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From Product Idea to a Thriving Business

From Product Idea to a Thriving Business

By Marie-Louise Anthonissen

Providing you with practical tips to turn your great ideas into profitable products, up-level your project management skills to build a successful business, and allows you to do what you’re most passionate about, create product lines that excite your customers.

In each episode you’ll get tips for practical templates, step-by-step action plans, and mitigation tactics to overcome the hiccups you encounter when developing new products. You can apply what you learn immediately in your daily business.
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Why Project Management is Important in Product-based Businesses

From Product Idea to a Thriving Business Feb 07, 2023

00:00
08:30
Why You Need a Project Business Plan and What Should be Inside
Feb 01, 202406:26
When is the Best Time to Invest in Product Samples for Your New Product Idea?
Oct 01, 202308:49
Best Practises to Run New Product Development Projects in Small Product-based Businesses?
Sep 24, 202309:47
Why are Systems and Processes Essential for Small Product-based Businesses?
Sep 16, 202309:26
Why planning your new product idea from A to Z will bring in more profit?
Sep 10, 202310:30
How to Determine the Sales Price of Your New Product ?
Aug 14, 202313:43
How to Develop and Manufacture Your Own Product?

How to Develop and Manufacture Your Own Product?

Are you thinking about manufacturing your own product idea? That’s amazing! There are various ways to do this. Outsourcing the manufacturing to a third party or manufacturing it yourself. White labeling your product or private labeling? It depends on objectives and resources which way is the best one for you. Let’s get into more of the details on how to develop and manufacture your own product.


Developing your own product refers to the process of creating a new product or service from scratch. This involves identifying a need or problem in the market, designing a solution, and then bringing that solution to life through research, development, and testing. 

Developing your own product can be a lengthy and challenging process, but it can also be incredibly rewarding if the end result is successful. It requires a combination of creativity, technical skills, business acumen, and perseverance to see a product through from concept to launch.

Tune in to grab all the details and get tips to help you make decisions and get started with a new product idea.


If you feel you need some help in implementing a step-by-step process to get from product idea to launch in your product-based business, sign-up for the Product-Based Business Hub. 

THE membership for entrepreneurs and product-based business owners where you’ll feel supported when developing your own products.

Think of product development blueprints, project & product strategies, masterclasses, templates and Q&A’s that are waiting for you.

Connect with like-minded souls in the membership community. I’m preparing something great for you! More info is coming your way very soon!

Click here to sign-up now and get inspired soon!

Aug 07, 202311:17
Why New Product Idea Generation is Important for Product-Based Businesses

Why New Product Idea Generation is Important for Product-Based Businesses

Product-based businesses can scale and grow through a variety of strategies. One approach is to expand your product offerings to appeal to a broader customer base. 

If you want to expand your offerings as product-based business owner you need to come up with new product ideas. New product idea generation is crucial in this phase for various reasons. 

Firstly, it helps you stay competitive and relevant in your market by continuously offering innovative and unique products that meets your customers' changing needs and preferences. 

Secondly, it allows you to expand your product line and cater to a larger customer base, which can increase your revenue and profit margins. 

Additionally, new product ideas can also help you differentiate from your competitors and establish a distinct brand identity. Therefore, investing in new product idea generation is essential for the long-term success and growth of your product-based business.


Tune in this episode to get more tips and strategies.


STEP-BY-STEP PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IMPLEMENTATION

If you feel you need a step-by-step process to implement a product development process in your product-based business, sign-up for the Product-Based Business Hub. 

THE membership for entrepreneurs and product-based business owners where you’ll feel supported when developing your own products.

Think of product development blueprints, project & product strategies, masterclasses, templates and Q&A’s that are waiting for you.

Connect with like-minded souls in the membership community. I’m preparing something great for you! More info is coming your way very soon!


Click here to sign-up now and get inspired soon!

