I often encounter students complaining to me. The company has hired a professional third-party investigation agency to do a full range of market research. I personally went to the market for countless times and invested a lot of manpower and material resources. It took three to five years to make a "Subvert the world" products.
Just take a similar product from the market, no matter how you compare it, you will win, but why don't customers pay?
Where is the problem?
In the past few years of consulting experience, I have met many entrepreneurs, investors, and product managers who have high hopes for the products they have built, and treat them as their own children, and everyone’s attention is focused on it. .
"I want to hold a big move"
This is a typical "closed development for three months, becoming famous in one fell swoop".
Not to mention whether a mature product can be made in these three months. How much can the industry change in three months? Has the user's needs changed? Is your product still not what they need now?
If you don’t have a clear answer, it’s equivalent to building a dragon-slaying sword in three months, happily thinking that you can kill all directions, only to find that the dragon has upgraded!
Many companies have been working on their first products for a long time. When they miss the opportunity, competitors have already met their needs, and there are so many similar products.
The "Queen World Product" that you have built with many years of hard work has long been rotten, and even others are much better than you. How can users pay?
At the end of each year, you can always see all kinds of "Lists of Closed Companies in XXX!" "In the article, too many companies have died at the beginning stage.
What if we hurry up?
If you find the demand, you can make the product right away. Doesn't this solve the problem?
In order to be fast, everyone tried their best. For example, when a deadline is set, the result is something that is rushed to work, which will be full of loopholes as soon as it is demonstrated, and then repaired, and the time to go online is delayed.
Or learn the MVP in "Lean Startup", set the minimum viable product, and reduce the early functions of the product as much as possible. However, in the process of doing it, I found that many detailed functions had to be done or modified continuously, but it still took a long time.
Good methods do not necessarily have good results, and neither wrong application nor one-sided application can achieve the expected results.
If you want to completely solve these problems, you can start from the following three aspects.
01
Consistent initial goal
I'm going, isn't this nonsense? Who can't do it?
The actual situation is just the opposite. Many companies simply cannot meet this seemingly rudimentary job requirement!
I was in a consulting project. Two weeks ago, everyone determined the direction of the product, the functions of the first version, and the delivery time.
Only two weeks later, when I returned to the team, I asked three people what the product direction was, but one did not know, one said the approximate scope, and the other said the previous direction with certainty.
Didn’t you say that before? Why don’t you know if you work together every day?
No way, just don't know! ! !
Even if you let the employees memorize by rote, I dare to bet you, everyone says that we have reached a consensus, but in fact the goals in their minds are all different! "
Maybe you don't fully agree with it now. You can use the goal of "improving user stickiness" to test everyone's understanding in the company, or express your opinion in the comment area to compare with other readers.
Regarding the goal, the easiest way to reach agreement is to "retell and clarify" and let everyone repeat their understanding of the goal in their own words.
"Too anti-human!!!"
Yes, many truly effective methods are anti-human, because human nature is flawed. Not only must it be repeated, but the time must not be less than 10 minutes, and the same thing must not be said! You must ensure that your true understanding is fully explained and fully understood and confirmed by others!
My experience is that the time for five people to "retell and clarify" together will never be 50 minutes, it may be a day! even more. After everyone repeats it, you will find a lot of inconsistencies in understanding, or even things that have not been considered before, so further discussion is required.
If this happens, it is recommended to have another round of "retelling and clarification" on the next day. This round may be shortened to half a day, and then another round on the third day until it can be completed within 1 hour, you can confirm everyone "The goal is the same."
You will definitely find this process too annoying, time-consuming, and completely unnecessary. But in fact, you only spend three days at most, but you can save the next three months. Unclear goals will lead to countless discussions, rework, more work, inspections, and other waste of time.
02
Can't be smaller MVP
I always think "Lean Entrepreneurship" is a good book, but many people regard it as a direct method. In fact, it only introduces ideas, because there is too much room for understanding and too much room for operation.
