Where does your product fit on technology adoption lifecycle and should it matter?

In every product that we build or use, we are part of the overall evolution of the product/technology lifecycle. If you are developing a product, it is important to understand your goals and the field of play. While MVO defines the basic minimum or the core functionalities that you want to deliver first, it is equally important to ensure that it reflects the overall market maturity.

There are 3 stages that matter for your product and how you want to deliver

1. You are the first one, an innovator, first mover. No one has done it, so you move in first, create market (you spend a lot of effort here), deliver product that adds value to your customers. Once done, you continue to develop roadmap that addresses most important needs of the market

2. There is already a product available, the market is still developing. There are customers who are willing to part with their money since they realise the problem and identify with the value. There is not much competition. You determine that you have a better way of solving the product. By better, I mean faster, better user experience, innovation etc, or better execution. The first set of customers are innovators and early adopters, who tend to experiment with technology and accept products that they believe will work for them. They are willing to accept a product with less features or some broken functionalities. But the same doesn't stand true for later half of the early adopters customers or early majority. These set of customers, need to be convinced of the value that they derive by using your product. They believe in understanding benefits in terms of saving effort, money or some tangible value before they take the plunge. What you need to deliver to these set of customers is a robust product that solves are problem well accepted by the early set of customers and is guaranteed to work in the long run

2.1 Or simply since you may have an existing user base that you can reach out to and capture the opportunity at hand

3. The market is already established, Early majority has already signed up, there is enough competition, so all you have left is to play on price and try and solve a problem that is well accepted. Even here, you can either position your product as a mass product or a premium one. It would depend on your product positioning, marketing and product strategy and how it complements your existing portfolio

In all of this, it is important to understand the core of the problem that needs to be solved and where is the market in the technology adoption life cycle. You may be innovator, early mover or follower, the MVP needs to reflect what your product wants to achieve.

If you are an innovator, you want to crack the core problem in the best way possible, deliver the best user journey that convinces your customers of the value that your product delivers. 

If you are an early mover, besides solving the identified problem in the best way possible, you may want to improvise on technology, efficiency or simply add some bells n whistles that attracts the new sets of customers. 

If you are building it for your network base then maybe you would like to ensure compatibility with your existing products or channels. Create features or opportunities or channel synergies that work well with your other products and help on deliver additional value through integration.

In the end, the product must deliver on core functionalities as well as or better than your competition while it complements your own product strategy and portfolio.

Thoughts? Please share your take in comments. Happy to converse