Creating a new product is extremely hard. There are dozens of barriers and pitfalls along the way. Success requires fanatical execution and a bit of luck.
But while there are hundreds of ways a product can fail that are completely outside your control, the product is not one of them. To a large degree, success or failure from a product perspective is in your hands.
There are dozens of ways of building a product or a particular feature. Not all of them are created equal. And while every product is different, there are some broadly applicable patterns that can increase your chances of success.
Specifically, there are 11 I’ve found that have been particularly helpful. I go into much more detail here (http://ift.tt/2oQF181), but the summary of them is below:
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Minimize risk with REAL customer development. Actually get out of the building and talk to people.
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Create an MVP. Don’t necessarily CODE an MVP.
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Incrementally better won’t work. Nobody cares about 5% faster.
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Simple is better. Don’t try to do 12 things. Do 1 or 2 exceptionally well.
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Nail onboarding. The first-time user experience is critical to driving long-term adoption. Day 1 retention is a great leading indicator of overall retention, so you can learn quickly.
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Notifications don’t have to be annoying. They can even BE the product.
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Compete on iteration speed. The first version of your product is going to be wrong. Iterate as fast as you can to get to something that works.
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Stay close to your users as long as you possibly can. Customer development continues post-launch.
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Seed and curate – if you build it they won’t come. Don’t leave it to them to create the community you want – actively create it yourself.
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Identify your growth loop. There are 3 loops you can use, and most can benefit from at least one.
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Don’t scale too early. Premature scaling is the most common reason for failure per Startup Genome. Wait until P-M fit before you scale.
There are many types of applications and technologies that these might not apply to (IoT, AI, VR, etc). But if you’re building a web or mobile app, hopefully you find these rules at least marginally helpful.
submitted by /u/intentionally
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May 02, 2017 at 01:23AM
from /u/intentionally
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