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This is our journey of taking a cold smoker to market, we explore the idea, strategy, design, branding, market, manufacture, packaging and everything else needed to build a successful product.
This article is updated every month with new information and progress.
Last updated: 13th of February 2024
Designing products and taking them to market is not just about creating an awesome product. Every successful product on the market is there because it is part of a well-researched ecosystem; the solution, product, branding, marketing, advertisements, how it’s manufactured, the team, luck, where you are in the world, etc. etc.
We thought it would be a fun exercise to document a product idea from the beginning stages, all the way through to when it reaches the market. We’ll be completely transparent with everything we do and share all our findings and thinking along the way.
Please feel free to reach out if you have any suggestions or questions.
This project is starting on the January 2024
Let’s get into it!
Design Phase 1 - Discovery and Strategy
1.1. Why bring a physical product to market? - Cold smoker
1.2. Research the market and what's out there.
1.3. Understanding the functions of the product and customer
1.3.1. Who is the customer
1.4. What’s important for the product solution
1.4.1. Aesthetic - What sort of aesthetic are we after?
1.4.2. Usability (Features and benefits)
1.4.3. Manufacturing goal
1.5. Initial ideas. Sketching, CAD, prototyping?
Design Phase 2 - Concept Design
2.1. Ideation - Sketch and CAD
2.2. Detailed Concept
2.3. First prototype
2.4. Feedback and iterations
Design Phase 3- Detailed Design
Design Phase 4 - Production
I believe if you have a passion for a craft (cold smoking), a lust for building a business and a half baked idea. You could have what it takes to take a product to market and build a successful venture.
These are the three ‘parts’ that I believe are needed in the beginning of creating a product idea worth testing and taking to market.
When I spend time working within one of my crafts (fishing, baking, cooking, dog training) you pick up on really useful information which others may not be aware of. You become an expert in all the tiny details that make you an expert. All of a sudden you are making hard things look easy because of your dedication.
I think being an expert in a craft helps you do two things when developing a product:
The fist is you understand it so well, you have foresight and knowledge in developing solutions that improve the craft for everyone else.
The second is our ability to share and teach others the craft. This is such a powerful tool in our current consumer climate. I’m sure you are aware of ‘personalities’ on social media sharing their craft. We trust these people and this trust is a great part of the equation when building up an audience of believers and followers.
Being an expert in a craft gives us a massive advantage when developing a product.
Because smoking food has been around for centuries. There is no shortage of smoking equipment you can already buy.
Which if you look at most industries these days. Everything is kind of saturated. Gone are the days of inventing something, popping it onto an infomercial, and watching the dollars fly in.
So how can we be successful in 2024 when taking a product to market?
I have been smoking fish for many years, and only recently I have started cold-smoking fish. So to be fair, I’m not an expert in cold smoking all foods (yet).
I have noticed that cold smoking, seems rare amongst most of the population. Only a few people take on this process of cooking food and I’m not sure why/ Although I have my theories and these theories is why I think there may be a sustainable business here…
These are my assumptions/theories:
Cold smoking is not understood or too difficult or too gross, people are not aware of it and/or never use it. Even though they’ve probably eaten cold smoked salmon on their eggs ben. Mmm, I love me some Salmon Egg’s Benedict!
Could we use education to get people over the edge?
Would it help presenting how easy it is to cold smoke food, and what food can be smoked?
Using social media and a website, we can entertain and teach the ins and outs of cold smoking, with methods, and recipes.
We would have to have a face for the brand, someone trustworthy with many years of cold smoking experience and passion. OR. maybe someone on a cold smoking journey, learning and presenting along the way. I think either could be interesting to test, both could potentially work.
Dry Aging has been around for centuries and has been completed by many commercial restaurants and a few individuals who have a love for the craft of dry aging. Only in the last decade has Dry Aging become very popular thanks to the Dry Ager brand and the very well-put-together products they produce.
Could this not be the case for cold smoking as well? If we create a product that stands out, and a brand that is relatable - could we repeat this dry aging trend in cold smoking world?
As the world gets more intense and fast paced. Many people are moving towards enjoying the processes in life (making coffee, dry aging, baking bread, fermenting foods).
