The product you are selling is a representation of your brand. It can be the first thing customers see, touch and use when dealing with your company. Therefore, creating products that people will want to use and buy again is essential. The process of developing those products will help you learn more about the needs of your audience so that you can provide them with a better experience than what other companies offer on the market today.
What is Lean Product Development?
Lean product development is a process that helps companies build the right products. It focuses on delivering solutions in the smallest possible increments, maximising customer value and minimising waste.
The goal of lean product development is to optimise a product’s utility for users by discovering what they want, what features are important to them, and how much they’re willing to pay. Product teams often iterate throughout this process as they learn more about their users’ needs and desires through interviews, surveys and other research methods.
Lean product development builds on top of Agile software development methodologies like Scrum or Kanban boards that create visibility into project progress in an iterative way so teams can make changes early on without wasting time or resources on work that may not be necessary once further research has been done.
Getting started with Lean Product Development.
First, you need to identify the problem. If you don’t know what people want or need, how will you be able to create a product that meets their needs? This is where user research comes in. You can observe your customers or conduct interviews to find out what they struggle with or enjoy in their daily lives.
Next, write down your assumptions about the problem and how you plan on solving it (or if it even can be solved). List all of the assumptions so that everyone on your team understands where you are coming from when building a prototype.
Now that we have identified our audience and outlined our approach to finding solutions for them, let’s start building prototypes! The goal of these early prototypes is not necessarily about getting feedback but learning about possible solutions for solving problems within our product and iterating based on this knowledge, as well as customer feedback from tests like usability testing sessions.
How To Conduct Market Research For Your Product.
Market research is a process that can help you gather information about your target audience, assess the market and identify gaps in the current service/product. It is essential to conduct market research because it helps you understand what people want from a product or service. This way, you will better understand how to design your product to have value for users and be successful in the market.
There are several ways to do market research:
- Ask questions directly – You can ask potential customers or existing customers about their preferences regarding your product; this method is called verbal or qualitative inquiry. The advantage of this method is that it allows you to get direct feedback from them. Still, its disadvantage is that this type of information may only sometimes be reliable as people want positive answers when they answer questions asked by another person, even if these are negative ones!
- Observe behaviour – This method involves observing peoples’ behaviours when using products or services similar to yours so as an entrepreneur, you can learn more about how they interact with each other while interacting with such services/products, watching videos on YouTube where people talk about their experiences using similar products/services would also give enough insight into customer needs; finally observing what competitors’ offer, for example, checking out websites where companies advertise their products provides valuable insights into consumer behaviour which helps identifying gaps between current offers and consumer expectations.
Comparative Product Research.
The first step to developing a successful outcome is to conduct comparative product research. This means identifying the best competitors in your industry and understanding the market and what products are needed.
Comparative research is essential because it helps you know what customers want and need. You can then use this information to develop something better than your competition.
Lean Startup Methodology.
Lean Startup methodology is a structured approach to creating a new venture. It involves an iterative and incremental process to achieve success through validated learning. This approach allows entrepreneurs to experiment with new ideas, track results, and adjust or pivot as needed before committing time, money, and resources to their chosen business idea.
Focus Groups.
Focus groups are a great way to get feedback on your product, and you can use them to test new features, product ideas and marketing strategies.
It is essential to have every section of your target customer base/ demographic represented in the focus group, as this will be critical to the success of your product.
Product Mentor.
A product Mentor is a product development expert/ practitioner who is experienced in the type of product you want to create. It is quite easy to get a product mentor on platforms like LinkedIn.
Your product mentor should offer product coaching and mentoring services to help you create a successful product. The mentor should work with you to understand your business goals, define your audience, research the competitive landscape and more. You will co-design an MVP that meets your needs while staying within your budget.
As a small business owner or startup founder, it can take time to learn how to create a practical product experience on top of everything else you do daily. A product mentor will help you streamline this process by helping you identify what problems need solving first for potential users/customers (also known as Personas) to adopt your solution as their preferred way of getting things done.
Lean Product Development is the surest way to protect your resources and bring value to your target market.
It is easy to get carried away by passion and excitement when an entrepreneur has a product idea. Going ahead with new product development is a big deal that should be done with an incremental, lean approach.
Today, there are many ways of ensuring that your startup is lean. As a starting point, the book – The Lean Startup is there, and many articles and resources will help you.
Products are only as valuable as the experience they create. The value of a product is not determined by how many units it sells, how much money it makes, or even how well it is engineered; instead, it comes from the satisfaction of customers and users. Products that can create positive experiences for their users will be remembered long after they’ve been used; products that don’t provide value will quickly fade into oblivion.
To create this type of experience for your product and its users:
- Ensure you are making a user-centric solution
- Incrementally release versions using the Lean Product Development process
- Take steps to build the right product and be able to create a valuable product experience essential
Bottom-Line
There are various resources to ensure you don’t waste your resources out of excitement. You may also find my video interesting as a guide.
In summary, lean product development is a process that allows you to create a product that your customers will love frugally.
I hope my shared resources will help you create a world-dominating product or service. All the best!
Who am I?
I am Dotun Adeoye, a Business Growth Strategist & Author of the 5 Pillars of Business Growth.
I’ve built up my experience via serial entrepreneurship, consulting leadership roles in business growth, business development and product innovation in large companies worldwide in the last 29 years.
Today, I consult with large businesses on how to sustainably grow their businesses, sustain infinite growth, ensure business continuity and achieve a legacy.
Hire Dotun Adeoye to Speak Virtually or In – Person at your company’s event to cover this or other topics. You can also get in touch via +44 203 097 1718
