You have a great idea for a new product. There’s just one problem: You’re not sure anyone will find it useful.
Actually, now that you think about it, you have a lot of questions about how to get your idea to market. You’re pretty sure you can’t do it alone, but you’re not quite sure where to begin. Should you give up?
Not yet. Instead, refine your concept against these seven must-haves for a successful product (and product development pipeline).
1. A Clear Solution to an Actual Problem
Most products are designed to solve specific problems. Few actually do so as advertised. And a significant number “solve problems” that really aren’t problems at all. At least, not in the sense that their designers imagine.
Those that actually deliver effective solutions to widely felt challenges tend to be those that find breakout success. For example, early Internet service providers like EarthLink made it much easier for regular people (those without computer science degrees, for example) to get online in the early and middle 1990s.
EarthLink co-founder Sky Dayton got the idea for his product, which soon emerged as one of the top “Web 1.0” ISPs, after spending the better part of 80 hours trying to access the then-nascent Internet without much success. He saw the Internet’s potential already, but knew mass adoption would require a better way for people to access it.
“The internet is going to be as ubiquitous as oxygen,” Dayton predicted soon after launching EarthLink.
Time proved Dayton right, thanks in no small part to his own innovation.
2. A Customer “Theory of the Case”
Game-changing innovations like consumer ISPs might be real solutions to real problems, but that’s beside the point if they’re not easy to use. From that perspective, the real innovation of Earthlink (and other early ISPs, such as America Online) was user-friendliness.
Getting online with a first-generation ISP wasn’t as simple as connecting to a public WiFi network. You needed special equipment (a modem and, ideally, a second phone line) and the patience to wait for several minutes (possibly several times in a row, if the connection failed on the first few attempts) before “surfing” on a painfully slow upload speed. Forget video or even high-resolution images; the early Internet was very much text-based.
Nevertheless, the experience was light-years better than anything that came before it, and it wasn’t long before Web 1.0 took off.
3. An Addressable Market Big Enough to Matter
A user-friendly, problem-solving product also needs a total addressable market big enough to justify the investment. Your TAM needn’t be as large as markets for economic “plumbing,” like digital payment processing (expected to reach $360 billion annually by 2030). However, early investors like to see significant upside before pulling out their checkbooks.
Identifying your TAM is not as easy as it may sound, either. It often requires projecting well out into the future, beyond the current business cycle. Rigor is necessary here.
“The calculation of TAM by default always embeds a laundry list of assumptions, most of which are rarely annotated,” says fintech expert Nik Milanovic.
For example, while in hindsight the TAM for ISPs like Earthlink could have been measured in the trillions of dollars, at the time those businesses seemed risky.
4. A Moat, If Only Temporarily
Downstream of your TAM calculation is your assessment (and intentional construction) of your product’s “moat.”
In industry lingo, your moat describes the sum total of competitive barriers around your product. These can include technical barriers secured by patents, contractual relationships that prevent customer “churn,” and even internal talent and know-how that isn’t easy for competitors to replicate.
Some very complex products, such as the lithography machines essential to modern chipmaking, have vast moats because they’re incredibly difficult to reverse-engineer (and difficult to get one’s hands on anyway). However, most products have narrower, shallower moats — more of a head start than a lasting gulf.
5. A Detailed Capital Plan and Strategic Roadmap
Even short-cycle products require significant investment to get to market. Yours has a much better chance of seeing the light of day, and gaining traction with real customers, if you have a detailed plan for that investment (including the public rollout).
This is why product design teams can’t be siloed off from the rest of an organization, no matter how skilled they are. It takes a village, as the saying goes.
6. Skilled Design, Development, Sales & Marketing Teams
Your product development “village” must consist of knowledgeable design and development pros as well as seasoned sales and marketing people who can figure out how to sell your product into what could already be a crowded marketplace.
Make sure these units’ incentives are well-aligned. For example, sales teams who sell competing products might end up pushing prospective or current customers toward those, intentionally or not, thus eating into new products’ margins and weakening the case for further investment.
7. Future-Proofing
All good things must eventually come to an end, but well-designed products can endure for a very long time if successive “owners” commit to maintaining their edge.
For example, the popular board game “Monopoly” has been around for longer than a century, spawned countless iterations (including for young children and families), and just recently got a major boost from a “simplified” version suited to today’s shorter attention spans.
Saying Goodbye, the Right Way
When it is finally time to say goodbye to your product, make sure you have an orderly “retirement plan” to sunset new versions and features without yanking support for existing users overnight. Clear, transparent communication with both customers and internal product managers is critical.