Cold smoking can be a rabbit hole of variations of what you can achieve. What food, how do you brine, which wood do you use, how long do you smoke, etc. The possibilities end up to be quite overwhelming.
The barrier to entry is relatively low and you can very easily, produce some great smoked food following a basic recipe.
Cold smoking has the ingredients and variables for allowing people to ‘geek out’ on developing their own unique food flavours.
Could the process of cold smoking be one of the next ‘food craft processes’ to watch out for?
These are my theories as to why cold smoking may be an industry worth testing a product in and what would be needed to build a business around it.
To sell a physical product, you need someone to build the product in a commercially viable way.
Elon Musk has said on many occasions “Designing a product is easy, but manufacturing a product is hard”
This is so true, as I hope you will discover following this journey. Every design decision has to weigh up the cost of manufacture. No matter what.
If you cannot manufacture your product efficiently. You don't have a business. Taking a physical product to market is not cheap and if you don’t priortise manufacture, I suggest the casino table with your money. It will get your reults faster and be less painful.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So I have presented the three people on your team that I believe are needed to help germinate the seed of a good product idea. We will discover over the next few months how this theory works out.
Let’s recap:
Luckily, I am going to be all three people for this exercise! Yay! This will help us keep things moving forward consistently.
Let’s start designing!
Now that I’m foaming at the mouth because I think I have the worlds best idea. I can’t run off and design the product just yet. There needs to be some strategy decided on how we tackle the design process.
It’s important we think about how we need to approach the design process. And not rush into designing the product.
We have found with many first time entrepreneurs, this is an easy mistake to make. We get all excited that we’ve found this ‘gap’ then rush off and design a fully manufacturable product. This leads to a lot of time and money spent, and normally a design that you have to redesign because not enough assumptions were tested.
This is where we believe research and strategy plays an important role when designing a product. Step by step we check our assumptions off the list, test our theories and try set ourselves up for success as we move through the design process.
What are some of the steps we need for the cold smoker product idea:
Step 1 - Understand the market, research and decide on strategy
Step 2 - Test the process out by building basic proof of concepts
Step 3 - Design something more robust using traditional manufacture methods
Step 4 - Refine the idea into something commercial
Research is arguably one of the most important things to do when developing a product. It’s a process normally at the beginning of the design process and it will help guide your entire product development process.
Looking for research that supports your theories is a one way ticket to fail town. Find everything you can, for and against your ideas, and figure it out. I try to stay lose around my design ideas, but strong with my ultimate goal. That way I can shift what I need to in my head when new research is uncovered.
If you conduct your research and market discovery well. Once you start designing your product, it’s easy to make decisions, because you know what to prioritise.
There are a few essential areas to research when developing a product:
Looking at home-made smoking options was a great place to come for inspiration and ideas. The general structure and design features are very similar between most of the cold smokers, commercial and DIY.
Looking at more of the random smoking products online was interesting. It showed me there is a niche within the niche. All these products help the customer apply smoke to food in some way or the other, all with their own specific use.
It was great to see how customers are generating the smoke. The key to cold smoking is keeping the temperature of the food low, so it doesn’t spoil. So in my mind, using an outside
These are some of the more commercial-type smokes on the market. Both hot and cold options are visible. You notice on the hot smokers, the inside of the enclosures are almost always black after a few uses. A good thing to note when designing.
A large part of developing a product is empathising with your customer, understanding what they need/want and making sure your solution could fit with their life.
By understanding your customers, you can design for them, market for them and connect with them.
So, who is going to buy your product?
In the beginning, we make some assumptions as to who our customers are. Over the design process and once the product hits the market, these become more defined as you figure out the product-to-market fit.
Finding the product market fit and how you market the solution could be one of the most tricky parts to developing a product and will be an iterative process
What I like to do is imagine the type of person that might be interested in the product. If you know of someone specific that fits the customer, that is a perfect place to start. Explain that person in as much detail as possible:
Customer 1 - The OG (the Boomer)
Looking after Customer 1
Customer 2 - The Toy Hauler
Looking after Customer 2
Customer 3 - The Outdoor Chef/Entertainer
Looking after Customer 3
With a product like this, using sheet metal and wood is at the top of my list. It will be a large product, with a small market. I don’t see it selling 10’s of thousands, which means using moulded parts and creating expensive moulds are probably not necessary right now. I’m going to rule out moulding from the beginning.
