In our work of building digital products for startups around the
world, we get to see how a lot of them thrive, while others
fail. But what makes all the differences between unicorns and
startups that end up failing, and why do some of the startups
fail? In this series of articles, we are taking you through some
of our best practices when it comes to building and launching
mobile startups.
42% of startups fail because there is no market need, 29%
because they run out of cash, and 19 % of startups fail because
they can’t build the right digital product team. There are many
other reasons to add to this thread, but for now, let’s keep our
focus on the first one — 42% of startups fail because there is no market validation
What is market validation?
Market validation is a process that helps you determine whether
your product is of interest for your market. It starts with
writing down your app concept, conducting a series of interviews
with potential users, and lastly, testing the market with a
Minimum Viable Product.
At appssemble, we created a digital product development
process that covers the entire flow of building and shipping
digital products, from product strategy and business analyses to
launch and maintenance, while
offering businesses a trusted way of validating their new
product idea. Having a process in place is a great way to make sure there’s
a tried way of building startups, but since there’s no universal
success recipe, we often have to put our process aside, adapting
to specific product needs and scenarios.
The solution.
The business analyses phase of building a digital product should
start with writing down the product concept. Find a pen and a
piece of paper, and start writing down your answers to these
questions:
Who is my customer? — We hope your answer won’t be
everyone because if it is, we are in big trouble. When it comes
to gathering data about your potential customers, there is no
such thing as getting too specific. Just make sure you are
collecting all relevant information about your prospective users
in one place.
At appssemble, we like to have what we call a creative
mind-melting session with our clients. We sit, talk and document
all details about their users in complex user persona profiles.
We pay extra attention to address their pain points and how the
digital product we build can solve their problems.
There are several tools you can use to start creating your user
persona profiles right now. Make
my persona
from HubSpot is one of the tools we recommend the most.
What problem am I solving for my customers? - In our
jobs, we often see entrepreneurs fret about the features they
are launching and taking the decision with a product-first
mindset, then spending time thinking why their product is not
getting any traction. You now know who your customer is, so our
advice is to think of the problem you are solving for your
customer first.
If you can’t put your finger on your customer’s problem, you
won’t succeed in solving it.
Look at it from a user standpoint and make sure your customer
sees value in having this problem solved.
How does my product solve the problem? Only after
defining the problem you are addressing, you can move on to
discussing the product. You want to translate the solution you
provide to your users into functionalities that will be
integrated into your app — which brings us to another important
thing.
Choosing to build an MVP.
A minimum viable product is the first version of your digital
product, containing a minimum amount of features to delight
users and collect valuable feedback from the market. At
appssemble, we like to call it
Minimum Lovable Product because besides validating a need
and helping you get valuable feedback from the market, an MVP
should also get to the hearts of your users.
In our effort to reach market validation with the digital
products we build, we often advise stakeholders that work with
us to go MVP-first. This means that when we sit and look at the
product they want to develop, we prioritise on the features that
are the core of the app, cutting down on all those bits and
pieces that don’t necessarily influence the market-fit aspect.
We like to think of the MVP as a great way to test all the
assumptions you made about your clients while in the strategy
phase, and to evaluate the value customers assign to your
product. If you are keen on following a
build-measure-learn loop and resist the urge of adding
new features to your product before even testing what you first
put on the market, you’ll soon find our how going MVP first can
save you a lot of money.
Take a quick look at some of the
mobile apps built by appssemble
that started out as minimum viable products.
Product development does not end after launch.
An important phase in your process of reaching market validation
is getting the app you build into the hands of the users, as
soon as possible. Once the product is out there, you are
standing face to face the with the opportunity to improve your
product.
Pay attention to their reactions and pain points, make sure that
the entire user experience makes sense for them, and be fast
when it comes to improving the app.
