Product Development Issues
Trying to develop a product in our current economic climate is a very risky proposition. Inflation is killing us, and a recession is screaming down the road at us. So, unless you are well off or work for a company that is recession proof and can absorb the costs of research and development, creating, developing, marketing, and selling a new product will take capitol that may be very hard to come by.
I have spoken about using an NFT as a source of crowd funding and I’m going to expand on that idea.
Global Issues
Part of the issues product developers face today are global supply chain problems. Sourcing certain materials can be difficult when you need to wait six months or worse can’t get them at all. Or, worse yet, inflation has priced them out of the developer’s budget. Right now, this is a SERIOUS problem.
People say developers need to think outside the box. To source parts or technical help this is true, but it’s actually not as hard as most people think. A lot of the pressure that developers are putting on themselves is financial, followed by sourcing and development, and marketing. Financing will always be number one when it comes to R & D (Research and Development).
Development
Let’s say a developer has designed the ultimate board game. It’s better than Stratego (#2 Worldwide) or Monopoly (#3 Worldwide). The developer has created an elaborate board using photoshop printouts and stuck them on some cardboard. They’ve ordered some generic game tokens from Amazon. They’re not what was envisioned, but they are good enough to “test” the game. They’ve bought some dice from the local dollar store, and they’ve arranged a “game testing” weekend to try out their new product. They invite friends, family, and co-workers over to play and get their reactions and reviews before they invest the large amounts of money in more development and eventually marketing.
The “game testing” weekend went great. The developer received a lot of feedback, constructive criticism, and development ideas that they can use to better expand the creation of the game. They realize they’re going to have to print a rulebook, revise some of the board’s designs by hiring an artist and not just glue paper to poster board and get rid of the awful game tokens. But all of these things cost money. Up to this point, all of the game creation has been in the developer’s spare time and has cost them less than $20. Now, they need to spend some money…
The developer jumps on the internet and finds out that the custom game tokens they want are going to cost them upwards of $500! The printing of the game board is going to cost them over a $1,000 because they have to order a minimum of 50! Not to mention that the artist they need to do the design work is going to cost them $25 an hour with a minimum of four hours! Then there’s game box design, mass reproduction and, finally, distribution. And that will cost them several thousand dollars.
So, the developer starts to panic and contemplates giving up (Or, God forbid, sell it another company for short term reward). If they decide to give up because of money they’ll regret it, wondering what could have been. Or they go another route and take out a bank loan, realizing too late that distributer doesn’t care if the game sells as long as they get their distribution fee. It’s not their investment to lose and the developer is left to pay back a loan on a failed endeavor that may have worked if they’d gone a different route. And finally, they think they’ll go with the crowd funding.
There are many, many problems with crowd funding. The major one being that the CF (Crowd Funding) company doesn’t hunt down investors for you. They are a site for investors to give you money for which they charge you upwards of 3%. You, the one seeking CF, have to find your own investors, get them to go to the CF site, and then to invest. You do this by promising them perks or stock or any one of a thousand different things just to get that money rolling in. And don’t forget, the CF Site is going to take their 3% just to give you a place to do all this.
Now you see why creating an NFT as a source of funding for product development might be an interesting and immediate way to generate income.
Sourcing
Let’s keep using the board game creation as our example as we explore our sourcing.
Because a lot of developers (especially the John Smiths of the world) get lost in development hell, they don’t understand sourcing. They end up dumping large amounts of begged or borrowed cash into the first place they come across that will fill the bill for their needs because they don’t understand a better process, or have been convinced by someone that knows how to talk a good game to fork over said cash.
Here’s a better way to source, and, the developer should get their video camera ready. What is the most expensive thing for development? The developer’s time. So, if the developer is willing to write off their time, that’s a good start. But they need to keep track of the hours. It will help in determining a final game price.
Next, we have the artist’s time. You may think it’s the game reproduction and distribution, but we’ll get there. With the national average hourly rate of a Photoshop artist at $25.00 an hour (https://tinyurl.com/4b4hxaky ) for an intermediate PS artist, this can get expensive. Let’s say you need this person for six hours. This will cost you $150.