This could change down the line. Or using moulded parts for accessory parts might be an option when there is volume.
That leaves us with sheet metal and wood as the predominant material for the product.
I see this product primarily as a functional unit. Meaning that it needs to function very well, and not be priced at a premium well above what’s on the market.
Basing our decision decisions on removing parts and only leaving what is necessary will be a popular method of designing for manufacture. .
Form follows function will most likely be the method of aesthetic for this design. That doesn’t mean I can’t add some character to the design. Which I will. It means that I will prioritise ease of manufacture and usability over aesthetics when the design decision happens.
Based on the customer research, I do believe making sure the unit doesn’t create frustrations will be a benefit to the customer and something that will help sell this product via word of mouth.
Being able to open and close the door with ease, empty and or clean the unit, remove the smoke generator are small user-friendly design decisions that make using the product a tad better than what’s on the market.
Based on my cold smoking knowledge I have put together a list of features and benefits I would like to achieve with this design.
To make sure this product can be manufactured, sold and make a profit. We need to make sure that, number 1, it can be manufactured, then number 2, that it can be manufactured as efficiently as possible.
Once we start prototyping and designing the unit for mass manufacture. I will keep chipping away at creating a product that’s valuable to the customer and the business by using well practiced design for manufacture principles.
Manufacture will be at the top of our decision-making and is a vital part for the business goals of this product.
When your so early in the design process. The more you understand and explore in these early, the more money and time you save later.
Having used hot smokers before and watching many videos of cold smoking. Sometimes you just need to use one for yourself and figure things out. Over the last few months I have been using my DIY cold smoker that I built from cardboard.
It’s unbelievable how much you can learn from using the product you want to design and improve. Once I start pairing up my experiences with what the other cold-smoking community is dealing with. I’ve been able to find areas where an improvement in the product may benefit customers.
To build the prototype I bought 2 cooking racks and an aluminum drip tray. They were almost the same size so it was perfect to use as my base components.
I then spent some time measuring up the racks and drip tray and scribbled a quick design down.
Grabbing some cardboard, I spent a few hours cutting and gluing a prototype together so I have my very own cold smoker to try out.
Sketching ideas is the most powerful thing you can do when developing a product. It’s communication between our brain, all the lovely ideas, and the real world.
Making sure we present all the ideas in our heads to the team is vital in helping us work through all the concepts. Brainstorming and talking about ideas always sparks new thinking patterns and is a dance us designers know very well.
This process is repeated until we’re sick of each other, or there is a clear winner emerging and we can now start refining that idea or two.
Once we’re at his point, where we have thoroughly sketched out our thinking, we move to CAD.
CAD is a tool used to convert ideas into digital designs. Computer Assisted Design is CAD and that’s what it does. Assists us in turning ideas into real-world-sized digital designs.
With the cold smoker, it’s a very basic object, so drawing it up in CAD was not a difficult task, nor requiring much time, so moving into CAD quickly was a good decision.
Here you can see a basic design. This was actually the second CAD design, but I forgot to save the first one and I rebuilt this one. Soz. The previous design used more parts than this one, so I eliminated it and blazed on with the design you see here.
Through my sketching it was apparent that there aren’t many options when it comes to building a ‘box’ like this. So I decided that this concept was good enough to continue into detailed design so I could prototype one in real life and test all the design features in the design.
Once in detailed design, I spent time working in the CAD model as well as sketching basic ideas of the different features that I needed to include.
Sometimes I would sketch, CAD, review, and then start sketching again if I thought it could be improved. This cycle would be repeated a few times for each feature until I have a design that is worth moving forward with.
For example with the vent. I sketched about 6 different options for the vent design. With each sketch, I chipped away and removed material until I got to the design I thought used the least amount of manufacturing, performed the function and looked cool.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every week more progress is added as we work through the design process :)
Until next week
Dylan
Push the boundaries of what is possible, and strive to create work that is not only beautiful and effective, but also meaningful and impactful.
