What Does the Product Development Process Look Like?

Are you looking to bring a new product to life? Let's make that idea a reality. At Twincraft, we’re here to guide you through all of the stages of the product development process to deliver you a high-quality product that fits your brand standards and captivates your customers.

Whether you know exactly what you want and when you want it, or you're looking for new inspiration and innovation, our team is equipped to help you navigate the process and evaluate your options and potential risks.

Ultimately, our goal is to help you make the right decisions for your brand. We believe that information is power, so we will provide transparent timelines, risk assessments, and recommendations for best practices so that you can feel confident in your product and process decisions.

Flexibility is the name of the game for successful product development, so consider this a guide, not a prescription.

From the initial ideation stage, through R&D, testing, quality & regulatory review, and finally filling and shipping, this is what you can expect the process to look like:

Innovation + Ideation

All great products start with a great idea. To get the process started and the creative juices flowing, we’ll kick things off with a conversation about your brand DNA, strategy, and product concepts. We will discuss benchmarks, textures, product positioning, and marketing stories to hone in on the direction for new product development. For brands that are looking for inspiration and innovation, we have an extensive library of base formulas and product concepts to get you started.

 From these conversations, a product brief is developed to help our team get started. This step is where we nail down the details for your new product - including texture, ingredients, claims, cost targets, and packaging. To ensure that the process gets off to a good start, it’s helpful if our brand partners can provide a detailed product brief and realistic benchmark products for us to reference.

Development

After we’ve discussed and identified the criteria that the product needs to meet, it’s time for the magic to happen! Using the product brief as a guide, our R&D lab will start mixing ingredients and testing different formulations.

Throughout the development process, our team will send you samples of each iteration of your formula to evaluate. This is where you can assess the texture, color, fragrance, performance, and any other attribute that you’re looking for in the product. We value your honest feedback, and providing thorough, written feedback helps us make sure the next iteration is closer to what you’re looking for.

Testing + Piloting

Once we’ve created a formula that meets your expectations, we will put the approved formula through stability and compatibility testing to confirm that the formula is safe, stable, and compatible with your packaging before moving into production.

Then, we will perform a pilot run to ensure that the product can be scaled up and produced on our machines in an efficient way. From these pilots, we gain a variety of insights and learnings about the formula and the production process. Piloting helps us verify that the performance and aesthetics of a given formula still meet customer expectations when produced at a larger scale. We are also able to identify if any processing or specification adjustments need to be made prior to a full production run. This helps minimize risk and improve efficiency for the full production run.

Manufacturing

After the pilot is successfully completed, it’s time to manufacture your product at scale. You’ll submit a purchase order and we will get the manufacturing process started.

The first step is to order the raw materials. We typically wait to order raw materials until we've successfully piloted the product in order to minimize the risk and liability for your brand. However, if you have a tight timeline and you're willing to accept some risk, we can offer options to speed up the process.

Once we have received the raw materials, we move into production. We will batch and fill your formula into your final packaging, with quality checks along the way. Finally, the finished goods are packed into cases, put on a pallet, and shipped to you!

If you'd like to see the manufacturing process in action, check out our YouTube channel, or come visit our Vermont facilities in person - our doors are always open!

Ready to get started? Reach out to our sales team today, and let's bring your product to life!