A Cool Concept is only 10%

LL: A cool concept is only 10% of the journey to a saleable product

Risk: Failing to appreciate the monumental difference between a cool demo prototype and a production solution will result in despair, lost profits, and harm to the company

This applies not only to tech-heavy products, but I have seen it apply to 100% mechanical products with no electronics or software.

Insight from Chapter 1 of the Mythical Man-Month book: 

• It takes 3x the initial effort to take a science fair project to something that is robust. 
• And another 3x to take that to being saleable. 
• If it’s safety-related, there’s probably another 3x+ more, depending on your expertise in Functional Safety.

There are two distinct projects needed to transform from science fair to market: 

• Developing the science project into something that is robust enough to sell (not necessarily profitable). It has to work!
• Turning that product into something that is polished and profitable that can be sold. 

Questions:

• Which step is this project trying to attain? Going from science fair project to something technically feasible? or Taking a technically feasible but unprofitable design to something polished and profitable?
• What technical questions are still unanswered? Where are they in the project plan?
• If you’re looking to acquire startup Company X...
• Where do their products lie on this graph? 
• Are the products something we can sell (profitably)? 
• Have they been developed into something that works? Or are they still in the “Something Cool” stage?
• Do or can the products comply with safety standards? What about Functional Safety? What safety functions do the products have?
• Think about this: If the startup you're looking at has six people that have been at it three years to develop "Something Cool" (18 staff-years), are you ready to sign up to put in another 150+ staff-years to get it to market? Is that figured into the ROI?