How much do you invest in product creation?

[Premier Plugins]

I was tossing this around in my head today and thought it would be of value, to myself and others, to take a poll of the Warrior Forum and see what Warriors are investing, on average, in creating a product and bringing it to their market.

This includes everything: from the idea, to the graphics, the content, sales and affiliate platform, advertising, etc. Basically how much you're spending on average going through your product creation system, however large or small it may be, and subsequently, bring it to market.

Please provide as many details as you are comfortable with to provide more overall value to this thread for myself and fellow warriors. Thanks.

[Steve McBride]

Well, I've created all my products so far, and I have an art school education, so I do all my own graphics and design. Pretty much I just have my monthly costs like hosting, autoresponder, stuff like that. Of course, domains here and there, and some other random costs that always seem to come up.

My biggest costs are my time and energy. But it pays off. I don't do a ton of paid advertising anymore, mostly just promote products to my list and have affiliates sell my products for commission.

[Brandon Sean]

I have 2 products listed on clickbank marketplace.

Both are ebooks, and 1 of them took me more than $500 ( Including graphics to outsource)

-Brandon

[sfx1971]

I'm currently developing my first product and so far I've spent $10 on ebook covers (monthly membership - cancelled!), $10 on graphics and $25 on a microphone.
I've created the whole product myself as well as written the sales copy to keep cost low (it probably won't do that well so I don't want to invest too much money)
Once I pay the fees to list my WSO and allowing for a few bucks contingency I reckon it will be close to $100 for me.
Where else in the world can you develop a product and bring it to market for that kind of money?

[Cool Hand Luke]

For a single product, I'm about to spend thousands on a professional copywriter to come up with a sales script for a professional video sales letter, which I will also be spending thousands more on. If you want to be successful and compete with the best, you have to be willing to invest in what it takes.

[anders3397]

Whew - the opposite ends of the spectrum there. Personally, what I have learnt from my mentors is that the content is much more important than the bells and whistles of product creation. You can buy anything, but really great information and ideas? That's what's thin on the ground and that's what people will seek out and pay for.
My 2c....maybe an interesting topic for another thread....

[louie6925]

I have 3 products that I created myself using free graphics, open office (pdf converter) and the rest all written by me, I promote from my own websites and using my list and a few affiliates, my only costs have been affiliate commisions, which is'nt really a cost! I create my own squeeze and sales pages, and use the ebook cover software I purchased a while ago for that, so all in all, my 3 products have pretty much cost me a few dollars here and there and thats it.

Should I want to compete with the big boys then I woud invest, but it keeps me ticking over and great in the knowledge that everything is pure profit! makes the hard work well worthwhile!

[JayWiz]

I am now in process in creating my own product, it's software product and i will launch it very soon.

My invest:
1. My own brain. This is the biggest asset because all the ideas coming from here.
2. Time. It takes time to create products, several hundreds to thousands hours needed especially for programming.
3. Money. I created the product myself, create sales page also myself, the only money spent is to use open wso thread and hire proofreader from fiverr.

[paul nicholls]

it really depends on the type of product which you create because a plugin could cost thousands

for me its more about time

i will create a product within a couple of weeks but it will have some videos, pdf`s, mindmaps, fast action guides

for me i put the time in once and benefit from my product for months and years to come without needing to invest hundreds or thousands into actually making the product

however it does depend on the product because im currently doing a case study which has cost me over $1000

paul

[Premier Plugins]

Originally Posted by paul nicholls

it really depends on the type of product which you create because a plugin could cost thousands

for me its more about time

i will create a product within a couple of weeks but it will have some videos, pdf`s, mindmaps, fast action guides

for me i put the time in once and benefit from my product for months and years to come without needing to invest hundreds or thousands into actually making the product

however it does depend on the product because im currently doing a case study which has cost me over $1000

paul

I assume you are describing infoproducts with the description above?

So average checklist of expenses and todo's would look something like:

1. Solidify product idea and planning phase
2. Create product text content ($0)
3. Create product video content ($0)
4. Create product graphics ($0?)
5. Setup Business Paypal account ($0)
6. Launch WSO ($40)
7. Profit

So you could theoretically bring an info product to market for an investment of Time + $40 using only one advertising avenue.

I would hazard to guess that this is a largely used method around this forum.

Interesting stuff.

