In the beginning…there should always be solid market research. Small companies often don’t conduct research in a rigorous manner due to cost or lack of marketing expertise. Instead, they typically rely on feedback from a single physician or two who are associated with the company (often founders).
Inevitably, this approach results in the following scenario. After you have designed your device, you find something that must be changed because you had not thought of it. Had you done a single focus group, this likely would have been discovered. These are the most painful mistakes because fixing a design problem can set you back a year or more.
Work out a market research methodology in the beginning. This is what Peak Position calls an Upstream Marketing Plan. You should generate a Customer Requirements Document up front by presenting concepts and prototypes to a representative sample of users. On top of that, you should regularly collect feedback anytime you plan to change/improve the device or package. Also, it may not only be physicians. If a nurse is the one handling the product, they would need to be consulted. A complicated procedure would require a full ethnographic study to cover all the relevant touchpoints.
Unfortunately, AI cannot yet do this for you. Thus, market research will be one of the biggest marketing expenses any medtech startup will incur. But nothing has a higher ROI than this investment as it gives your company the greatest chance of success.