When coming up with an idea for a product, you will have a million ideas and you have to narrow down to the ideas that appeal to the most people and have a need for it in the world. In class last week, all of the teams had to brainstorm about three ideas that are potential ideas for our final project.
My team, Supra, and I knew we wanted our product to fix problems everyone has. Most of our ideas fixed “first world problems” that everyone has. Our first idea was trash compactor for trash cans in households. This appeals to everyone who makes trash. I struggle with this personally. If the trash is building up in my apartment, I do not think to push it down myself because I do not want to touch the trash. So I usually end up taking it out of the trash can and when I do, the bottom portion of the trash bag is empty. This means I am only using half of a trash bag. That is wasteful and expensive!
For our idea, the trash bag would attach to the bottom of the trash can so if would be more open for trash to fall to the bottom. Also, when you step on the foot pedal that opens the lid, an arm would press the trash down to ensure you used as much of your trash bag as possible.
I found it very helpful to get feed back from other groups. This helps bring up more things that we may need to address or small improvements we could make. I found an article by Forbes Magazine that has ten questions listed on it to ask ourselves for us to have a successful product. This is a good reference to use when you are brainstorming. The questions are focused around a few main things.
- Appeal to a broad audience
- Simple enough to use
- Solve a problem
If your product can appeal to a large audience then it will be successful. Everyone will find a need for your product and go out and buy it. Simplicity is crucial. If something is too complicated to use or understand the use, no one will put out the extra effort to understand it. Then one of the most important things to keep in mind is that it actually solves the problem. After you have passed all of the checkpoints then your product is ready for sale!
Hey Olivia. I loved your group’s ideas, and I think that the trash compactor is a very helpful product that could definitely help many people out by saving them money and reducing waste at the same time. Also, I found the article you listed near the bottom of your post very helpful. I agree it is very important that the idea is simple because in order for everyone to be on board with an idea, they have to understand it. I also agree that the product must solve a problem, otherwise there will be no reason for people to buy it.