So, you’ve got a stellar idea for a new product (a new SaaS or a new feature you think customers will love).
Fantastic!
Now, how do you turn that into a reality that your target customers will adopt and pay for?
Don’t start developing right away. Let’s break down the journey into key phases. These will ensure that you will reach your goals with simplicity, speed, and predictability.
Phase 1: Validate the Need
Before diving into code, validate the need. Your own intuition is valuable but speaking to potential customers is important too. Never assume you have every answer.
Speak to as many target customers as possible. You will uncover blind spots w.r.t. purchasing decisions, additional integrations, new stakeholders, and so on.
Embrace design thinking to understand their pain points deeply.
Phase 2: Customer Development – Get Sign-ups for MVP
Now that you’ve validated the need, it’s time for customer development.
You don’t need something that you can show potential customers so they can see how the end product might work. In most cases, a clickable prototype will suffice for this purpose.
The idea is for your potential customers to visualize what your solution will do, and then sign up to be your earliest customers. It’s obvious that what you will focus on in this phase is to define the most important requirements.
Getting customers to sign up at this stage indicates that you are solving a real problem. They may not pay you at this point but the act of signing up with a payment card is a big validation step in itself.
Phase 3: Build the MVP – Iterate
Building the MVP is a pivotal step. Ensure it meets the core needs of your users.
You can leave the bells and whistles out of scope. For example, you may not provide complex user onboarding functionality or detailed reporting because you can handle that manually with your early customers.
The primary aim is to solve the pain that your customers are willing to pay you for. Your customers will provide you that validation. You will also get valuable feedback on what your product’s next iteration should look like.
At this point, a roadmap for your product will start coming through.
Phase 4: Scale with Additional Features
Once your MVP has a fan base, it’s time to start doubling down on building the features that will allow you to start scaling.
Listen to user requests.
Develop these features incrementally.
Each addition should enhance user experience. Read our blog on Making Agile Work for more information.
Think of this phase like building a house – you start with the foundation (MVP) and then add rooms (features) as needed.
At this point, you will also be hitting product-market fit. That’s when customers you don’t know are signing up for your product and trying it out. It indicates that you have managed to solve a real problem. Stepping up marketing on one or two channels is prudent at this stage.
Phase 5: Optimize and Expand
At this point, you should have a product that has made it. So your focus is on customer retention and getting new customers at a fast clip.
Optimization is an ongoing process. Analyze user data, fix bugs, and enhance performance.
Expand your user base. Consider partnerships and integrations with other complementary businesses.
Continually seek opportunities for growth and improvement. Speed of innovation is important.
Conclusion
Turning your idea into a product embraced by users involves a thoughtful journey.
Validate, engage, build, scale, and optimize.
Your idea could be for a SaaS product, or a new feature addition to bank’s customer portal, or a new AI model that’ll help improve eCommerce performance – the principles are the same in all cases,
Remember, the road may have twists, but each phase is a stepping stone toward transforming your idea into a reality that users will adopt willingly.
Set up a discussion to see if we can help you define your MVP and launch it with our unique approach.