Companies that develop innovative products bring new life to their respective industries. As they elevate innovation, packaged with smart branding and marketing, they also send a message to employees and investors alike: This company is growing, competitive and looking to connect with new customers in meaningful ways.
But the people who work on new product introduction teams should not be overlooked. It’s no exaggeration to say they are on a mission, passionate about making sure their new products succeed. Built In LA sat down with three product experts to hear more about their upcoming product launches.
Munchkin strives to create the “world’s most loved baby lifestyle brand” through ingenuity, love and innovation.
Tell us about a recent product your team launched.
Just last month, we officially launched Curio, a new premium home goods brand we’re selling through our own e-commerce store. It’s a highly curated collection of home products that we’ve designed in-house here in Los Angeles, blending unique functionality and eye-catching aesthetics. Curio is also our first non-baby products brand. As a part of Munchkin’s plan to become an innovative house of brands, it’s an exciting and important launch for our team.
Our first product drop, the Ionic Collection, includes two dish sponges and a beautiful set of kitchen brushes that cleverly incorporate magnetism for a better, cleaner user experience. Product excellence is paramount for us — our product design team spent over a year tuning our brush bristles.
We’re fastidious about the details because Curio is designed for discerning tastemakers — those design enthusiasts who love curating their living spaces and entertaining friends.
What was the biggest challenge your team faced while developing this new product?
Building the product, operations and brand in a way that sets us up for growth from the moment we launch. That kind of approach means thinking well into the future before we’ve been able to see how customers engage with the brand, the website and our products — in addition to the market research we did to test our concepts prior to launch.
We build the product, operations and brand in a way that sets us up for growth from the moment we launch.”
Aspects like our brand voice, art direction and site navigation need to be flexible to go beyond the kitchen. We want customers to wonder where Curio will go next. Any consumer product company knows that if you’re not thinking ahead, you’ll likely be stuck redesigning six to 12 months from now.
Fortunately, I get to work with world-class brand and product design teams. We’ve been able to lean on the collective experience of nurturing and growing a category-leading brand like Munchkin and project what Curio will need one, two or even five years from now to develop it into an enduring brand in its own right.
What have you enjoyed most about working on this product?
We’re building in both the digital and physical worlds. It’s always satisfying to take designs from idea to prototype — and we can do that in a matter of weeks. For Curio's launch, we built a dynamic gift note module into our e-commerce store based on an idea from our founder. A customer can draft a gift message on the website, which gets displayed on screen in animated stationery and turned into a physical gift note that arrives with the order, complete with a custom Curio wax seal.
Recognized as one of America's Most Innovative Companies List by Fortune magazine, we work in an exciting environment where a good product idea can quickly have the support of our full organization to bring it to life.
MobilityWare is a mobile gaming company that aims to bring joy to others one game at a time.
Tell us about a recent product your team launched.
This summer we will be launching Candy Harvest, a new innovative puzzle game that takes elements of Blast and Merge mechanics and creates a whole new puzzle genre. We soft-launched the game in March of 2023, and the response from players has been overwhelmingly positive. We’re really excited to build on these early results as we hope this will create a new market for MobilityWare to succeed in and a new area of growth for the company.
2023 has been a year of innovation for MobilityWare as we continue to expand our product portfolio. In addition to Candy Harvest, we recently launched Solitaire Match 3 and Pool Shark: 8 Ball Collections — while Brick Breaker: Journeys will be released this summer. It’s an exciting time at MobilityWare as these titles are in genres that are entirely new to the company.
What was the biggest challenge your team faced while developing this new product?
While creating any product is difficult, creating an entirely new type of product takes that challenge to a whole new level. While developing Candy Harvest we had to find solutions to issues that no game development team, at MobilityWare or elsewhere, had encountered before.
To put it more succinctly: You have to know what you don’t know. To overcome these challenges and create a title that truly offers players an entirely new gameplay experience, we had to be quicker to iterate than ever before.
