As part of our job building digital solutions for entrepreneurs all around the world, we get to see how certain firms flourish while others fail. But what are the differences between unicorns and failed companies, and why do some of them fail? In this series of blogs, we'll guide you through some of our best practises for forming and launching mobile businesses.
42 percent of companies fail due to a lack of market demand, 29 percent due to a lack of capital, and 19 percent due to a lack of ability to develop the proper digital product team. There are plenty of other factors to add to this list, but for now, let's focus on the first one: 42 percent of businesses fail due to a lack of market validation.
What exactly does market validation entail?
Market validation is a technique for assessing whether or not your solution will appeal to your intended audience. It all starts with an idea for your app, followed by a series of interviews with possible customers, and finally, a market test using a Minimum Viable Product.
At SoftCircles, we created a digital product development cycle that covers the entire process of producing and distributing digital products, from product strategy and business analysis through launch and maintenance, all while giving businesses a reliable way to verify their new product concept. Having a process in place is a great way to guarantee that you have a tried-and-true technique for growing your business, whether through market validation or tools like referral program software, which can help expand your reach. Having a process in place is a great way to guarantee that you have a tried-and-true technique for growing your business but because there is no universal formula for success, we frequently have to forsake our process in order to adapt to specific product needs and situations.
What’s the solution?
Writing out the product concept should be the first step in the business analysis process of developing a digital product. Find a pen and paper, and begin writing down your responses to the following questions:
-
Who is my client? – We sincerely hope that your
response does not include everyone, because if it does, we
will be in serious danger. When it comes to gathering
information on potential clients, there's no such thing as
being too specific. Just make sure you have all of your
prospective consumers' pertinent information in one place.
We like to conduct what we term a creative mind-melting session with our clients at SoftCircles. In complicated user persona profiles, we sit, discuss, and document all facts about their users. We pay special attention to their challenges and how the digital product we create may help them solve them.
You may start developing your user persona profiles right now using a variety of tools. “Make My Persona” by HubSpot is among the most popular products we suggest. - What issue am I resolving for my clients? - In our line of work, we frequently see entrepreneurs stress about the features they're introducing and make decisions with a product-first attitude, then spend time trying to figure out why their product isn't gaining momentum. Now that you know who your consumer is, our recommendation is to focus on the problem you're solving for them. You won't be able to solve your customer's problem if you can't pinpoint it. Examine it from the perspective of the user, and ensure that your client sees the benefit in having this issue resolved.
- How does my product address the issue? You can only talk about the product once you've defined the problem you're trying to solve. You want to turn the solution you provide your consumers into functions that can be included into your software, which takes us to another crucial point.
Choosing to build an MVP? Good!
A minimal viable product (MVP) is the first version of your digital product that has the bare minimum of functionality in order to delight customers and obtain crucial market feedback. We call it a Minimum Lovable Product at SoftCircles because, in addition to validating a need and giving critical market input, an MVP should also win your customers' hearts.
We frequently urge stakeholders that engage with us to go MVP-first in our efforts to get market validation with the digital products we develop. This means that when we get down to look at the product they want to build, we priorities the features that are at the heart of the app, removing all of the extraneous features that don't have a direct impact on market fit.
The MVP, in our opinion, is a wonderful method to test all of the assumptions you established about your consumers during the planning phase, as well as to assess the value users place on your product If you're dedicated to pursuing a create-measure-learn cycle and are fighting the urge to add advanced functionality to your product prior to actually testing what you've just published, you'll quickly realize that going MVP-first may well save you a huge amount of money.
Explore some of SoftCircles' mobile app projects that began as minimal viable products.
Product development continues after the product is released.
Getting the app you built into the hands of consumers as quickly as feasible is a crucial step in your market validation process. Once your product is out there, you are faced with the chance to enhance it.