Jul 30, 202311:58
How to Set up Your New Product Development Team for Success
Jul 24, 202311:41
Why You Need Systems To Scale Your Business
Jul 24, 202312:13
What Different Product Samples do You Need toGet from Prototype to Final Product?
Jul 10, 202311:02
What Resources Do You Need to consider in New Product Development
Jul 03, 202309:14
How to Organise Your Product-based Business and Run Your Daily Activities Efficiently
Apr 24, 202307:11
How to Apply Project Management as a Product-based Business Owner
Apr 17, 202311:43
How to Start a Project in an Area that's Completely New to You
Mar 13, 202305:22
3 Strategies to Make Sure You Keep Overview on all Project Actions
Mar 06, 202310:42
3 mistakes to avoid when starting a new product idea
Feb 14, 202310:43
Why Project Management is Important in Product-based Businesses
Feb 07, 202308:30
3 Strategies to Teach Your team how to Work on Your Projects
Nov 02, 202209:22
5 Tips on Who to involve in the Product Requirement Process
Aug 16, 202211:02
All the Intel You need to Define, Market and Scale your Product-based Business
Aug 09, 202213:24
So, You want to Start a Product-based Business?
Aug 02, 202215:07
How to go from Idea to a Successful Launch
Jul 21, 202213:56
Digital or Paper Planner to Manage new Product Development?
Jul 04, 202208:59
How to Create a Price Positioning Overview for Your New Product?
Jun 27, 202207:20
How to Create a Competitive Benchmark Overview for Your New Product?
Jun 20, 202209:28
How to Lead Your Project Team Without having Authority

How to Lead Your Project Team Without having Authority

We're going to talk about how you can lead your project team without having authority.

As a project manager, you often are not the boss of the members in your project team. So that means you don't have authority over them and cannot tell them what to do. The only thing you can do is work with them together as a team and try to motivate them as much as possible to contribute to your projects.

And this can be a challenge, especially if project team members are overloaded. It becomes a problem if they are too busy and don’t have time to work on your project deliverables.

But you can do a few things to make sure your project stays on track, and you don't lose time along the way.

Jun 13, 202209:06
How to Collect and Evaluate New Product Ideas

How to Collect and Evaluate New Product Ideas

Let’s talk about an efficient way on how to collect and evaluate new product ideas.

For all business owners and product managers, who like to get some tips on how to do this in a fun but efficient way, keep reading!

When you are creating a new product idea most of the time, this list is based on product ideas that you get under the shower or while driving to work or while working out or whatever activity you're doing.

Or sometimes maybe even in a meeting you think of something really exciting and new you'd like to create, the best thing to have is one place where you can write down these new ideas.

Jun 06, 202209:04
Why Evaluating Your New Product Development Process benefits Your Projects

Why Evaluating Your New Product Development Process benefits Your Projects

Let’s talk about why Evaluating Your New Product Development Process will benefit Your Projects

When your new product development process is not organized efficiently, you will lose time and money along the way when developing new products.

For example, you are always going back and forth in adjusting product specifications, not meeting the quality standards you require or not being able to make your product technically feasible. If this is the case, you end up with a longer lead time and higher development costs in developing your new product.  This will cost you money and loss of sales along the way.

When you have a critical look on your complete product development process, from product idea through specification, development, manufacturing and launch, you probably can identify some hurdles. These hurdles can hamper your project's progress, if this is true it's worthwhile improving them.

May 30, 202209:44
How to Bring Structure and Processes in Your Projects?
May 17, 202209:44
#23 3 Tips for Product Managers on How to Define their Product Specifications
Feb 01, 202205:29
#22 3 tips for Organizing Your Projects and How to Become a Master
Jan 27, 202205:04
3 Great Systems to use when Creating New Products
Dec 06, 202107:17
5 Habits for Project Managers and Business Owners in Product-based Businesses

5 Habits for Project Managers and Business Owners in Product-based Businesses

In this episode, we are going to dive into five practical habits for product managers in the manufacturing industry. Or if you have a product based business, and you want to hire a project manager, then this is episode is something for you. Have you ever thought about a career in project management? But then your inner critic whispered to you away? No, no, no, you'll fail? What if you don't know where to start? But what if you give it a try? What if you have that incredible job and grow into the position you want to achieve? 

Let me share with you some insights in the life of a project manager in the manufacturing industry and some practical habits to develop right now. If you have a product based business and you want to hire a project manager, pay attention because what I'm sharing with you can be beneficial for you too. So new product development can be a lengthy process. It starts with idea generation followed by product development, manufacturing, and finally product launch. 

