The research period in which each technology startup moves to find a scalable business model with a product that solves the problem and deserves the client's money makes the creation of a startup unique.
For decades, the principles, methods, and approaches used to create non-technology businesses have been used to start and develop emerging technology companies. In short, if you understand the market, if you create and advertise a solid product, customers will use and pay for it. This approach has proven ineffective for technology businesses. The results show that startups are almost. 45% failed due to market shortage.
For start-ups, the Building Learning Enhancement approach goes beyond researching the business model and assumes that the solution created is valid and deserves the customer's attention and money. While some startups often get to the beautiful place quickly, most of them realize the need to change a major product or business model. In many cases, what they learned from the product launch indicates a complete change in direction, which means building another product as if the team started from scratch.
The startup is always evolving, no matter how excited the founders are about making a product that people love. The goal is to make minor mistakes, especially in the early stages. This guide shows you how to build a profitable technology business by quickly learning what your customers want and paying so that resources are not wasted on ineffective strategies and solutions.
1. Define the need
Ideas are nothing more than suggested solutions to a problem or need. While there are countless job opportunities, the more urgent the solution, the more product you will use. The first step is to measure the urgency of a particular need.
Do people pay for an alternative solution?
What is the result if there is no solution? Will they lose money, lose time, or be unable to do important work?
An inevitable problem?
Is there an underrepresented or underrepresented sector?Answering these key questions is the first step in evaluating whether a solution is worth building. The last question can reveal the possibilities for differentiation by focusing on where your solution can be dedicated to a specific group of people, even with large competitors.
This stage is similar to a contractor's task before contacting key stakeholders, such as customers. At the end of this section, you should be able to write the first version of the value proposition: For the [unresponsive] customer segment of the [defects in current solutions], our product offers [advantages / distinctions].
2. Check the need
Many ideas look good on paper, but are not practical in practice. Building and marketing a product is one way to find out if there is a suitable solution. However, this approach is long and expensive and is the reason for the failure of many startups. Adding a few steps before product development significantly reduces costs and startup risks. These steps are intended to generate a response to the request.
The product is designed to solve customer problems. Therefore, the customer only knows when there is an urgent need and is ready to pay for another solution. As such, the first step in monitoring demand is interviews with clients.
The benefits of interviewing potential buyers go beyond collecting ideas. Think of a group of interviewees as mentors, marketers, and investors. It is administered because it can help build the product you need. It is marketed as it can help spread the word and attract other customers. And finally, investors, where they can help finance the initial stage by committing to the solution early.
You can create a group of interviewees by taking advantage of online and offline communities, social media, cold communications, social media, or any channel that allows you to communicate with your target customers.
The purpose of the interviews is to find consistency in the responses of the respondents, who should intentionally indicate whether the problem deserves a solution. If this is the case, go to the next stage and if not, let the interviewees tell you what to focus on to deal with the problem.
3. Validate the solution
It may be tempting to go directly to product development, depending on the respondent indicating the need and demand for a solution. In fact, many of the things we say we are going to do are different from what we end up doing. In other words, while the ideas gathered during the interviews should be considered a strong control signal, as long as we don't stick to the solution and use it because we know we have evidence. Follow these four steps to validate the solution quantitatively.
1) Through research and customer interviews, you get a clear picture of what the product and its function should be like. Planning before construction. As noted earlier, one of the benefits of engaging clients from the start is contributing as a mentor. Call some interviews to review the product design and help you take photos of the product you want to use.
There are many reasons to start designing the product. First, it gets faster. Second, each software development project begins with a design phase, which means that it has already begun. Finally, plans are great for testing ideas, as you can quickly adjust them without having to go back to expensive work and waste time.
2) Samples can be converted into clickable prototypes. Many tools can help you prototype, even if you don't have programming experience. At this point, the prototype will not be the solution that customers use, but it will serve as a visualization tool for the next step.
3) Make and sell the mob show. If the interviewees collaborated to create plans and prototypes, and if the request was really true, there is no reason why the potential users should not commit financially with a difficult offer.
