5 Mistakes We've All Made When Building Products

Covid is the perfect disrupted landscape to create new products and evaluate the suitability of existing product features and use cases. Don't be fooled however, despite the opportunities that are opening up, the rookie mistakes I've seen or made myself can still happen in the world of Covid .

Mistake #1: Creating a product that I loved, but that my customers didn't want.

This age old favourite "I loved and believed in my product, but nobody else did" this can be heartbreaking, not to mention eye wateringly expensive. Before you get too invested in your “baby” , create a rough sketch of her, get feedback on what the absolute core product is, then add features later based on REAL customer feedback ( no, not your tennis partner or your mate down the local pub) Real customer feedback is gold, they don’t care if you win or lose. In fact that’s the people you should ask, not ‘friendlies’ who don’t want to hurt your feelings or as we say “ they don’t want to call your baby ugly”

Mistake #2 Build it and they will come....

Leading with technology is never a good idea, products should be business and customer led and supported by the right tech. Getting tech involved too early can shape the offering in the wrong direction based on hard technical constraints. Thinking through a tech lens can stifle creativity where you may miss the opportunity to pivot or explore a low risk alternative to building it.

Creating a hypothesis is a great idea - that way you can test the concept or POC and see what customers do with it - you may find that one part of your product is ideal if you build in a particular feature, something you would never have considered without the perspective of the potential user or buyer.

If you are really serious about getting to market quickly and help your customers, building is by far your worst option. We seem to be a bit obsessed with having something to show before it's tested, I can't count the amount of people that have started a conversation with “We are going to build a platform” then once the build is complete, they realising they didn't know the market, customer or broader audience for their product.

Mistake #3: Getting the model wrong for the customer:

Launching a subscription because you wanted the stability of recurring income, not because it was the best thing for your customers. Users in your market might prefer a freemium model or a low pay to entry, this is another ‘ make or break’ moment for product . It all comes back to knowing your customer, what they will pay for and what they expect for free.

Mistake #4 Don't assume anything...

I've always loved the story of how Slack (the fastest-growing SaaS startup in history) came into being. Originally named Linefeed, Slack was born out of a gaming company called Tiny Speck where online game creators needed to communicate with each other between New York, San Francisco, and Vancouver, whilst building a game called Glitch. They didn’t intentionally set out to create a SaaS product for the workplace, they built the tool for themselves. They only realised their tool’s commercial potential later on. What they DID know intimately was the shortfalls of their competitors by doing real life testing in the BAU environment. Therefore they knew what their product needed to be and built in features as their needs evolved. They didn't assume that there was a better product in market, they tested the best and found out the shortfalls.

Mistake #5: Being too afraid to ask for help.

We’ve all made this mistake. We feel like we have to figure it all out on our own.  Perspective is powerful, because there are people who have tried something like what you’re doing before and they may have got burned (they are now your best friend because they know the pitfalls), this can include everything from understanding the tech, to customers or even how to navigate workplace politics or systems.

So, there you have it: Just 5 of the mistakes I've made so far or have seen others make. Believe me, I've made many more, I'll share them with you another day...

If you feel like sharing, I'd love for you to hit comment below and let me know: I love a good war story - What's the biggest mistake you've made when building a product?

*The Solutions team at KPMG is an innovation capability that marries KPMG's people, skills and specialist experience with the latest technology to build and deliver high quality repeatable products and solutions for our clients.The views in this article are my personal views and not those of KPMG.