Launching a new product is always risky. No matter how diligently you prepare, you can never guarantee success.

And, as you’ll see below, even the most successful businesses suffer the occasional flop. But how do you know when a product is a flop?

Joan Schneider and Julie Hall of Harvard Business Review share that:

…about 75% of consumer packaged goods and retail products fail to earn even $7.5 million during their first year.

This is well below the $50 million benchmark of a “highly successful” product launch.

But many small businesses would be thrilled to earn even $1 million in the first year of a product launch.

If that $50 million goal feels right for your business, then go with that.

But, for smaller start-ups, here’s another perspective…

Tim Berry founder and chairman of Bplans offer this definition of product failure:

A product is a failure when its presence in the market leads to:

• The withdrawal of the product from the market for any reason;

• The inability of a product to realize the required market share to sustain its presence in the market;

• The inability of a product to achieve the anticipated life cycle as defined by the organization due to any reason; or,
• 
The ultimate failure of a product to achieve profitability.

So how can you make sure that this doesn’t happen to your product? After all, while powerful psychology principles guide product design, there are still plenty of great failures in product design.

Mitigate some risk by learning from product failures.

By learning from the mistakes made by others, you can stand on the shoulders of giants and avoid their pitfalls.

Want to guide your product design to a successful launch and profitable life? Th...more