Do you want to mass-produce a product but don’t know where to start?
Planning to launch a device on the market , but all you have is hastily soldered electronics and a 3D-printed case?
Maybe there’s no functionality yet, but in a month you need to present something that looks like a production model at an exhibition?
Or perhaps the opposite: you already have a successful product in production, and you just need someone to implement new features and fix bugs in its next version?
Solving such tasks is my daily work
Key stages of a product’s journey: from idea to production. The pictures are rough -- were made long ago and in a hurry -- but no time for new
A few examples of projects in different “weight classes”, depending on the scale of the initial task (more examples over there → )
I loosely divide projects into three types, because they differ qualitatively in their expected outcomes and, accordingly, in their development methods. Formally, it resembles categorizing by production volume: one-off, small-batch, and large-scale manufacturing. But what matters more is this: the classification should reflect the real stages of product/business maturity and guide the rational choice of tools, processes, and decisions at each phase
Of course, real life doesn’t split neatly into three boxes. Actual cases often fall "between" or "near" them. For example, an investor demo unit may require full functionality that doesn’t exist yet (meaning the only real goal is a functional prototype). Or sometimes you need just 20–30 units, but they simply won’t work if built using small-batch methods, which are usually less precise than large-scale processes
Still, if you paint the picture with broad strokes, this is roughly how the landscape looks. The main pitfall is aiming for next-stage outcomes while operating at an earlier maturity level -- almost always burning resources and failing to deliver a coherent, planned result. Right beside it is the second pitfall: drifting from the original plan or requirements and making ad-hoc decisions, which likewise leads to resource overruns -- something no one budgets for. Safety regulations, as we know, are written in blood. This text is written with lost budgets and thousands of work-hours that ended up on the shelf
If your approach sounds like "let’s start building and figure it out along the way" -- a legitimate strategy, I can’t deny that -- then my experience probably won’t be useful to you. But if you want to move forward consciously, systematically, and with rational costs -- yet lack some practical know-how -- below are the ways to reach me. And even a few recommendations on the first steps