MVP means minimum viable product. MVP advocates entering the market in the simplest form of product trial and error, making more mistakes, making mistakes early, and then quickly iterating the product based on the mistakes. Trial and error with minimal time and money costs in exchange for opportunities for rapid growth in the market.
For example, the "minimum" in MVP does not give a definition or standard, which is difficult to grasp and apply. The MVP determined by many people is far from the "smallest", but it is much smaller than the great blueprint in his heart.
The "minimum" of MVP actually contains two meanings, which are meant for two different objects.
First of all, it is for the user, that is, what is the most important core function for the user. For example, the core function of the water cup is to hold water, which is MVP, but it depends more on who the first users of the product are?
The first users of most products are not real users. They may be investors, company leaders, creative teams, and seed users.
Even seed users are a very special kind of niche users. Their demands are very distinct and special, as long as they can hold water. If you are an investor, in fact what you want to do is not a practical product, but a model. The purpose is to let investors feel the imagination of the product. The system at this time will be very simple, just pay attention to the one or two product features that impress investors the most! For example, a water cup with temperature monitoring.
So from this perspective, find out who the first batch of product users are and what they are most concerned about. That's your criterion for choosing MVP.
Secondly, it is technical. In other words, what is the easiest way for technical implementation?
Every time the number of users increases by an order of magnitude, the complexity will also increase by an order of magnitude. In other words, making a product for 10 people is very different from making a product for 100 people, and the complexity is very different.
Product complexity in the early stage should be very low. In the beginning, if you just give a demonstration to a few investors, you can completely cut off the temperature's influence on the monitoring system, and many complicated issues such as low temperature reminders.
Therefore, we must avoid obsessing about the completeness of the product, and save the technology in terms of technology. The most important thing is that technology can accelerate the verification of ideas!
Therefore, in the selection of MVP, it is worthwhile to spend more time and careful calculation. Don't make a hasty decision. Spending two or three days can save the next few months.
03
Boundary product definition
With an MVP, you may feel that everything is ready and you can organize the team to start work, because everyone feels that they know what they want.
But the MVP only clarified the scope and did not give a clear boundary.
For example, MVP determined that our cups should have a temperature monitoring function, but when we did it, we realized that we still need to consider whether we need a reminder function, whether we need to adjust the temperature, and other details. Each of these details may cost you a lot. Days to implement and adjust.
Therefore, at this time, it is also necessary to determine a detailed product definition and clearly state what to do and what not to do.
Through pros and cons, a clear boundary is given. If there is no such boundary, it will appear. The technical team decides on their own how much to achieve. Often they will choose a complex and comprehensive way to achieve, or repeated confirmation and repeated discussions slow down the follow-up process.
However, almost no entrepreneurial team will spend time writing this in the early stage, either feels unnecessary, or can't wait for a moment to realize the idea. But in fact, it may take only one week to write, but it makes the boundaries of the product very clear, which not only allows the founder's ideas to be more implemented, but also allows the team to realize it faster, saving considerable time investment in the future.
Conclusion
As an entrepreneur, it is not easy to find a real demand. It is even more rare to make a good product. I am most afraid of working hard for a few years to make a product. The market has already undergone earth-shaking changes, and no matter how good the product is, it is difficult to satisfy current users.
Be sure to cut your long-term plan into a small segment of implementation, ensure that there is a clear initial goal, choose an MVP that is too small to be too small, and at the same time determine the boundaries of the product, constantly understand the changes in the market, and understand the needs of users Change, you can make a good product.
If you can’t determine your initial goal, minimum MVP or product boundary, please add my WeChat to discuss and discuss together to make the next super product.
Finally, I want to give you a thinking exercise. If you have the answer, you can leave a message below.
I have always been worried about choosing a good tea that suits me. If you want to make a product to solve this problem, how would you set the initial goal, the first version of the MVP, and a clear product definition?