Finishing the design and development of a product or a service is often challenging for entrepreneurs. That’s because they are so passionate about the product or service that they want to perfect it! Every feature that they think of, appears really really important to them and they want to incorporate it in the on-going development phase. This is even more pronounced among entrepreneurs in India whose product and service design and development never seems to end.
However, product and service designers (founders) need to discipline themselves on working on a roadmap. I.e. A plan for features to be added to a product and launched in a planned and phased manner.
The way to do it is to list down all the features that may be possible in the product. Then categorize them under two heads
(a) Must-have and
(b) Nice-to-have features
(Be careful, don’t go by your own judgment else everything will appear to be a must-have feature… check with others, particularly users/customers).
Once this is done, identify what needs to go into version 1.0, then what will be added to version 1.1, and then what will be added to version 1.2 and so on… When there is a major change from the original version, call it version 2.0.
But, have a road map. And stick to it.
And defining a road map does not mean that you cannot adjust /alter it and add/delete some features. But once a plan is defined and communicated to the team, if anything new is to be added, you should have the discipline of debating and deliberating it and taking a very well thought decision to add something in, and only if it MUST be added.
It is good to have an external review committee (may be a few other entrepreneur friends, a few friends who are potential customers, etc.) to discuss these things with… and perhaps share and test the product periodically.
If you do not have the discipline of a roadmap, you will constantly lumber in development stage. It will appear to be progress, and it will be, there will be no sense of achievement, which comes from SHIPPING A PRODUCT OR LAUNCHING A SERVICE. (A wise senior from TiE describes this as ‘MAFA’ – Mistaking Activity For Achievement’).
Also, if you launch and test with a base set of features, you get a chance to test various things on a smaller scale. Apart from the product or service, you can test the value proposition; communication; brand personality and some other assumptions underlying your business plan (e.g. how many visits does it take to close a sale), etc.
Ask other entrepreneurs who have launched a product. The joy of shipping something is comparable perhaps only to (ok, may be a shade lower than) bringing a baby into the world. It changes the mood in the team. It automatically brings a different level of maturity to the startup. It brings in a sense of responsibility and pride. It multiplies the passion and commitment. Shipping a product or launching a service fundamentally changes the organization. It is a joy that you cannot imagine, until you experience it. And that is very valuable in building the foundation of a strong, scalable company.
(Well, some people have asked me “so, what if we ship and it bombs, it could kill the enthusiasm in the team”. Well, surely it will. But better to hear bad news earlier than later. Also, not for one moment am I suggesting you ship an inferior-quality or incomplete product or a product with fewer features than the consumer/user needs. But don’t over engineer the product, which most founders tend to do.)
So, go ahead. Define your product roadmap. And ship that version 1.0 as fast as you can.
If you have stories of your product or service launch experience, we would love to hear from you. Any learnings and insights you have from your experiences will be valuable for other budding entrepreneurs.
If you have stories of your product or service launch experience, we would love to hear from you. Any learnings and insights you have from your experiences will be valuable for other budding entrepreneurs.
