February 29, 2024
The 8 mistakes that block your digital product development
Like any business project, digital product development is no child's play. It has pitfalls that can blow your budget. Take note of these 8 mistakes to increase your chances of success.
Im Gespräch mit Oliver Stöcker
So you want to develop a new product?
Developing a digital product is now a great choice for entrepreneurs looking to create a sustainable, high-growth business: with easy access to global markets, low barriers to entry and great potential for scalability and flexibility.
Development of such products is easier than ever before thanks to the plethora of online tools, resources and platforms available; however, without the right process knowledge, a lot of money can be wasted before the product is even close to being profitable.
Ideal customer: Homo sapiens
Above all, if you cast your net too wide, your strategy will falter and productivity will suffer. To develop a successful product today, you need to sharpen your customer profile or target segment and focus your efforts.
Continuously improve your understanding of potential customers, their problems, concerns and motivations through customer research and interviews.
Customer research as a nice-to-have
Your biased assumptions about your personas' problems and your blind faith in your solution will not lead to successful results. A smart approach is to start with customer research.
Gather as much data and insight as possible through customer interviews, surveys and competitor analysis to underpin your strategy and modify and adapt your ideas at an early stage.
If you take this lightly, you could end up encountering problems or resistance that you could have foreseen and wasting money that you could have invested more wisely.
An informed strategy determines the quality of the user experience; if a product is launched based on assumptions, it's back to square one.
Straight to development
Research data alone is not enough to ensure the viability of your product idea. Potential customers need a tangible prototype to give you solid feedback.
Hasty development at this stage would increase the risk of an inferior product and wasted resources. Instead, start with short sprint cycles for prototyping and testing different scenarios with real users.
These design sprints allow you to validate your concepts early and address potential issues before investing significant resources in development.
A team that's not 100% specialized
Choosing the right team is critical to the success of your product. You need experienced product managers, talented engineers and specialized designers who understand the process, have excellent interdisciplinary communication skills and know how to apply their talents to your company's vision.
Not hiring the right people will cost you time, effort and ultimately your budget - while you look for alternative solutions for your product and your team.
Overly complicated features
Lean design suggests that creating the simplest version of a product that allows you to test your assumptions and gather feedback is an effective way to avoid wasting time and resources.
In practice, it is also beneficial for the team to prioritize the most important functions for the first version: By setting achievable goals, you can avoid design or development bottlenecks and streamline your workflows.
We mistakenly assume that once a product is launched, it will be used. However, we overlook the importance of marketing preparation, user engagement and support to drive user adoption.
Product launch = user adoption
It is a common misconception that once a product is on the market, it will be used. However, start-ups often forget that a product alone does not directly lead to new users, even if the market is ready for your solution.
After the market launch, the real fun begins. You need to invest a lot of time and effort in gathering further user feedback, marketing and promoting your product, attracting potential customers and continuously improving your product.
Hiring is the only way to scale
Hiring new employees is one way to scale, but accumulating expensive fixed staffing costs isn't always the solution to reducing your internal team's workload.
Consider solutions such as implementing automation technology, outsourcing tasks to external contractors, or finding ways to optimize your processes through strategic partnerships in order to scale flexibly.
"Let's add this new feature!"
If you're constantly adding new features to your product without really evaluating their value or impact on your users, you've officially fallen into the feature creep trap.
Of course you want to fulfill all user requests, but in the end the creeping expansion of functionality does more harm than good to your product: You end up with an overcomplicated product, delayed timelines and bloated budgets. Focus on the core value of your product and remember that less is often simply more.
