--- title: "How To Start an IoT Product" url: "https://writing.colivetree.com/3/product/21/how-to-start-an-iot-product" --- **How to start an IoT product** Originally published: Apr 1, 2015 So you have a company, a start-up, or just an idea that will change the world of material things. The Internet of Things presented the opportunity and you’re ready to take it! Yet, like with any product, you need more than an idea. You need to make it happen. Here, I talk about how we design and build IoT products at Citibrain. We are focused on Smart Cities, but the possibilities are endless. I suggest you start with Postscapes’ IoT resources to get your blood pumping. This post focuses on IoT, but we propose an approach based on lean and agile methodologies. We’re looking at creating an MVP for IoT, so this is about maximising the product’s value for your potential customers using the least amount of effort possible. So let’s start from the top. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd6SJxan0jo](url) The problem So you had this brilliant idea. The first thing you need to do is create an hypothesis. This means stating the problem you wish to validate. Imagine you are creating a premium fitness tracker for semi-pro athletes. The problem you identified would be something in the grounds of the following:Semi-pro athletes can’t get good enough data from their off-the-shelf fitness trackers. Your market niche are those semi-pro athletes, your competition would be all the other fitness trackers.Your initial hypothesis, however, could be:Semi-pros are willing to pay a premium to have better and more detailed data on their performance.This is the first thing you need to validate. Then you can move on to which things they’re willing to pay for:“Semi-pro athletes need information on heart rate, body temperature, posture, instant velocity, reaction times and landing impact.”So use whatever you can to validate your hypotheses. Discover if your problem is a real problem. Talk to users, create a landing page, share and create content, use Kickstarter, lead your target users to your website and find out if they’re interested. Ask a lot of questions, again and again. Ask the right questions to validate your hypothesis. Only this will help you build the right features. In the midst of it all, you’re going to get caught in technicalities, feature-creeping, an irrational fear that what you’re doing isn’t enough, suggestions from your friends and teammates to include this and that. If you’re building hardware, it’s even harder (no pun intended) — Say NO most of the times. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8eP99neOVs](url) **The market** Now, you’re onto something… but does your solution really have a market? Is anyone willing to pay for it? (NOTE: You can skip this part if you’re doing it just for fun, but having validation never hurt a soul) Good, you’re still here. Your answer to both questions was yes, but here are a couple more: How do you measure your market? Are there cheap ways of testing the waters? You need to figure out your product-market fit. Find out if this is your piece of that 7.1 trillion USD market. At Citibrain, we needed to look at cities. We talked to them, we went through public tenders, we ran the numbers for the verticals we tackle and we figured out which deserved our utmost attention. Which are the problems that are making cities lose money or present regulatory challenges, which make citizens unhappy and mayors worried. Then we look at competition. Is there any? (HINT: There always is) What are they doing? What are they doing wrong? Is there a monopoly here somewhere? (Hi, Peter Thiel!) In the end, we settled for the verticals where we could iterate faster, be the first and, most importantly, be the best of the best. We found those to be Mobility and Environmental Monitoring. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkxM1xuBRG8](url) **The solution ** Now, let’s get to work on our MVP. You need to work fast, get good feedback early and start getting revenue in the door — so don’t overdo it! You have two options now.Do you want to build your own end-to-end solution? Our advice is that you look at the multitude of open source tools available. Do you just want to get things going fast, with a nice, stable, cloud-based backend? There’s something for you too. Take a look at Xively, 2lemetry, Smartliving.io, or even our own at Citibrain (drop me an email and we’ll get you started in no time).We chose #1 because our goal is to become the biggest backend-as-a-service provider for IoT. So we looked at things like OpenIoT, Meshblu, DeviceHive and ThingSpeak. You should also have a look at the FIWARE catalogue if you’re into Smart Cities. Each of them has their own advantages and disadvantages, so tinker with them and see what makes you comfortable. Look at protocols and standards, these are really important. In the IoT world, start with MQTT, CoAP, WebSockets, HTTP — for RESTful APIs — or OMA LWM2M. They should get you going. Choose wisely though, consider your devices’ (or things’) requirements in terms of battery-life, how often they need to communicate, whether they need to get and send messages in real-time or ask for them periodically, etc. Answer these, and your choice will become clearer. If you’re more of an electronics kind of guy, the things out there will get you going in no time. Arduinos, BITalinos, Electrons, the Raspberry PI or Littlebits are examples of cheap things you can use to prototype. Ouff, we’re almost done. **Validation** So now you’re all hands on deck building your product. Do you still remember what your hypotheses were? Do you remember what it is that you’re solving? **Focus! ** As soon as you have something ready, test it. It can be a nicely wrapped Bitalino strapped around someone’s wrist. It can be a connected room temperature and sound monitor for hospitals. Get that feedback going. You don’t need to (and you won’t) get everything right on your first try. Have a rough product on your customers’ hands. A/B Test on your landing page and on your website/app. All the tools we’ve talked about are about prototyping, getting things out there as quickly as you can and trying things out before you go into the mass market. Actors rehearse before a major play, athletes practice before a big match and product teams should release often before they decide to take on the world. **Talk to us ** So we’re releasing. We’re demoing beta versions of our software and hardware, we’re doing small pilots in Portugal, we’re simulating scenarios, talking to users and fine-tuning our solution. All the while we’re finding funding and working with our partners to create the next big thing for Smart Cities. If you want to join us, talk to us at Citibrain. If not before, we’ll be at the IoT Week in June, so come visit us in sunny Lisbon. Believe me, we’re listening!