[fedor50]

Originally Posted by Premier Plugins

I assume you are describing infoproducts with the description above?

So average checklist of expenses and todo's would look something like:

1. Solidify product idea and planning phase
2. Create product text content ($0)
3. Create product video content ($0)
4. Create product graphics ($0?)
5. Launch WSO ($40)
6. Profit

So you could theoretically bring an info product to market for an investment of Time + $40 using only one advertising avenue.

I would hazard to guess that this is a largely used method around this forum.

Interesting stuff.

This. I dont usually invest much in product creation outside of hiring someone on fiverr for ecover designs and such.I keep costs low but profit high

[Chri5123]

I could tick all of them.

Some products if they are software cost more than $2000 to be developed, again depending on what the functions need to be.

It all depends on whether I NEED someone to create a product for me.

In some niches such as MMO I prefer to create all of my own products as I know they work, or at least I have experience in the niche.

Outside of MMO I have other interests and have written, designed and created a website from scratch myself.

As others have said it is always a balancing act of time v.s profit.

Time if used correctly in business is always more important.

Chris

[Matt Morgan]

The higher end priced products to my funnel cost more to make, such as video courses etc.

[Trevor M]

I've just about finished the creation of my first product.

So far all I've spent is;
$5 - E-cover design on Fiverr
$99 - Some writing
? - WSO bumps

The rest I've done myself.

Looking into the future, I don't think I'll do as much myself again. I just wanted to dive into the whole process of bringing out a product for the first one so I know exactly what I'm doing.

- Trevor

[Bruce NewMedia]

Dependent on whether I do it all or have assistance. My PDFs/Manuals are all written by me.
Forms and such are all mine, but graphics and graphic-intensive products are mostly outsourced. Costs from $100 to $500 average.
_____
Bruce

[Randall Magwood]

I rarely use graphics in my new product campaign. The only graphic i may purchase is an ebook cover. But it doesn't take me long to come up with a new product... i would say i can write a 100+ page ebook (high quality that is) in about 5 days. That's about 20 pages per day.

Advertising... i only do free marketing with new products outside of my main internet marketing niche. Getting affiliates... i create signup pages and submit them to the affiliate directories. Takes me only about 50 minutes to do this. Content... pretty lengthy - would say it takes me about 15 minutes to write an article and put it up onto my website. Then of course, about 3 minutes to submit them to EzineArticles.

[HelpingYouBeAnExpert]

If I average them it's probably $2000 per product or in that ball park, the live seminar products are more and the screen cast less (if you don't count my time)

[Mo Jogee]

To a make a quick low price product I enjoy making audio interviews using Skype and Pamela for recording and conducting the interview. To use Audacity to edit the interview, then to make the sales video using power-point and camtasia to make a sales a video. I believe is probably one of the cheapest ways to make a product including time it takes as-well.

[mickyl]

I'm working on a product now, haven't spent too much yet but I'm going to need an assistance in writing (since I'm not a native English speaker), so I guess it will cost. Anyway, I think that some of the best products I've ever bought were the simplest products! If you can make a product simple and straight forward, without fluff or shiny videos where half of the time you talk about everything other than the actual idea, then do it! it will not only be cheaper, but also, many times, more helpful.
And try to use less words, if possible. When you, English speakers, write a simple task using a 1000 words - we, people from all around the world, get quite frustrated:-)))

[samjaynz]

Less than a hundred usually. I do all the writing myself, then outsource some basic graphics; doesn't need to be expensive to be great!

[jbsmith]

We have 12+ information products out there ranging from ebooks to membership sites and physical home study courses.

In terms of product development, I typically invest ~ $200, mainly for graphics (cover, banners) with the odd time where I outsource some content development in and around $500 (only do this rarely, but it can be quite effective)

I have typically tackled my own sales letters, have paid for reviews/critiques from professional copywriters before though - that has ranged from $200 to $3000. Ultimately learning copywriting yourself and then enhancing your copy with a critique from a pro is better than outsourcing entirely IMHO

Other than that - my monthly costs are low, less than $100 for 12 products in terms of website hosting, autoresponders, shoppingcart, payment processing, etc...

Very profitable...that's why I still spend 90% of my time on product creation versus other forms of making money online

Jeff

[errolprowse]

I hate spending money. I love spending pennies and making tons of money in return