As a seasoned product leader with over 13 years of experience in emerging technologies, I've witnessed firsthand the exhilarating highs and devastating lows of this dynamic industry. From the thrill of securing funding to the heart-wrenching disappointment of product failures, I've navigated the complexities that startups face daily.
Emerging technology is a difficult space to navigate, regardless of the size of a company. Whilst larger companies can afford to gamble by offsetting their spending on emerging technologies with income from alternative sources, startups and scaleups do not have that luxury. Startups face a daunting reality: its well known that roughly 80% fail within the first five years.
However, despite the financial disparity between large and small companies, they are all at risk of finding themselves either in the trap of 'paralysis by analysis' or of launching products without a clear purpose.
This blog will explore key strategies to avoid these traps and ensure your product successfully navigates the market. We'll delve into the importance of understanding your product's why, building cross-functional teams, prioritising MVP development, setting deadlines, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
1. Know your why
Make sure you know why you're building your product. If you cannot answer this question then you will likely waste a lot of time and money trying to discover challenges that users have that align with your product. This is not user centric thinking, this is biased thinking. You are not in the market to convince people that they have problems.
Key Points:
Create solutions not problems: Finding problems for a solution is more difficult than building a solution to a known problem.
Be user centric: Understand why your product exists, not from a technical perspective, but from a user perspective.
2. Build Cross-Functional Product Teams
In my experience, paralysis by analysis occurs because disciplines work in silos. UX spends too long researching or designing before passing the designs over to engineering; engineering is building without a design and therefore lacks direction; or engineering simply spends too long perfecting code. Encouraging cross-functional collaboration will get you prototypes quicker, and speed up the overall learning process.
Key Points:
Avoid silos: Include engineers in product discovery by involving them in user research - the entire product team should understand and empathsise with its users, this knowledge shouldn't be contained to one discipline.
Foster open communication: Use agile ceremonies to create a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing, with particular importance places on retrospectives which should never be skipped.
3. Focus on an MVP
If you've read my other blogs, you'll be aware that the concept of an MVP is a personal philosophy of mine. An MVP is a lean, functional version of your product that allows you to test core assumptions and gather initial customer feedback. The sooner you can introduce your product to the market, the sooner you can gather valuable feedback and iterate.
Key Points:
Focus on core value: Make sure your product effectively embodies your value proposition, and include the minimum set of features required that enable users to realise that value themselves
Do not over design: Resist the temptation to add unnecessary features that can delay launch to avoid feature creep.
4. Set deadlines
In my experience, product teams that work in sprints do not like deadlines. Without deadlines in place, product development can drift. Deadlines help create a sense of urgency in an agile team, and can help focus the minds.
Remember that product launches are important for the entire company, not just the product team. Align the company around a deadline for launch.
Key Points:
Align the entire business: Set a company wide deadline for launch, that is agreed with all teams. A product launch is a company objective, not just the objective of the product team.
Do not delay: If the product is ready, do not leave it on the shelf for too long or there will be another version to replace it.
5. Evolve the product with your Users
While it's essential to get your product to market quickly, the journey doesn't end there. Getting to an MVP quickly is great because it avoids the paralysis by analysis trap, however, launching an MVP does not prevent this happening in future.
To ensure long-term success, it's crucial to maintain a culture of continuous improvemen which is an ongoing process. By staying agile and responsive to user feedback, you can ensure your product remains relevant and competitive in the ever-evolving landscape of emerging technologies.
Key Points:
Prioritise user feedback: Regularly gather insights from your users to understand their needs and pain points.
Iterate rapidly: Gather feedback and make improvements based on user insights - hunches will likely be needed but don't ignore the real world data.
Avoid feature creep: Focus on building features that directly address user needs and contribute to your product's core value proposition.
Conclusion
In my experience with product development at companies, regardless of whether they are a startup, scaleup or an established company, they still struggle with the trap of "paralysis by analysis," spending excessive time on research or development; or they successfully release a product, but without a true idea of what their core value is.
Falling into the trap of "paralysis by analysis" is an issue I have faced many times. In my experience it is caused when companies are looking to discover product market fit before they build a product. Whilst doing upfront UX research and design is 100% the right thing to do, it should be done in conjunction with software developers because without a product in the first place, finding product market fit is a lot more difficult.
On the other hand, it is surprisingly common to talk to product teams who do not have a deep understanding of their 'why'. If a product team is unable to explain why their product is important even to themselves, then they will struggle to get any market penetration. This is not just an issue with the product as a whole, but with individual features too - they need to be be built for a reason, not simply because there was time so why not.
By following the principles I have laid out, you can increase your chances of success in the competitive landscape of emerging technologies. Remember, the journey is often as important as the destination.
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