This is our journey of taking a cold smoker to market, we explore the idea, strategy, design, branding, market, manufacture, packaging and everything else needed to build a successful product.
This article is updated every month with new information and progress.
Last updated: 13th of February 2024
Designing products and taking them to market is not just about creating an awesome product. Every successful product on the market is there because it is part of a well-researched ecosystem; the solution, product, branding, marketing, advertisements, how it’s manufactured, the team, luck, where you are in the world, etc. etc.
We thought it would be a fun exercise to document a product idea from the beginning stages, all the way through to when it reaches the market. We’ll be completely transparent with everything we do and share all our findings and thinking along the way.
Please feel free to reach out if you have any suggestions or questions.
This project is starting on the January 2024
Let’s get into it!
Design Phase 1 - Discovery and Strategy
1.1. Why bring a physical product to market? - Cold smoker
1.2. Research the market and what's out there.
1.3. Understanding the functions of the product and customer
1.3.1. Who is the customer
1.4. What’s important for the product solution
1.4.1. Aesthetic - What sort of aesthetic are we after?
1.4.2. Usability (Features and benefits)
1.4.3. Manufacturing goal
1.5. Initial ideas. Sketching, CAD, prototyping?
Design Phase 2 - Concept Design
2.1. Ideation - Sketch and CAD
2.2. Detailed Concept
2.3. First prototype
2.4. Feedback and iterations
Design Phase 3- Detailed Design
Design Phase 4 - Production
I believe if you have a passion for a craft (cold smoking), a lust for building a business and a half baked idea. You could have what it takes to take a product to market and build a successful venture.
These are the three ‘parts’ that I believe are needed in the beginning of creating a product idea worth testing and taking to market.
When I spend time working within one of my crafts (fishing, baking, cooking, dog training) you pick up on really useful information which others may not be aware of. You become an expert in all the tiny details that make you an expert. All of a sudden you are making hard things look easy because of your dedication.
I think being an expert in a craft helps you do two things when developing a product:
The fist is you understand it so well, you have foresight and knowledge in developing solutions that improve the craft for everyone else.
The second is our ability to share and teach others the craft. This is such a powerful tool in our current consumer climate. I’m sure you are aware of ‘personalities’ on social media sharing their craft. We trust these people and this trust is a great part of the equation when building up an audience of believers and followers.
Being an expert in a craft gives us a massive advantage when developing a product.
Because smoking food has been around for centuries. There is no shortage of smoking equipment you can already buy.
Which if you look at most industries these days. Everything is kind of saturated. Gone are the days of inventing something, popping it onto an infomercial, and watching the dollars fly in.
So how can we be successful in 2024 when taking a product to market?
I have been smoking fish for many years, and only recently I have started cold-smoking fish. So to be fair, I’m not an expert in cold smoking all foods (yet).
I have noticed that cold smoking, seems rare amongst most of the population. Only a few people take on this process of cooking food and I’m not sure why/ Although I have my theories and these theories is why I think there may be a sustainable business here…
These are my assumptions/theories:
Cold smoking is not understood or too difficult or too gross, people are not aware of it and/or never use it. Even though they’ve probably eaten cold smoked salmon on their eggs ben. Mmm, I love me some Salmon Egg’s Benedict!
Could we use education to get people over the edge?
Would it help presenting how easy it is to cold smoke food, and what food can be smoked?
Using social media and a website, we can entertain and teach the ins and outs of cold smoking, with methods, and recipes.
We would have to have a face for the brand, someone trustworthy with many years of cold smoking experience and passion. OR. maybe someone on a cold smoking journey, learning and presenting along the way. I think either could be interesting to test, both could potentially work.
Dry Aging has been around for centuries and has been completed by many commercial restaurants and a few individuals who have a love for the craft of dry aging. Only in the last decade has Dry Aging become very popular thanks to the Dry Ager brand and the very well-put-together products they produce.
Could this not be the case for cold smoking as well? If we create a product that stands out, and a brand that is relatable - could we repeat this dry aging trend in cold smoking world?
As the world gets more intense and fast paced. Many people are moving towards enjoying the processes in life (making coffee, dry aging, baking bread, fermenting foods).
