Since I discovered that there is a likely market for my product (more specifics once the online store officially launches), I spent the past 2 months building prototypes by hand. It has been a tedious but enlightening step in the product development process. I am confident that it was time well-spent, as I could test many variables rather rapidly while spending minimal money (albeit a great deal of my own time). Additionally, interacting with my product in such an intimate fashion allowed me to develop and test solutions to problems I encountered.
I am relatively confident in the designs I’ve settled on (though I wouldn’t say the prototyping process is over). At this point, I’m having some prototypes made by a manufacturer, which I hope will help me further refine and standardize the product. Fingers crossed, everything will turn out as planned and I can move to full-scale production and marketing.