We’ve got a quandary.
Last night, we were discussing the use of students, after the two pretty positive responses from universities that I emailed. It became clear to us (and I mentioned this earlier) that the timeline of the student projects would be somewhat problematic. This comes with some tradeoffs:
- The students produce the prototype, for either really cheap or free (big plus)
- The students do rounds of feasibility testing or market testing (also a huge plus)
- The students produce CAD drawings and get leads on manufacturers, perhaps.
I really don’t know what type of stuff would be involved in these project, but those are my predictions. If they did all those, it’d be great.
Now, time isn’t money. Time is time, and money is money. However, I want a lot of both. Plus, the goal is to be out of here by Dec. 31, and to do so entails not piddling away time waiting for months while a product prototype is built. I’d like to have the prototype built, test marketing done and initial rollout of the product by mid-Feb, early March. Waiting on students to complete a semester long design project before I can rollout means a bunch of squandered time. Something I don’t want.
So, I have to figure out what to do. Obviously, I can just abandon the idea of using students and go back to straight up prototyping by contract manufacturer…the original plan. However, if I’m getting some free help…who am I to turn that down?
So, my thought is this. If it turns out that I’m right about the timeline for this project, we may explore having them prototype and design out a second product, probably closely related to the first. Perhaps something with a few more design enhancements, or something of the like. This has a the great advantage of being able to position two products, or at least have one in the hopper ready to go.
However, a few words of warning about this approach: Creating two tandem products can be somewhat dangerous. One, it has the possibility of dividing focus, by ourselves and the customer, among two things…making both more likely to fail. If we produce one product, dump all we have into it and concentrate there, we have a more likely chance of success. I’m all for success, so I’m all for focus.
The other option is to have the students design an alternative design to the same product. This is appealing, as it would capitalize on the same energy as was put into the initial product. Also, it might present us with an interesting opportunity to do some A/B testing between two designs of the same product. I love testing, so this is an appealing option to me.
So, those are my thoughts. This is all speculation right now, as I don’t know what the projects will even entail, or if they’ll even use this product for their project. However, keeping the end in mind is never a bad thing.
More probably coming today after I check my email at 11 AM CST.