By empowering every team member to participate in the game’s development, we harbored a spirit of experimentation that shaped the title into something entirely new, finding the fun in failure along the way.
By empowering every team member to participate in development, we harbored a spirit of experimentation that shaped the title into something entirely new.”
What have you enjoyed most about working on this product, and why?
While there have been both moments of frustration and triumph along the way, I’d have to say that the most satisfying aspect of developing Candy Harvest has been the opportunity to work with my fellow team members on something that is genuinely original and unique. We had to start from scratch to develop the processes, structure and team we needed to bring this game to fruition — while identifying the individual contributors who could level up to meet the challenges that this kind of innovative product brings.
There is so much positive energy that gets generated from each successful solution to a tricky new problem. Sharing the rush of innovation with my fellow teammates with each challenge we overcame as we developed a truly unique title has been one of the highlights of my career in gaming so far. At MobilityWare, our mission is to bring joy to others one game at a time and I cannot wait to share our work with gamers around the world.
Puffco was founded with one simple mission: to bring the world a new portable vaporizer.
Tell us about a recent product your team launched.
We recently launched the Proxy in June 2022, and it’s been a game changer. This device is the first of its kind — a modular vaporizer designed to be used with an ever-growing collection of pieces and accessories. It gives our users a wide variety of ways to enjoy hash with one device, focusing on exploration and discovery.
The first piece we introduced is a traditional pipe made from hand-blown borosilicate glass. Pipes have been around for thousands of years, and we wanted to pay homage to that history and familiarity. The idea was to create something approachable that would make it easy for both existing cannabis users and newcomers to try new ways of consuming cannabis.
Since its launch, the Proxy has changed the way people think about hash. It’s allowed us to innovate in new, creative ways, and inspired third-party artists to put their own spin on where and how people consume. Our aim is always to create products that excite our customers and attract new users to the cannabis space. I think the Proxy has done — and continues to do — an excellent job of achieving that goal.
What was the biggest challenge your team faced while developing this new product?
Our product development timing coincided with the peak of the pandemic in 2020. We had to find ways to collaborate remotely to ensure progress. Our team took turns visiting our office for testing and 3D printing and leveraged tech and strong communication.
The global chip shortage left us unsure if we could secure the components crucial to build the product while designing. To solve this, we designed more than 30 versions of our electronics to prepare for any potential reality. By adapting and working with our contacts from the factory we saw little to no supply disruptions when all consumer electronics brands struggled. This was the result of amazing teamwork and strategic alignment between Puffco’s team and our manufacturing partners.
Launching an unprecedented modular vaporizer like the Proxy meant we had to design an accessory ecosystem at the same time as the flagship product. We had to tell the story that the vaporizer base could be inserted into several pieces and consumption forms. Our new product introduction and go-to-market teams meticulously planned and paid attention to every detail and synchronized the development of the flagship product with the accessory ecosystem.
What have you enjoyed most about working on this product, and why?
Working on the Proxy has been such a rewarding experience. Taking a concept and transforming it into a tangible product that delivers an exceptional customer experience is truly exhilarating. From the initial idea to experimenting and finding a clear path forward, the journey is filled with the joy of discovery.
From the initial idea to experimenting and finding a clear path forward, the journey is filled with the joy of discovery.”
Creating a first-in-category product is like riding a rollercoaster. Without industry benchmarks or customer expectations, it offers an opportunity for innovation and setting new standards. The Proxy plays a huge role in normalizing the cannabis consumption experience, bridging the gap between past methods and the vision for the future we have at Puffco. Seeing our customers engage with the product and witnessing their minds open to the new possibilities it offers for hash consumption is incredibly gratifying.
Finally, the growth of the company alongside the development of the Proxy has been remarkable. We’ve welcomed new team members and developed new processes to support the product's success. Watching the parallel progress of both the product and the company has been incredibly exciting and fulfilling.
