Could These Tactics Help You Save Money When Creating A New Product?

You’re in the middle of creating a new product that’ll supercharge your startup and make your brand a household name. These lofty ambitions are being slightly scuppered by the age-old product development conundrum: 

How do you save money without compromising product quality? 

It’s one of the hardest balancing acts in business and you’ve likely got a few ideas in mind. We collected some common tactics people think will save money on product development, but do they work? 

Outsourcing manufacturing

Outsourcing is widely regarded as an easy way for businesses to save money. Many enterprises outsource manufacturing and it can save thousands. But will this work for your business? 

If you’re a small company focusing on made-to-order bespoke products, it’s cheaper to handle things alone. Make some initial purchases getting equipment like plasma cutters, saws, glue guns, etc. When armed with everything you need, you make the product when it gets ordered. 

In this scenario, outsourcing is an additional expense because you don’t have loads of orders at once. You’ll only save money when your company needs to manufacture hundreds or thousands of products to meet massive demands. 

Investing in testing

Investing in testing your product can save money. It’s a tactic startups shy away from because they think it ends up costing more money. If you avoid prototypes or testing, you aren’t spending as much money on product development. 

Ironically, holding out on this investment will cost more money throughout the product development cycle. How? Testing helps you iron out mistakes so you release a polished product to the masses. 

Your product launches without issues or bugs, so it sells with no problems. If you don’t invest in testing, so many concerns can arise right away. Numerous returns come in and you’re spending a fortune trying to redevelop the product so the issues are no longer there. All of this is avoided with testing, so it does save money. 

Reusing old ideas/materials

Is this the second product in your range? Did you work on products before? If so, you could reuse old ideas or materials to speed up product development and save money. Why splash the cash on completely new materials when there are some from another product that would work perfectly here? 

Tech companies do this all the time – if you took apart three Samsung phones you’d find the same materials in all of them. If the materials are there, you may as well use them. It’s better for the environment, so you can technically advertise the product as having low carbon emissions. 

The only caveat is that this saves money when the materials or ideas work and don’t compromise the product’s quality. Don’t reuse things if it means your product will deteriorate or degrade a lot faster. Otherwise, you’re spending a fortune trying to rebuild the product so it lasts longer. 

Once you figure out how to balance saving money with maintaining a high-quality product, you’ll be in the perfect position for takeoff. It’s okay to admit that saving money isn’t possible – sometimes it makes more sense to build an expensive product. As long as you market it with an emphasis on quality and luxury, there’s every chance it’ll still return a profit.