Cold smoking can be a rabbit hole of variations of what you can achieve. What food, how do you brine, which wood do you use, how long do you smoke, etc. The possibilities end up to be quite overwhelming.
The barrier to entry is relatively low and you can very easily, produce some great smoked food following a basic recipe.
Cold smoking has the ingredients and variables for allowing people to ‘geek out’ on developing their own unique food flavours.
Could the process of cold smoking be one of the next ‘food craft processes’ to watch out for?
These are my theories as to why cold smoking may be an industry worth testing a product in and what would be needed to build a business around it.
To sell a physical product, you need someone to build the product in a commercially viable way.
Elon Musk has said on many occasions “Designing a product is easy, but manufacturing a product is hard”
This is so true, as I hope you will discover following this journey. Every design decision has to weigh up the cost of manufacture. No matter what.
If you cannot manufacture your product efficiently. You don't have a business. Taking a physical product to market is not cheap and if you don’t priortise manufacture, I suggest the casino table with your money. It will get your reults faster and be less painful.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So I have presented the three people on your team that I believe are needed to help germinate the seed of a good product idea. We will discover over the next few months how this theory works out.
Let’s recap:
Luckily, I am going to be all three people for this exercise! Yay! This will help us keep things moving forward consistently.
Let’s start designing!
Now that I’m foaming at the mouth because I think I have the worlds best idea. I can’t run off and design the product just yet. There needs to be some strategy decided on how we tackle the design process.
It’s important we think about how we need to approach the design process. And not rush into designing the product.
We have found with many first time entrepreneurs, this is an easy mistake to make. We get all excited that we’ve found this ‘gap’ then rush off and design a fully manufacturable product. This leads to a lot of time and money spent, and normally a design that you have to redesign because not enough assumptions were tested.
This is where we believe research and strategy plays an important role when designing a product. Step by step we check our assumptions off the list, test our theories and try set ourselves up for success as we move through the design process.
What are some of the steps we need for the cold smoker product idea:
Step 1 - Understand the market, research and decide on strategy
Step 2 - Test the process out by building basic proof of concepts
Step 3 - Design something more robust using traditional manufacture methods
Step 4 - Refine the idea into something commercial
Research is arguably one of the most important things to do when developing a product. It’s a process normally at the beginning of the design process and it will help guide your entire product development process.
Looking for research that supports your theories is a one way ticket to fail town. Find everything you can, for and against your ideas, and figure it out. I try to stay lose around my design ideas, but strong with my ultimate goal. That way I can shift what I need to in my head when new research is uncovered.
If you conduct your research and market discovery well. Once you start designing your product, it’s easy to make decisions, because you know what to prioritise.
There are a few essential areas to research when developing a product:
Looking at home-made smoking options was a great place to come for inspiration and ideas. The general structure and design features are very similar between most of the cold smokers, commercial and DIY.
Looking at more of the random smoking products online was interesting. It showed me there is a niche within the niche. All these products help the customer apply smoke to food in some way or the other, all with their own specific use.
It was great to see how customers are generating the smoke. The key to cold smoking is keeping the temperature of the food low, so it doesn’t spoil. So in my mind, using an outside
These are some of the more commercial-type smokes on the market. Both hot and cold options are visible. You notice on the hot smokers, the inside of the enclosures are almost always black after a few uses. A good thing to note when designing.
A large part of developing a product is empathising with your customer, understanding what they need/want and making sure your solution could fit with their life.
By understanding your customers, you can design for them, market for them and connect with them.
So, who is going to buy your product?
In the beginning, we make some assumptions as to who our customers are. Over the design process and once the product hits the market, these become more defined as you figure out the product-to-market fit.
Finding the product market fit and how you market the solution could be one of the most tricky parts to developing a product and will be an iterative process
What I like to do is imagine the type of person that might be interested in the product. If you know of someone specific that fits the customer, that is a perfect place to start. Explain that person in as much detail as possible:
Customer 1 - The OG (the Boomer)
Looking after Customer 1
Customer 2 - The Toy Hauler
Looking after Customer 2
Customer 3 - The Outdoor Chef/Entertainer
Looking after Customer 3
With a product like this, using sheet metal and wood is at the top of my list. It will be a large product, with a small market. I don’t see it selling 10’s of thousands, which means using moulded parts and creating expensive moulds are probably not necessary right now. I’m going to rule out moulding from the beginning.
