2 Key Insights to launch successful products - From 2 years of Entrepreneurial experience

I started my Entrepreneurial journey in Jun-2018 and it has been 2 years now. 

And I can say without any doubt that the last 2 years have been the most action-filled days of my life. There is never a dull moment. 

At times, yes only at times (I hope I will get more such calls :)), I get phone calls seeking advice on starting up a company from friends or friends of friends. And, I have shared only 2 things with them.

It has resonated with them and so I thought, I will write a post about it.  

What is the foundation of a successful Business 

The foundation of a successful business, a start-up or a product in an organization is laid on 2 pillars

1. A product/services for which there are buyers and they are willing to pay.  

2. The product/service should be built/developed within a given timeframe and budget

 Failing to do any one of these will hit the potential of the business being successful.

 

And the following 2 insights from my Entrepreneurial journey are focussed on strengthening these pillars.

Insight 1 - Customers and their needs are multi-layered

Insight 2 - Pick up the toughest task first

 

 
 

 

Insight 1 - Customers and their needs are multi-layered.

One cannot build a product/service without understanding who is willing to buy the product/service and "WHY".

But, when we are hit by an idea, our excitement is at its peak and we want to get into action right away. And generally, we don't invest enough time and effort on this point.

Thanks to the internet, various concepts like Customer segments, Lean startup, Product management strategy, Agile, Hook framework, Business model canvas, etc. Are known to us or at least have been heard and read. And so, no, I am not going to repeat them. I have used these concepts and continue doing so.

I have realized that each customer segment can have further segmentation and this process goes on. We do customer segmentation all the time, but is it being done deep enough that you have picked up the target segment.

For example, My start-up - www.thinkcerti.com is in the Business of helping IT professional reskill and upskill easily. To do so, we recommend personalized learning paths to IT professionals.

So, the target Customers for my start-up are IT professionals. The first level of segmentation would be Freshers and Experienced professionals. At this level, you can realize that these guys need to reskill/upskill and so you could stop segmentation here.

And that's the trap I want to highlight in this post.

We need to do further segmentation because we need to understand

When do folks from these segments need to reskill/upskill? 
And when the need comes, how are they fulfilling it today? 

 

If you fail to understand when the Customer need arises and how is it fulfilled, you will fail to find the magical "product-market" fit. Understanding what is Customer need is the key here. 

And I have come up with TACSI model to decipher Customer needs and its posted here.

So, as an Entrepreneur, as a Product Manager, it is very essential to keep on segmenting the customers until you pinpoint the segment of people who have the need that you want to fulfill.

The the focus of this exercise should be the need and not the product/service. The product/service is developed based on understanding the needs of this specific segment.

 At the end of this exercise, the expected results are

 

You will get a clear picture of who is your customer.
You will get a clear picture of their needs
You will get a clear picture of the Persona of the customer
You can use the above information to build your product/service
And build a business model around it.

Failing to do this deep Customer segmentation is a sure shot way to lose time and money.

Insight 2 - Pick up the toughest task first

Once you have understood the customer needs, you would want to get the ball rolling.  

You will create a plan of action, a project plan, a task list, and get going.

The tasks that we have to do to build the product/service can be simply categorized as easy and complex.

And we tend to pick up the easy tasks first. Because we are comfortable with them and we can see we are making progress.

And here is where the second trap lies.

In general, the toughest task(s) are the heart of the product. We must get a hang of it at the start. 

We need to understand what makes the task complex. 

Is it technical feasibility, 

is it a lack of clarity about what needs to be done. 

By picking up the toughest task, you might feel anxious and uncertain, but it is good and cost-effective to face this anxiety in the early days then later in the journey.

When you pick up to work on the toughest task and If you realize, technical feasibility is the issue, you might want to do some POC, trials to decipher the complexity. Your hiring could be aligned accordingly.

Or If the issue is a lack of clarity on what needs to be done or why are we doing this, congratulations. You saved yourself from heading straight to a pitfall.

Meeting the beast head-on at the start and domesticating it is the best way to move forward. When you understand what you are dealing with, you can allocate resources accordingly.

 

I hope you enjoyed reading this and these insights help you in your journey. Do share your views in the comments section