Small companies do not have significant sales volumes to offset development cost. They must keep product development budgets reasonable, without sacrificing quality.

1. By Steve Owens
Finish Line Product Development Services
A Better Way for Small Companies to Develop Products
Ways to Reduce Product Development Cost

2. Small companies do not have significant sales
volumes to offset development cost. They must keep
product development budgets reasonable, without
sacrificing quality.
However, they often have smaller and inefficient
teams. They also have less than complete processes
and long product life cycles.

3. What should a small company do? Here are the
top 3 methods for keeping development cost low
in a small company while actually increasing
quality.
#1 – Reference Designs:
Starting with a reference design is like starting the
race from the halfway point. Using parts of other
designs means you have fewer hours to develop.
You can see some of our reference designs here.

4. #2 Use Experts:
Experts and specialist do not charge you to “learn.”
They already know how to get the job done. Keep
your team lean by hiring only for core skills and hire
experts for noncore skills. In a small company, you
can not afford to have people “learn on your dime.”

5. #3 Use a Proven Processes:
Lack of processes often leads to doing the wrong thing
really well. In a highly technical arena, it is not difficult for
team members to each have their own idea of what the
product vision is.
Following a mature stage gate process will go a long way
in avoiding having to do work all over again. This white
paper is a great start: Keys to Successful Product
Development.

6. Finish Line PDS 94 River
Road Hudson, NH 03051
info@finishlinepds.com
Tel: 603-880-8484
BTW, if you find yourselves being pulled into
the next project before you have time to
finish this one, give us a call—we can help.

7. Our White Papers
• Top 10 Reasons Why Product Development Projects Fail
• Invention Versus Engineering
• Keys to Successful Product Development
• What Every Contract Manufacturer Should Know About
Product Development
• Why Product Development is Different in a Lean Start-up
• Product Development in a Small Company
• https://www.finishlinepds.com/resources/whitepapers/

8. Thank you!

9. Thank you!