A lot of different disciplines, internal and external departments, and suppliers are involved in every part of this process. And like in all professions, days can be hectic for project managers. They work with people from different departments, different countries and different nationalities, not to speak of the expectations of many stakeholders that need to be managed carefully. 

So tune in if you would like to learn more on the five practical habits for project managers or business owners with a product-based business.

Nov 30, 202106:22
Is Christmas causing delay in your projects?

Is Christmas causing delay in your projects?

There are a few things you can do to mitigate the unexpected  Christmas delay. At the beginning of the fourth quarter of the year,  your project planning still looks reliable.

Your project is on schedule and you’ve nothing to worry about. You’ve  taken the Christmas period into account in your planning and there’s no  reason to worry.

By November things start to change, your project is not running smooth anymore and one issue after the other pops-up.

And suddenly, there it is…standing in your way, the Christmas holidays.

It seems like the whole world is taking two weeks of vacation and nobody is working on your new product development anymore.

Is Christmas often causing delay in your projects?

Does this resonate with you?

It suddenly seems that almost two weeks are eaten out of your project  planning due to Christmas. Not to mention that you also need to revise  your planning regarding Chinese New Year. At least, if you’re dealing  with the Far East.

You probably feel your stress level rising and you desperately need to change things around.

There are a few things you can do to mitigate the unexpected Christmas delay.

Tune in to this podcast episode to learn more.

If you like to receive my free weekly project management tips directly in your inbox, sign-up by clicking in the link below. You'll receive a free guide on how to boost your project management skills as well!

https://boostprojectskills.bureauflo.com/

Nov 01, 202106:13
3 Important Tasks Every Project Manager should Schedule in her Calendar
Oct 24, 202105:18
3 Daily Hacks to Combine the Role of Product & Project Manager
Oct 18, 202108:39
A Quick Way to Declutter Your Business and Personal Administration and Feel in Control

A Quick Way to Declutter Your Business and Personal Administration and Feel in Control

Do you feel overwhelmed by all the small administrative tasks you need  to do for your business and your personal life? Declutter your business  and personal administration is the way to feeling in control again.

These administrative tasks vary from paying taxes, updating  business or personal insurances, paying dentist bills and business subscriptions and keeping your business and personal administration up  to date. Often the mail keeps piling up on your desk and you totally  forget to take action.

You also need to manage your business calendar with  appointments with team members, customers, suppliers, travel and plan  out chunks in your day to get some work done. In addition to your  business calendar, your personal calendar also needs to  be managed with medical appointments, dinners with friends and your  work-out schedule. If you have kids, you get a lot of extra sport and  school activities on your plate as well.

When all these tasks and announcements pop in your email or mail box, you can feel overwhelmed and don’t see when you have time to take care of all these small tasks.

I found a quick way to declutter my business and personal administration and feel in control again and want you to benefit from my strategy as well. It will help  you eliminate the feeling of overwhelm and you’ll feel completely in  control.

You can implement the steps I'm going to talk about in this episode immediately in your business and personal life. Let’s get started!

Oct 11, 202108:55
5-step Guide to Move Successfully from Product Concept to Prototype
Oct 06, 202107:35
7 product development tips that bring efficiency and speed

7 product development tips that bring efficiency and speed

Whether you’ve been developing products for some time or start your  business from scratch, there are some actions you can take at the start  of your new product development that bring efficiency and speed in your  process.

You probably experienced it yourself or heard stories from others  about new product development projects that costed a lot of money but  were put on hold or completely stopped because the new product was going  to be unsaleable or not profitable.

There are many factors that can cause projects to be put on hold.  From specifications that cannot be met, product costs that are too high,  difficulties in transferring the product concept into a working  prototype, successfully moving into mass production, to end customers  not buying your product.

By implementing some practical process steps, the above  hurdles can be overcome, and your new product can be successfully  developed, manufactured, and launched into the market.

If you feel you can make some improvements in your new product  development or this topic is new to you, please continue reading this  article. I hope you can benefit from the tips I share with you the same  way I do. Before pouring tons of money in your new product idea, check  out the tips below.

