like a lot of small companies, this is not something you do all the time. Finish Line has done more than one thousand projects for more than 300… Read More

Does it ever seem like the last 10% of the project takes 90% of the time? If you have had this experience, you are not alone. It happens all too frequently when trying to develop technology products in a small company. Managing a project with several different engineers, all with their unique areas of expertise… Read More

We often hear product development engineers debate the idea of “just do it” versus “slow and methodical”. The “just do it” group espouses the idea that as soon as you think of an idea, you should start designing circuits, laying out the PCB and hacking out software. The “slow and methodical” group advocates the do… Read More

We have completed more than one thousand product development projects for more than 275 small companies. Often, we come in to “save” a project that has gone off-track. One of the biggest problems we see people doing is developing the wrong product, although often they’re doing it really well. Focusing only on how something is… Read More

“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

To outsource, or not to outsource, that is the question – or is it? For small companies, the answer is generally to do some of both. How do you know what to send out and what to keep in house? Here are a few things to think about. Like many other business decisions, the choice… Read More