Chapter 3: Understanding your Markets

In the previous chapter, the Product Realization will be defined at a high level as well as the ideas behind a New Product Development Introduction (sometimes written as NPDI) framework.

In this chapter the effects of the market on your product are discussed, what you think is the best version of your idea may be influenced by many factors in the markets you believe you can sell it to.

Global and local market needs and expectations vary widely, making it essential to identify and prioritize the market you will target first. Every country or region has its own set of rules and regulations, competitive landscape, cultural norms and language. All of these may directly affect the product design. Consequently, a clear go-to-market strategy, including a phased country or region rollout plan, should be created. 

The diagram at the start of this chapter shows that deciding where you intend to sell your product before starting development is critical. Multiple factors such as regulatory requirements, import and export regulations, packaging, logistics, and market expectations will significantly influence both product design and deployment choices.

When envisioning the market for your product there are differing high-level strategies to consider for the different types of company:

• For Early-stage startups: Establishing your market strategy is usually performed when resources and funding are constrained. Here, the focus should be on validating your market opportunity, building a strong business case, and assessing risks, and developing a functional prototype to support your next funding round.
• For Rapidly scaling businesses: Refreshing your market strategy presents an opportunity to establish a solid process and systems infrastructure to enable rapid growth. Here, time to market often takes precedence over cost containment, making it essential to follow the 10 best practices of agile hardware product realization. (future chapters of this blog will expand these)  
• For Established corporations: Market led product renewal and updates offer an excellent opportunity to reassess legacy practices and evolve towards a more agile, innovative, and efficient agile approach. Over time, these practices can deliver substantial improvements in portfolio management, operational execution, competitive positioning, and the ability to bring new products to market faster and more cost-efficiently.

In this early stage of any product development the use of AI tools can be directly impactful as it is essential to develop a strong understanding of the marketplace into which the product will be launched. With the application of AI-powered search and summarization capabilities, the discovery of competitive information has become easier and faster. 

In many cases, using the guiding questions outlined in the diagram at the start of this chapter as prompts in a standard search engine will provide a solid foundation of market knowledge. Cross checking results with  AI tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini can  add further context and depth to your findings. It is worth noting that many of these tools are powered by similar large language models (LLMs), and so their outputs may overlap. 

Most importantly, any  information received from an AI-based search output should be verified for accuracy as not all of these results are correct or complete. Proper validation ensures that critical product and market decisions are based on reliable data.

Join us next time for a description of how agile hardware frameworks differ from agile software methodologies

Sources:

Sources: Extracts from the completely revised book Agile Hardware Product Realization (version 4.0)  by Michael Keer and David Eden, available from January 2026.