Tip 1: Product Idea Evaluation With Your Team

Tip 2: Perform Customer Research on Your Product Concept

Tip 3: Request for a Product Cost Price and a quote for Development Costs

Tip 4: Appoint A Project Manager To manage Your New Product Development Project

Tip 5: Create A Clear Project Briefing Right From The Start

Tip 6: Implement A Weekly Core Project Team Meeting Structure Including Project Checklist And Action Plan.

Tip 7: Implement a supplier selection process in your business


With the above 7 tips, you’ll be well prepared when developing new products for your business.

If you like to read more about this topic, head to my blog article by clicking here.


If you like to receive my free weekly product development tips directly in your inbox, please click the link below to sign-up.

Yes! I want FREE weekly content!

Sep 27, 202109:49
5 Tips to Efficiently Review Marketing Materials

5 Tips to Efficiently Review Marketing Materials

It’s quite a challenge to keep the review process of these materials smooth and efficient.

When reviewing marketing materials for your new product, usually  there are a lot of opinions involved…..because who doesn’t have an  opinion on a commercial or ad?

Team members from different disciplines review and give comments in  multiple review rounds. And often new comments pop-up all the time,  because of new insights, changes in the technical specifications of the  product during development or because team members did not really review  thoroughly enough during the first review round.

It is wise to start involving your marketing communication expert early in the development of your new products. Parallel  with the development of your new product, you’re also working on your  product launch to make sure that all deliverables for your product  launch are ready when your final product is on stock and ready to be  sold.

One aspect of a product launch are the marketing materials like brochures, leaflets, movies, teasers, social media campaigns.

There are usually lots of moving parts here and a lot of opinions involved. Because anyone has an opinion on marketing, right? There a so many elements that are combined in the marketing strategy.  For example, the branding, the colors used in the materials, the images,  the copy, the look and feel. And mostly anyone has a slightly different  opinion.

Even in the same team, people tend to express their personal taste,  even when it comes to professionally created materials. And their  opinion might change during the review process. Resulting in going back  and forth in adjusting copy and imagery.

Lessons learned the hard way; I can now share a review strategy with  you that worked for me and hopefully you can benefit from it too.

If you like to receive weekly updates on product development directly  in your inbox, click the link below to sign-up for my free weekly tips.

Weekly Product Development Tips.

If you like to read the article with this episode, click here and head over to my blog for the full article.

Sep 20, 202111:37
7 tips to be more efficient in your business & personal life every day

7 tips to be more efficient in your business & personal life every day

Do you regularly think that you’re going crazy with all the things that need to be organized around your business and your personal life?

You probably have a family to take care of or you have other obligations to loved ones and need to help them out.

Sometimes you wish you could wave your magical wand and fly smoothly through your day, while being super-efficient at work and get all the things done in your personal life.

That would be amazing! Unfortunately, the magical wand is a fairy tale, but there are certainly actions your can take to make a smooth day become a reality for you.

I hear you; I tried my best to juggle all the things I needed to do as well. After many years of experience, a demanding job and a family that grew bigger and bigger, I adopted a structure that integrates my business and personal life and that works very well for me.

I’ll share my tips below, hopefully you can benefit from it as well.

Tip 1 Close your day and set Priorities for the next day.

Always close your workday, with a list of actions that you need to do the next day. This is your priority list. Whatever happens, the actions that are on this list are important, therefore they need your attention.


Tip 2 Prepare everything for your Morning Routine the evening in advance

With everything, I mean everything!

Before going to bed you can do several small tasks that save you time in the morning. You want to start your day without stress and keep in a relaxed mood as long as possible.


Tip 3 Use as much as handy tools in your business as possible

If you want to work efficient and accomplish a lot in your business, you have a lot of handy tools that can help you with your tasks.

For planning tasks, you might like Asana, Trello or Monday. These are web applications that allow you to plan and schedule all your activities in a simple and visual tool. The user interface is very intuitive and help you organize your projects with ease.

There are many more tools available that do the same. They also have an app so you can check-in and follow-up on your phone.


Tip 4 After business-day activities

When your business day is over, check with your family members if there are any new topics or activities. Sometimes your kid’s school want to unexpectedly launch new activities. These new activities need to be planned in your calendar.


