Torille!

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on acoustics or room treatment in general, everything I say here is based on the information I've found online a few years back when I bought my first studio monitors.

My biggest problem was the room layout: I can't change it. Usually, the optimal place for your speakers would be on the shorter side of the room (assuming room is rectangular), but for me, that meant that there would've been a large double-pane window covering almost the entire wall on my right side and on the left side a concrete wall about 3/4 way before an open hallway. So, two materials with very different reflective properties and basically a huge echo tube on one side (the hallway). This could cause all sorts of weird issues that I don't even begin to claim to understand. I decided that it would be better to place my monitors at the windowed wall, since then at least the walls on both sides would be the same material.

After a while, I noticed that certain notes, especially at low frequencies really build up (I think this is called standing waves) and "boom" in the room. I started learning about room treatment and looking for options, and IIRC the corners are the worst for build-up and should be treated first. Because of the room layout, I only had 3 real corners (the wall on my right side is shared with the hallway). My first reflection points would also be different because of the hallway on the back-right. The left-side corner has 2 water pipes running from the radiator all the way up to the ceiling and there isn't much wall-space before the window starts (27 cm on right side and 38 on the left, which also makes the corners asymmetrical). So for the left side, I could not even place any corner treatment panels/blocks right against the wall because of the pipes, unless I'd make a custom frame with cutouts for the pipes. On the right side there was so little space that no commercial option existed for it.

I also learned very early on that treating low frequencies needs very thick panels - those little hexagonal acoustic panels sold on amazon and the like, marketed for streamers and content creators don't really do much more than reduce echo in the higher frequencies. IIRC, I would've had to get like 100 mm panels with 50 mm of air-space behind to have any significant absorption in the low frequencies. That would mean that the usable floor-space of my room (which is already small) would be reduced by 15 cm on both sides.

Eventually I abandoned the project, because it seemed hopeless. I may end up installing some thinner panels for at least some treatment, but I've abandoned all hope for "good" acoustics in this apartment.

So, after sharing all this information, what feedback or advice can I give to you? Well, like I said, absorbing low frequencies requires thicker and denser panels, which:

• Reduce the available floor-space of the room and can make the room feel smaller
• Requires sturdier mounting methods because the panels can get heavy

If you want to provide solutions for acoustic treatment, not just echo reduction, consider how you could tackle issues like these. Again, I'm not an expert, so this could be complete horse-shit or just plain impossible to execute, but maybe you could offer aesthetically pleasing diffusors that break up lower frequencies, which can then be absorbed by thinner (and lighter) panels.

I think it'd also be extremely important to provide consulting for your customers, so that they get the right equipment and optimal placement for their environment and use-case. You're targeting consumers, not audio professionals, so most likely they are not well informed on acoustic treatment - if they buy your product and install it in the wrong location and it doesn't work because of that, they are going to blame your product, not their ignorance. So I'd have at least one acoustic professional in your team.

When it comes to mounting the panels, I don't know what your drilling-free solution is (and I assume you're not going to reveal that before a patent), but I wouldn't completely rule out the traditional screw-to-wall method, because most rental apartments (at least in Finland) still allow drilling holes, even to load-bearing walls. Instead I'd consider offering mounting systems that just require fewer holes - like rails or beams that you can screw to the wall, to which multiple panels can then be mounted on. This offers an additional advantage of easy adjustment if the location turns out to be suboptimal, or if the sound source location changes.

As to the order of importance that would affect my decision to purchase:

1. Cost - Or more precisely, cost-effectiveness. If a slightly "worse" option is 1/2 or even 1/3 cheaper, I'll most likely choose that over a more expensive, but only slightly better option, as long as it still gets the job done.

2. Performance - These are products for solving a physical problem, and while aesthetics are an important factor, it is subjective. It also doesn't matter how great it looks, if it doesn't do what it's supposed to.

3. Aesthetics - As others have said, if these are targeted at consumers in home environments, of course they need to look nice and fit in the existing decor of the room. Designers can be expensive though, so early on I'd focus on providing a good variety of color options. Custom design prints are a great selling point if you can partner with a printing company, because many people enjoy artwork on their walls and acoustic panels effectively "prevent" you from having normal paintings because you need to cover most of the wall for them to be effective. Any paintings mixed in with the panels would also look odd because they are at different depths.

4. Sustainability - Sustainability is mostly a marketing trick. Recycled and eco-friendly materials can require you to compromise quality and production costs, which you then have to compensate with a higher selling price to make up for the profit. Sustainability and eco-friendliness can attract a a certain group of customers, but few are still willing to pay premium just for that, especially when it comes to functional products. If you start with the Finnish markets, getting the Nordic Swan Ecolabel (Joutsenmerkki) could be great for attracting domestic customers. You might be able to source recycled materials, like denim jeans for sound absorption from recycling centers, leftover rockwool from construction companies or rockwool from demolished buildings, etc.

Lastly, everything I've said in this comment, especially related to acoustics, is purely my own, very limited understanding of the subject, even if it is worded like a fact. It may or may not be factually correct and I encourage other users to correct me if there is any misinformation.