But if you use https://fiverr.com you can hire another photoshop artist more in line with your game’s design for $10 an hour. Now you’ve only spent $60! You just saved $90. Keep in mind this design for the board is a onetime cost.
Now let’s look at those tokens you wanted to change. Instead of those awful traditional tokens you purchased from Amazon ( https://tinyurl.com/3hz5psyp ), you can order several different samples from Alibaba (https://tinyurl.com/yfcxdkxd ) that fit your game design better for .12 each! Let’s say you need six tokens. You are out less than a dollar and maybe a couple dollars in shipping!
Now you’ve got to print your game board. This will cost you a fortune. Nope. A company I have dealt with for yours is called Superior POD. They do one-off game boards for virtually nothing. Literally, $15. (https://tinyurl.com/3utrpzm3 ) They can even print the boxes for your game!
Now you need dice for your game. Not just any dice, you need multi-sided polyhedral dice. Where are you going to find those inexpensively? Once again, hop back over to Alibaba and order a sample. https://tinyurl.com/537zwbpj with shipping you’re out $6.
Now you need that game box. As I mentioned you can use Superior POD. $11 for the full color box. https://tinyurl.com/yc78ja2f Instructions you can do on your own printer or Superior POD can do them as well.
Let’s look at what you’ve spent to this point. You’ll notice a BIG difference in development costs if you source correctly. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out to the sources for your needs.
| PRODUCT | COST | DH COST (Development Hell) |
| Photoshop Artist | $60 | $150 |
| Tokens | $3.72 | $500 |
| Game Board | $15 | $1000 |
| Dice | $6 | $350 |
| Game Box | $11 | $2100 |
| TOTAL COST | $95.72 | $4,100.00 |
As these products all arrive at your home, keep a video record as this is what you will need to assemble your NFT. Keep a video record of your development at all stages so that you can make multiple NFTs.
Marketing
Now we look at marketing. A marketing budget is crucial after the development of a product. But like sourcing materials, marketing can be done in some unique ways. https://fiverr.com has a lot of individuals that can help for very low rates using social media. Be sure to research them thoroughly before just snapping up the cheapest one and hoping for the best. Social Media itself is another. The sale of an NFT is also a great way to market your product!
Let’s go back to the board game for a moment as an example because I want to address the marketing and distribution aspect. Distribution does not equal marketing. Just because a product is in stores does not mean it’s being pushed in advertising. You can have a great product, but if people don’t know about it, it goes nowhere. Turning it around, if the product has great advertising but can’t be found anywhere, then you’ve got another problem. So how do you solve this problem without it costing you a mint? Use https://fiverr.com where you can as that will help with your marketing. Start posting to all of the major social media platforms. DOCUMENT ALL OF IT with your video camera. Next, there are several POD ( Print on Demand ) distributers for games and Superior POD has their own! https://www.adventuregamesource.com/
Using Fiverr, social media, and POD distributers, this game development has taken care of itself in a sense. Now if you can manage to sell even a few NFTs you can more than cover the cost of creating and developing the game. The more NFTs you sell, the more you can do with the game. Even if the NFT sales allow you to break even while the game sales build momentum, you’re not losing money.
Product Development
The game development is just one example of how an NFT can be used like Crowd Funding. You can create several different types of NFT to help fund different development stages of any product from design, materials, marketing, and distribution.
As another example, a baseball player and I are working with a sports company in Pakistan on some custom baseball bats. They are designed to his specs, made from ash wood and has his name on them. They are not expensive and are not being held up due to global shipping issues. We are documenting the whole process. Just today they asked if we wanted to design a custom logo for the bat. We are keeping track of all of this. We are developing an NFT of the process.
Anyone can use an NFT as a source of Crowd Funding if they can think of it creatively. Maybe crowd funding works for you and that’s great! Or maybe an NFT in conjunction with crowd funding will also work. It’s just an idea that might help you on your way to developing your products or business.
See you next time!