Tip 5 The Five-minute Tidy-up Challenge

You can do a lot in 5 minutes. If you have 5 minutes left here and there, try to do some activities that don’t need you to concentrate a lot. For example, fold the laundry, empty the dishwasher, put clean laundry in the closet, start your washing machine, do some quick toilet cleaning, tidy up the living room or your bedroom. There are so many small tasks that can be done quickly instead of piling up at the end of the week.


Tip 6 Weekend Meal Cooking

If you have a busy schedule ahead of you, you might feel a lot more relaxed if you know you don’t have to cook that day because you prepared your meals in the weekend. It will only take you a few minutes to warm up your meals in the oven or microwave. This saves so much stress at the end of your day.


Tip 7 Meal planning for 7 days

When you have time once a week, to sit down and plan your meals for seven days ahead, you have a huge win!

Deciding on what you are going to eat in the next seven days, making a list of the ingredients you need and driving to the supermarket to buy everything you need, will save you at least 45 minutes each day compared to doing grocery shopping every day after work.

Check my website bureauflo.com for more tips.

Sep 13, 202108:45
5 Quick Wins for Your Business by Having an Effective Morning Routine
Aug 09, 202105:02
3 Tools You Need to Use in a Product-based Business
Aug 02, 202105:09
7 tips to make an impressive product concept drawing for your new product idea
Jul 26, 202108:19
12 high quality ideas to brief your communication expert on your new product
Jul 19, 202110:40
9 Steps to Create a Realistic Project Planning

9 Steps to Create a Realistic Project Planning

Do you recognise the sad feeling of having to update your project planning every week? Moving your milestones further and further away because of unexpected time consuming activities? Activities which you might have overlooked? Then you might like this 9 step approach that enables you to include all the important deliverables of your project team and helps you to create a reliable planning for tech-oriented tangible products right from the start.


1.  Divide your new product development planning into 5 phases.

2.  Add actions & deliverables in every development phase.

3.   Add these actions and deliverables in your project planning and set the number of days needed to complete them.

4.   Add the name of the responsible team member behind every action.

5.   Close every phase with an official ‘move-to-the-next-phase-date’.

6.   Find yourself a steady project planning.

7.  Built-in experience from previous projects right from the start.

8.  Include holiday periods.

9.  Verify your planning with your team members on a regular basis.

Listen in for more details and tips per step!


Also find a link to my blog post on this topic if you like to read about it.

Send me to the blog post!


Product development doesn't need to be complicated.

Let me show you how you can transform your new product idea into a thriving business.

Sign up for tips on how to define, develop, manufacture and introduce your new products and receive updates directly in your inbox.

Yes! Give me the tips!

Jul 12, 202109:53
Why regular Core Project Team Meetings are a must

Why regular Core Project Team Meetings are a must

I hear you thinking: “my calendar is already fully booked, if I need to add a regular core project team meeting in my busy schedule, I’m going nuts. Why not only meet when there is an issue?”.

And here is the truth…. you’ll prevent going nuts, feeling stressed or overwhelmed if you align with your core project team on a regular basis. That’s why core project team meetings are a must.

By checking in on the status of your new product development on a weekly basis, you’re more in controlbecause you’re on top of things and can quickly intervene when things are moving in the wrong direction. Your team members can more easily indicate if their deliverables seem to go off track and endanger the project budget or timeline.

Adjusting this detour and taking corrective action can be done much faster, instead of needing to do a lot of firefighting

By meeting with your core project team on a weekly basis, you’ll be more in control which gives you peace of mind, even if this weekly meeting takes up thirty minutes or one hour per week in your busy schedule. It’s worth it!

There are a few more habits that will improve your life in managing new product development activities and take your project meetings to the next level.

I’ve three tips for you to use in managing your project meetings. Listen in!


If you like to read about it, you can find this content as well on my blog. 

Send me to the blog post!


Product development doesn't need to be complicated.

Let me show you how you can transform your new product idea into a thriving business.

Sign up for tips on how to define, develop, manufacture, and introduce your new products and receive updates directly in your inbox.

Yes! Give me the tips!

Jul 05, 202106:35
3 tips to define a realistic project budget
Jun 28, 202105:37
3 tips business owners with a product-based business should not miss
Jun 21, 202106:20