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I am becoming of the opinion that at this point in time, given how easy it is to make new gadgets, and how many people are doing it, it's not about engineering, it's about marketing. Take a look at this site. https://www.chinavasion.com/china/wholesale/Electronic_Gadge...
Those products are pretty cool, and there are thousands of them that you've never heard of. Having a cool product is a necessary but not sufficient condition of having a product that people want. You also have to have a marketing story that excites people. A cool product without a marketing story that excites people, will be lost in a vast sea of other products. As people are exposed to more and more products, they're harder and harder to impress. In 2001, just having a blue LED on your product was magical, since blue LEDs were rare at that time. In 2015, you need pulsing RGBW just to be in the game. In 2006, a bluetooth speaker was a big deal. Now, it better be submersible, very loud, and run on rechargeable batteries that last over 10 hours. You'll spend your life designing products that are obsolete ewaste two years after you release them. How many years of my life I spent designing mp3 players and ipod speakers, all of which are rubbish now. I guess this went a bit darker than I intended. It is fun to see your stuff in stores and hear people's delight when they are interacting with something you have created. Perhaps it doesn't matter that what delights them today will bore them tomorrow. You delighted them today. So, to answer your question, build things that delight people. Make it magical. Create an experience for the user that is not a common experience that other products can give them. Then they will want what you built. |
Make stuff that people need and want to have. It's apparently tough , unless you are not aiming making tons of money.