Most first products die in the gap between a demo that works on your desk and a run a factory can actually make.
You have something that works. A board on your desk, a demo on your laptop, a 3D print that finally does the thing. And now it has gone quiet, because the next step is not a bigger version of the last one — it is a completely different job. This course walks that job end to end, using Alan Cohen’s Prototype to Product as the spine and running a software track alongside every hardware idea. You will name the eleven mistakes that kill products before they ship. You will see what actually happens inside a contract manufacturer. You will write the marketing requirements, size the market, build an honest cost sheet, draft a spec your team can build from, choose the chip or the cloud stack, budget the power, map every certification your product has to pass, and run the plan that holds all of it together. No code required. Bring a product — real or imagined — and leave with a dossier someone else could pick up and execute. Three capstones let you push your own product further, pivot a hardware example into a SaaS, or produce a full compliance audit.
Built by Lakshya Kumar
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If you do not know what happens on the factory floor, you will design something nobody can build at a price anyone will pay.
Knowing which phase you are in tells you which decision is due now, and stops you building before you have earned the right.
This is where you get the honest answer cheaply, instead of paying for it later in tooling, inventory and wasted months.
A vague spec gets you a product nobody meant to make; a sharp one lets your team build without guessing what you wanted.
This is where plans collide with reality, and the builders who come through it are the ones who saw the collisions coming.
Choose wrong here and you are rebuilding the whole product a year later, so learn to make this call with your eyes open.
Power decides how big, how heavy, how long and how costly your product is; get it wrong and every other good call stops mattering.
Certification is the wall most first products hit at the worst moment; plan for it and it becomes just another schedule item.
Plans slip. What separates a shipped product from a stalled one is how fast you notice and how honestly you replan.
Complete all modules, then submit the required number of capstone projects. Each must earn a passing rating from an admin reviewer.
Pick a product you're working on (hardware or software). Walk it through Cohen's full PDLC for one cycle: write the marketing requirements, the spec, the COGS or cost model, the risk register, the regulatory checklist, the project plan. Deliverable: a 10-section PM dossier that another PM could pick up and execute. Document what you learned, what surprised you, what you'd do differently.
I'm taking a course on hardware product management based on Alan Cohen's 'Prototype to Product.' Topics: the 11 deadly sins of product development, manufacturing (PCB assembly, supply chain, factory test, volume bands), the PDLC (preliminary planning, detailed definition, EVT/DVT/PVT, reality checks), specs + architecture + requirements, smart platforms (MCUs, OSes), power design + batteries, regulations (FCC, CE, UL, GDPR, SOC2, HIPAA), project planning + tracking. Help me think about my own product through these frames. I want both hardware and software perspectives.
Translate the book's hardware fitness device into a connected SaaS. Re-author Cohen's chapters 4-6 deliverables as if it were a software product: MRD for the SaaS, software COGS (cloud platform + LLM + integrations), software architecture, software risk register, software-equivalent regulatory matrix (GDPR/SOC2/etc.). Demonstrates that you can carry Cohen's framework across product types.
For a real or hypothetical product, produce the full regulatory matrix: which standards apply, which testing labs, what certifications, what timelines + costs. Include both hardware and software regs. Identify the critical-path regulation. Builds the muscle that most PMs lack and most products fall on. Should be auditor-ready.
The canonical software-PM book. Pairs with Cohen's hardware focus.