At this point, it is common to see doubts and objections. Right now, you can see if future buyers are really interested in the solution. Surprisingly, most, if not all, of the interviewees wanted to be successful. For example, in one of the first startup projects, of the approximately 500 respondents who deliberately sought a solution, only three were paid. If you had made the product before selling the program, you would have wasted tens of thousands of dollars.
4) In many cases, especially in a market with many alternatives, potential buyers prefer a functional product before committing. In this case, the fastest way to serve customers is not necessarily to spend the next few months turning designs into a functional product if they offer undeveloped solutions.
It is a solution that combines existing tools and manual work to achieve the client's work. You may be familiar with the history of Airbnb, as the founders used their own apartments and air mattresses to cater to guests. Even after verifying the need, the founders continued to send a group message to connect guests with hosts before building a strong online and mobile platform. DoorDash's founders, who appealed to food on demand, followed a similar process in the early stages before developing the app.
These four solution verification steps provide all the ideas you need to make a product that people can use. The best part is that you can do all of the above in less than a month. In fact, when the founders of DoorDash realized they were trying to solve a serious problem, it took the afternoon to repeat and get their first order of food. They used a simple landing page and their cell phones and cars to pick up and deliver orders.
4. Building basic properties
Once you've verified your need and solution, it's time to create your application idea. As mentioned earlier, one of the benefits of testing the validity of a solution using product designs is to create a visual and interactive copy of the product before it is created. This is the key to the development phase, from now on, the features and forms must be modified and prepared for improvement based on customer feedback and opinions.
The costly mistakes founders made at this point are making an advanced product before validating key features quantitatively. This is the key to making a value proposition a solution. In other words, users can't do their jobs without them.
If users don't see value in basic features, good features may not make any difference. Therefore, it is wise and safe to quickly prepare and test the basic properties of the product.
If you don't have programming experience or technical co-founder, then you need a team to help you build your product. Today, with independent platforms, it is easy to find people with complementary skills.
Unlike any other software product, turn an application idea into a product that people use. Make working with freelancers a priority. These are talents who have new companies and understand how it feels to build a new company. Best of all, they are perhaps the founders.
5. Test the most dangerous assumptions
While the goal of the previous sections is to find the correct solution for the problem / solution, this section focuses on the suitability of the product / solution, which is primarily the quality of turning the proposed solution into a useful product. The most dangerous assumptions are people who use basic characteristics to achieve certain benefits.
Key metrics like flow rate, user growth, and customer age help measure the impact of a product on solving a specific problem. Most importantly, the insights gathered during customer interviews help connect the dots to draw solid conclusions about the product and next steps.
6. Invest in customer acquisition.
Entrepreneurs are encouraged to start building an audience as soon as possible before identifying market needs. It means starting an audience by creating a group of people who can provide information, invest in your idea through pre-sale, refer others, and more.
There are several channels that you can use to help build your audience. Some write articles, create podcasts, launch events, and actively participate in social media. For example, the founders of social media management platform Buffer were able to build a growing audience of future users by actively writing blogs and guest posts before launching the product.
The main source channel depends on the product and the target customer. It is important to repeat the foundation of the acquisition channel at least at this point, be it content marketing, cold conscience, paid advertising, etc.
7. Learn the measurement structure
There may be a strong product with a customer push at first, but the business model is not widespread. For example, if a customer's CPA is greater than the return on retention, the company operates at a loss.
With certified core features, the next step is to gradually improve the product by providing users with all the tools they need to stay longer or use them frequently and refer others, thus increasing the customer's fixed value and reducing the acquisition costs of the client.
By shortening performance appraisal cycles, startups can continue to test new ideas or feature initiatives quickly. Learn from the data, organize features, measure performance, and start again with new additions.
In short, build profitable technical trade,
- You can see if a solution is urgent by examining the competition and talking to potential customers.
- Validation of the solution by involving the client in the design of the product and the search for commitment and service due to lack of sophistication.
- Structure and control of the basic characteristics of the product and basic characteristics of the users' ability to satisfy controlled needs.
- Laying the foundation for limiting acquisitions to create a predictable source of income.
- Keep improving your product as you collect and analyze data to improve your user experience and set it apart from the competition.
