Sometimes we wonder when our life will become the epitome of the Jetsons cartoons, but truthfully it already is. There are many inventions being created, but about 27% of these prototypes fail and never make it to the shelf for the consumer. So why do these items fail at the prototype or ideation stages? Most of the time it has to do with money or time.

Entrepreneurial endeavors take much more effort than assumed by the beginning team. These efforts are often over budget and off schedule unless it is a seasoned project manager with allocated resources to produce the product. But most entrepreneurs do not have this luxury. Many entrepreneurs look to investors for the success of funds toward their ideas.

Shark Tank is an extremely popular show that has many entrepreneurial ideas looking for investments in companies and products. These entrepreneurs have many years to perfect and sell their ideas in order to pitch to important investors that will put millions into the company to have it succeed. Sometimes on this show, entrepreneurs are grilled on their management of such a project. These high-profile investors are not worried to call the bluff on prototypes or explain that the creator of the project is not skilled enough to manage the expedient growth after a multi-million-dollar investment.

On average it takes 100,000 dollars to make an idea into a product for the shelf. Most products take more than 2 prototypes and 6-9 months to produce. There is no wonder that the success rate is so low as not many people have thousands of dollars to toss towards “ideation”.

So why would an entrepreneur pursue such a high-risk task? I believe it has to do with the entrepreneurial spirit that only these people possess. Their perseverance and commitment to the projects they are passionate about are undeniably incredible. Entrepreneurs are known to be undeniably loyal to their projects, sometimes giving up their job and other pursuits to focus on making their ideas successful.

Have you ever had an idea that you thought to pursue? What was holding you back?

What skills in our project management course do you think will be helpful for creating such an idea? 

Why did certain things remain prototypes- what happened to items that died?

https://www.lifecycleinsights.com/research-insight-the-impact-of-system-level-prototype-failures/

https://predictabledesigns.com/how-long-to-develop-a-new-hardware-product-and-get-it-to-market/#:~:text=If%20you%20have%20an%20experienced,within%20about%206%2D9%20months. 

https://www.design1st.com/how-much-do-hw-prototypes-cost/#:~:text=Prototype%20costs%20can%20range%20from,for%20high%20fidelity%20connected%20devices.&text=One%20of%20the%20most%20common,why%20you%20want%20a%20prototype.