Since we started offering business development services in 1991, we’ve worked with a lot of new products, new companies and new markets. Here’s a summary of the 200+ startup products we’ve worked on.
37% of the products we validated with customers were either fundamentally flawed or completely off base. As often as not, this was not a surprise to our client; sometimes they had retained us just to confirm their suspicions. Of course, there were a few to whom the news that they had developed “an elegant solution to no known problem” came as a complete surprise.
Winners & Heartbreakers
The top 15% of products were very close to exactly what customer wanted. These products required very little work to become winners right out of the gate.
The next 48% are the Heartbreakers: the products that were missing a few capabilities that customers really wanted. Typically these missing capabilities were:
Integration with 3rd-party products or data sources
Key usability or GUI features
A dashboard or summary display
A feature for an unexpected market segment
How You Can Avoid Heartbreak
Nearly every company has shipped products that were almost, but not quite perfect. You ship the best product possible in the time available. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find out what customers will buy before you go down the long expensive path of developing the wrong product.
If you are finding any of these tasks difficult...
Uncovering your customers’ Hot Buttons
Perfecting your Product-Market Fit
Meeting your First Customers
...then contact BizDev.Global today.