This is the third posting in my series of “Five Steps to Technology Commercialization.” Earlier, I introduced a commercialization framework for new and innovative business development (click here to read it). The key objectives of Development phase are:
- Validate whether your target market(s) care about your product/service, i.e., your value proposition
In the earlier steps, you made assumptions about your target market(s) and their unmet needs. During Development, use opportunities to collect feedback from customers on features, functionality, aesthetics, form, fit, etc. - Validate your market penetration strategy
Similarly, incorporate experiments into your Development phase to test your market penetration strategy. Do your marketing & sales assumptions work on a small scale? Can you attract a few enthusiastic early adopters? - Develop the right product/service
It is easy to get your head down and develop (i.e., design, code, build). Instead, keep it iterative with structured customer and market feedback to identify what is important and what is nice-to-have.
Here is how you achieve these objectives:
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Identify key technologies and skills for the product.
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Decide on developing or buying necessary technologies.
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Define production, service and support strategies
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Develop the product and validate it against technical and market requirements
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Collect as much customer feedback as possible and pivot, if necessary
I welcome your comments on my blog. Please share this posting if you find it helpful. If you have any questions, comments or thoughts, I would love to hear from you.
Ferhan Bulca, Ph.D. 
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