This could change down the line. Or using moulded parts for accessory parts might be an option when there is volume.
That leaves us with sheet metal and wood as the predominant material for the product.
I see this product primarily as a functional unit. Meaning that it needs to function very well, and not be priced at a premium well above what’s on the market.
Basing our decision decisions on removing parts and only leaving what is necessary will be a popular method of designing for manufacture. .
Form follows function will most likely be the method of aesthetic for this design. That doesn’t mean I can’t add some character to the design. Which I will. It means that I will prioritise ease of manufacture and usability over aesthetics when the design decision happens.
Based on the customer research, I do believe making sure the unit doesn’t create frustrations will be a benefit to the customer and something that will help sell this product via word of mouth.
Being able to open and close the door with ease, empty and or clean the unit, remove the smoke generator are small user-friendly design decisions that make using the product a tad better than what’s on the market.
Based on my cold smoking knowledge I have put together a list of features and benefits I would like to achieve with this design.
To make sure this product can be manufactured, sold and make a profit. We need to make sure that, number 1, it can be manufactured, then number 2, that it can be manufactured as efficiently as possible.
Once we start prototyping and designing the unit for mass manufacture. I will keep chipping away at creating a product that’s valuable to the customer and the business by using well practiced design for manufacture principles.
Manufacture will be at the top of our decision-making and is a vital part for the business goals of this product.
When your so early in the design process. The more you understand and explore in these early, the more money and time you save later.
Having used hot smokers before and watching many videos of cold smoking. Sometimes you just need to use one for yourself and figure things out. Over the last few months I have been using my DIY cold smoker that I built from cardboard.
It’s unbelievable how much you can learn from using the product you want to design and improve. Once I start pairing up my experiences with what the other cold-smoking community is dealing with. I’ve been able to find areas where an improvement in the product may benefit customers.
To build the prototype I bought 2 cooking racks and an aluminum drip tray. They were almost the same size so it was perfect to use as my base components.
I then spent some time measuring up the racks and drip tray and scribbled a quick design down.
Grabbing some cardboard, I spent a few hours cutting and gluing a prototype together so I have my very own cold smoker to try out.
Sketching ideas is the most powerful thing you can do when developing a product. It’s communication between our brain, all the lovely ideas, and the real world.
Making sure we present all the ideas in our heads to the team is vital in helping us work through all the concepts. Brainstorming and talking about ideas always sparks new thinking patterns and is a dance us designers know very well.
This process is repeated until we’re sick of each other, or there is a clear winner emerging and we can now start refining that idea or two.
Once we’re at his point, where we have thoroughly sketched out our thinking, we move to CAD.
CAD is a tool used to convert ideas into digital designs. Computer Assisted Design is CAD and that’s what it does. Assists us in turning ideas into real-world-sized digital designs.
With the cold smoker, it’s a very basic object, so drawing it up in CAD was not a difficult task, nor requiring much time, so moving into CAD quickly was a good decision.
Here you can see a basic design. This was actually the second CAD design, but I forgot to save the first one and I rebuilt this one. Soz. The previous design used more parts than this one, so I eliminated it and blazed on with the design you see here.
Through my sketching it was apparent that there aren’t many options when it comes to building a ‘box’ like this. So I decided that this concept was good enough to continue into detailed design so I could prototype one in real life and test all the design features in the design.
Once in detailed design, I spent time working in the CAD model as well as sketching basic ideas of the different features that I needed to include.
Sometimes I would sketch, CAD, review, and then start sketching again if I thought it could be improved. This cycle would be repeated a few times for each feature until I have a design that is worth moving forward with.
For example with the vent. I sketched about 6 different options for the vent design. With each sketch, I chipped away and removed material until I got to the design I thought used the least amount of manufacturing, performed the function and looked cool.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every week more progress is added as we work through the design process :)
Until next week
Dylan
Product Development studio creating the highest performing products for your customers.