CES is the event of the year for consumer electronics and a great event for hardware startups in this space. Each year, thousands of products are introduced and demonstrated in the exposition halls of CES in Las Vegas, check out the Marketplace known as Eureka Park™, the exhibition hall that houses the best in innovation and prototypes from startup companies.
Get your Hardware Product Ready for CES
Consumer hardware products have unique characteristics in the New Product Introduction (NPI) process. See below for some useful tips below to help you navigate:
Product Design (Industrial Design) done well, will make your product stand out from competitors.
- Incorporate strong industrial design into your budget and schedule.
- Design features that are intuitive and user friendly.
- Use quality materials & processes — failures in consumer’s hands could be catastrophic.
Time-to-Market. Get the timing right to make your product launch a success. Time the introduction to align with consumer purchasing cycles (like Christmas).
- Leverage 3D Printing and Rapid Prototyping.
- Use Concurrent Engineering and assign an experienced New Product Introduction (NPI) Manager.
- Incorporate Design for Excellence (DFX) feedback in the design phase.
Cost, Delivery, and Retail Channels. Successful entry into retails channels will enable you to scale rapidly. Cash is king — make sure you have enough investment (or great terms) to build up inventory prior to receiving payments.
- Drive down key component costs early — typically 80% of costs are associated with 20% of the parts.
- Select Supply Chain partners that can scale without having to move factories or change processes.
- Engage a Third Party Logistics (3PL) that can support fulfillment, reverse logistics, and repair.
- Invest in a Retail Channel expert or consulting firm that can set your retail strategy, get in in front of retail channel buyers, and negotiate contracts.
Create a Hardware Product Development Roadmap
We work with consumer product clients throughout the year as they prepare for CES with tools like a hardware product development roadmap. A hardware product development roadmap is your blueprint to go from a great idea to a successful market launch, and helps you understand your timeline, budget, and execute dozens of critical go-to-market tasks. As part of a recent product roadmap, we found a 3X difference in the planned product cost vs. the estimated product cost using PRG’s cost estimator, which includes often overlooked areas like test, packaging, and overhead. This information helped the client to know product costs prior to going live with their crowdfunding campaign — and avoided blowing their budget & schedule.
Get a FREE Hardware Product Development Roadmap consultation
PRG Partner, Levin Consulting at CES Booth #MP25256
Levin Consulting, a PRG partner, works with companies that are ready to launch their products and bring them to the retail market. According John Valvoda, Director of Business Development, they work with clients, helping them to make the right retail connections, and help with contract negotiations, so that they can launch quickly, without mistakes. For retail consumer electronics, mistakes at launch are costly. The goal is to quickly accelerate the business, put the product into the stores and other channels quickly– get to scale without wasting precious start-up capital.
Levin has been working with twelve of its start-up clients to prepare for CES since October, 2016, and strives to take advantage of the global reach of the CES conference. 30-40% of its clients’ business can be done during this conference–hence, the preparation it has done to schedule 650 private meetings for the 12 clients it represents. They are located at Tech East, LVCC, South Halls 1 – 2 Ground Level — stop by and say hello.
Join us for Happy Hour at Caesar’s Palace!
PRG is co-sponsoring Happy Hour with Rush Hour and Keating Consulting along with Celery, Teckwah, and Indiegogo on Friday January 6, 2017, from 5 to 9 pm at the Hangover Suite at Caesars Palace. Complimentary drinks and hors d’oeuvres will be served. Details and registration information are on Eventbrite. The actual suite number will be shared here on the day of the event.
Join us and network with other consumer hardware companies and our partners. We have also invited several clients to demo new products at the party. We look forward to seeing you at the Hangover Suite!
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