Developing from scratch

CSE provides electronic consulting services for the design and development of electronic products, systems, and components.

Here are some tips that might help you develop a product “from scratch”, based on our experience with other companies.

  • If your product or idea is truly unique, protect it with a patent. This is also a good idea if you plan to raise capital down the road – because potential investors want to see that the idea has value and protection as Intellectual Property. You have a limited amount of time to file for a patent after the product has been offered “for sale”, so secrecy is important.

  • Make sure that you have a marketing plan that is effective. Nothing can sell itself without help, no matter how good the product or idea is. It is more important to care-fully market a product than it is to have a unique product idea – although a good prod-uct is necessary for long-term success.

  • Make sure that your product is in a field that interests you (unless you are a peddler, which is okay, too). If you are going to spend a great deal of time refining and prom-oting your product, having it be a natural fit for you helps ease the work.

  • Build a prototype and use it to build sales and find potential customers. Use it as a model to get potential customers involved in offering suggestions. If a picture paints a thousand words, how many more words a working prototype?

  • Hire companies and people you feel comfortable with, because if the road gets bumpy, you want to be able to remain focused on the issues and not get misled by distractions.

  • Find inexpensive or highly effective resources. Keep in mind that resources are rarely both inexpensive and effective. If you find one of these gems, hold onto it! Know what you need with respect to resources.

Bringing a product to Market

CSE has electronic system, product, and component design gurus, not marketing gurus. However, it is important to do some marketing with any product or service. Even though we are not web site gurus, we wrote this web site. We know that marketing is important. When you work with CSE, you become part of our marketing effort through referrals. Important for your success, we become part of your marketing team by providing product quality at optimal cost-performance. These items that we provide will help you sell your product! From a marketing standpoint, it is very important to us that you experience the quality and value of the product we design for you! We do this with good design practices, excellent product quality, performance and function, and good prices. This is where we place our effort and achieve customer satisfaction.

Here are some additional tips that some of our customers have mentioned work for them, in addition to having a quality, affordable product. They might help you bring your product to market.

  • Write a web page, of course.

  • Submit material for press releases. This is free advertising, and free is good.

  • Go to the trade shows where your product might be needed or useful and show it off.

  • Use direct marketing – with the help of a good mailing list, send out information.

  • Network through people you already know.

  • Be enthusiastic about your product! Talk about your finished (and hopefully patented) product in an up-beat fashion. Be prepared and able to explain it!

  • Research your market with the help of a market research firm or advertising agency.

  • Offer new customers incentives.

  • Find the appropriate trade journals or magazines and place an ad (or better yet, submit the press release information mentioned above).

Prototypes

CSE provides electronic consulting services for the design and development of electronic products, systems, and components.

When building an electronic prototype, here are some tips to keep in mind:

  • Know the purpose of the prototypes. Are they to test a theory? To test a function? To get customer reaction? For continuing internal development? For demonstration only? As a pilot run of production? As a production exercise? Design and build accordingly.

  • Build enough prototypes to allow yourself to push them to the limits of operation. Make a couple extras for a team to work simultaneously or for rough use.

  • Depending on the purpose, a small number of prototypes is usually adequate. Be certain that those building the prototypes keep complete records so that a transfer to production is effortless, effective, and inexpensive.

Call us to see how we can help you!