How To Ensure a Unique Idea – A Starting Point to New Product Design

From the simple paperclip to the complex iPhone, all the iconic innovations started from a single idea. Ideas evolve and grow as they are worked on, as a lot happens from the moment an idea starts in your mind until it becomes a reality. 

If you are reading this, chances are:

• You already got an idea in your mind and are looking for the next step
• You are curious how the iconic products were made
• Or you are on the product development journey and wondering how to make it stand out among the crowd 

Regardless of why you are here, let’s dig deeper into some of the insights into the product design services, manufacturing, and development: 

Ensure your idea is unique

Take some time to do an in-depth research around your new idea before you could get financially and emotionally invested in it. Below are the good places to start:

Google image search 

Google is the most popular search engine – it’s a no brainer. Obviously, it is a good starting point, particularly the image search function. You will find a dozen hits at a single glance for a particular search term – all within a single click, and without spending too much time on any websites. 

Conduct a search on Amazon

After all, Amazon is one of the major search engines, next try to search on Amazon and specifically focus on products. If you find a similar product try to find more details about it by going into its product descriptions and customer reviews. 

Patent search 

Just like Google’s Patent Search try to search patent databases. It is a great starting point to find products that were patented but never made it to market or those that are currently in-transit to it.

If your initial research for products and intellectual property rights is completed and you are unable to find any duplicates, then chances are your idea is unique and ready to go! But wait, this initial research does not guarantee your idea is not copyrighted. 

Read on further to find the next steps:

See if there is a specific reason it does not exist 

Once you have established that there are no duplicates to your idea, congratulations! But hold on, why may that be the case? Maybe your product idea is unpopular or even illegal. As tough as it sounds to accept, it is always better to find out early rather than later. 

There are four ways to find if there is a market demand for your idea:

Check if the problem is already being solved 

Use the research methods explained above to find if there are other products that have already addressed the problem in question, but perhaps in a slightly different way. You can also hire product design services to help you with it. 

If the answer is yes, then you still have room to maneuver, for if your idea is cheaper, quicker, and more efficient, then you may still be a winner! 

Run an online survey 

You can get an unbiased survey by running an online survey to research attitudes regarding the problem you are trying to solve. Ask respondents if the problem is something they can relate to and if they are willing to pay for a solution to it. 

You can use different platforms like Typeform and Survey Monkey to conduct an online survey free of cost, and you can also run a Facebook ad targeted at your expected audience.

Quiz Strangers 

Strangers do not owe you anything – and you are unlikely to sugar-coat their opinion, so use this opportunity of the survey. Find some strangers and ask them questions that are relevant to your market research. 

Sell Something that Doesn’t Exist

Advertise your products without giving away the whole show, reveal to your audience only the most attractive parts, but without giving anything too specific. If you see that people are interested, then it means you still have room for developing your new product. This method, however, is still not entirely recommended because there are so many factors that could affect the data. 

The second way is to create a landing page about your product and then direct your targeted audience via paid advertising to the page, and then monitor their response. 

Never rely on Feedback from Friends and Family

Your friends and family care for you and your emotions, but data which is based on emotions never validates, and your friends and family are far more likely to tell you what you actually want to hear. 

Don’t take enthusiasm as validation and rush to the next step. Monitor and analyze the data you have gathered through all these sources and take some time to do the in-depth research before you pursue your idea. 

Seek advice from various product design services companies that can help you turn your idea into reality.