#14 Before you think about building your next digital product read tihs
Working on your passion-project in the eve & weekends?
One of the stats that’s echoed is the fact that only 10% of startups succeed. Not to be put off, but that really means that in most cases it may not be worth going all in until you can prove with metrics that you’re in a good market with a product that can satisfy it - it’s the harsh realities.
If you have a physical product you probably have an idea of where to go, who to speak to and still, I’d suspect you will have done some research and be trialling and testing where you sell it. If it’s a handmade product you may go down to Spitalfields market by Central London. If it’s an upmarket suit, you may try Saville Row a bit more Central - you can look at the merchandise and see what sells.
Online it’s a bit different and in some ways a bit better. You have the tell-tell signs to give you early signals of growth, experiment on what the value of your product should look like before it’s built and identify the best route to market. Here, there’s no point even starting without the users & data (may mean that when you are not able to release the next feature as fast as you otherwise might have).
Got a “gut-feeling” about your idea?
This could be dangerous, remember 90% of Startups fail and your intuition is probably wrong. It’s much better to synthesise an understanding of the user’s problem.
As much as Google says “move fast and break things” I would ignore it. Failure is part of learning as you know but this is true as long as you get good feedback.
How do I know if I’ve got good feedback
1. Perfect execution according to plan
2. Identified the problem correctly (this is about good judgement). Metrics help us know if we’re on the right track
3. Understanding (this is about a deep and broad enough understanding)
It’s bloody hard, I know it is. But thanks to science we can build a process that will help us get on the right track quickly. Using lean, cost-effective methods
In the early stages, all you want to be doing is getting PMF
Thank your for your time. Would love if you could share this on Twitter so more people can get this content
Let's Build Great Products
3 Minute KANO Model
This is a good model to use when you need to make tradeoff decisions about what features to work on next. You could end up spending time on one that won’t really make your user any happier.
This model helps you think about how to drive user satisfaction
From Me To You Links & News
How you can use storytelling to build your business
Helpful Tool(s)
Digital Story Tools
A handpicked list of tools and resources to help you build your digital story.