Avoiding common pitfalls when bringing products to market - Dr Euan Smith speaks this week

Product development expert, physicist and managing consultant, Dr Euan Smith, will be giving attendees the benefit of his decades of experience in bringing products to market at a start-up event in London

Dr Euan Smith is Head of Systems & Photonics at 42T and is to give the keynote address at this event which is hosted by Startups Magazine.

The event takes place in the City on Thurs, 25 January 2024 (6 - 9pm) at the Small Business Research + Enterprise Centre, London.

Euan will be talking through a list of important important factors for entrepreneurs to keep in mind when developing ideas and products.

As a product development and innovation consultancy, 42 Technology has helped many businesses to develop their first products through to production, and has seen them frequently confronting comparable challenges on the way.

A handy set of tips and pointers for innovators

Entrepreneurs often recount tales of the mistakes they’ve made and the obstacles they’ve overcome in bringing their first products to market in order to help embolden others who are starting out on a similar journey.

"Although many lessons are probably learned from making mistakes, that doesn't mean expensive errors should have to be embraced," says Euan.

"Spotting problems early and having a better understanding of the challenges ahead are crucial to staying on track, and limiting the cost and consequences when things don’t turn out as planned. It helps to have experienced people involved who can guide the process or at least be aware of the potential pitfalls."

What you will learn:

Euan will talk through the seven pitfalls which we’ve most often seen in deep-innovation product development within start-ups. In particular, you will learn:

1. 1. Why, and when, you need to look beyond the MVP
   2. The importance of supply chains, markets and product positioning
   3. When you need to get out of the building

Book your seat here.

More about Euan

An optical physicist by training, he has taken a varied path over 25 years of commercially facing technology development and technical leadership, mostly within start-ups, and occasionally hunched in the back of a clean-room in China trying to get the production process to work. He is an author on over 40 patent families, more than 160 patents in total, across diverse technical areas.

Euan still publishes the occasional paper and is a contributing author to optoelectronic handbooks, and an international speaker on this, and other subjects. His article was also recently featured in Startups Survival Guide of 2024/5.

He has enjoyed challenges from nano-scale photonics to system-level display design, image processing on restricted embedded systems, through to full-stack web-app development, always while balancing the competing requirements of customers and the limits of technology.

Have a question you would like to ask Euan?

answers@42T.com | +44 (0)1480 302700 | Euan Smith | LinkedIn

42T partners with start-ups through to multinationals

We are a product design and innovation consultancy, based in St Ives near Cambridge and have been in business for just over 25 years. We've been helping create innovative new products and manufacturing processes for some of the world’s best-known brands, as well as start-ups and SMEs.

We work across three key sectors: consumer, industrial including transport and energy, and healthcare and life sciences.

We enjoy a strong reputation for partnering with clients to solve complex technical problems and develop brilliantly successful products. The team comprises engineers, scientists and designers, and offers a diverse range of skillsets that includes ethnographic research and usability engineering, product and system design, device testing and regulatory compliance.

Read more about our case studies.