Principles of Product Discovery: Navigating Critical Risks and Validating Ideas

Product discovery is a crucial process that addresses key risks associated with product development: Will the customer buy this or choose to use it? (Value risk). Can the user figure out how to use it? (Usability risk). Can we build it? (Feasibility risk). Does this solution work for our business? (Business viability risk).

It’s not enough to rely on the product manager's opinion on these questions. We need to collect evidence. To effectively conduct product discovery, we adhere to a set of core principles. Understanding these principles will not only help you work well today but also allow you to easily incorporate new techniques as they emerge in the future.

1. Customers Won’t Tell Us What to Build

We can’t rely on customers, executives, or stakeholders to tell us what to build. Customers often don't know what's possible, and with technology products, none of us know what we really want until we see it. It's our job to ensure that the solution we deliver solves the underlying problem. Historically, customers had no idea that what they now love was even a possibility, and this is increasingly true over time.

2. Establish Compelling Value

Creating the necessary value so that customers choose to buy or use the product is the hardest part. We can survive with usability or performance issues for a while, but without core value, we have nothing. Therefore, we need to spend most of our discovery time establishing this value.

3. User Experience is Critical

While engineering is crucial, developing a good user experience is usually harder and more critical to success. Not every team has the necessary product design skills, and even when they do, these skills must be used effectively.

4. Intertwined Functionality, Design, and Technology

In the old waterfall model, market requirements drove functionality, which drove design, which drove implementation. Today, technology drives functionality, design drives functionality, and technology drives design. All three are intertwined, which is why the product manager, product designer, and tech lead need to collaborate closely.

5. Expect Iterations

Many of our ideas won’t work out, and the ones that do will require several iterations. We can't know in advance which ideas will succeed, so we approach discovery with the mindset that many ideas won’t work. We need to be open to solving the underlying problem in different ways if necessary.

6. Validate with Real Users

We must validate our ideas on real users and customers before investing time and money into building an actual product. Anticipating customer responses isn’t enough; we need real-world validation.

7. Fast and Cheap Validation

Our goal in discovery is to validate ideas in the fastest, cheapest way possible. This allows us to try many ideas and approaches. Different products and risks require various techniques, so we use a wide range of methods suited to different situations.

8. Validate Feasibility Early

If developers first see an idea at sprint planning, we’ve failed. We need to ensure feasibility during discovery, saving time and improving the solution with early input from engineers.

9. Validate Business Viability Early

It’s critical to ensure that our solution meets business needs before building it. Business viability includes financial considerations, marketing, sales, legal, business development, and senior executive approval. Discovering a product isn't viable after it’s built can destroy morale and confidence in the product manager.

10. Emphasize Shared Learning

Having a team of missionaries rather than mercenaries means the team has learned together. They've seen customer pain together, watched ideas succeed or fail, and understand the context and importance of the work.

By following these principles, product discovery becomes a structured and evidence-based process, ensuring that the products we build are valuable, usable, feasible, and viable for our business.