What is the best way to determine the viability Of Your Product Idea -

It's a great concept for a brand new item of software or service that you're sure of developing however, is the marketplace truly ready for your new idea? Whether you're an emerging startup or a well-established business, finding product-market fit is an excellent indicator of the potential success of your new venture. First coined by Marc Andreessen in 2007 "product-market match" was originally defined as "being within a market that is favorable and having a product which can satisfy that market."

Over the years countless entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and experts in product development have provided their own interpretations for the term, but at its very core product-market fit is all about developing a product that doesn't simply meets the demands of your customers (the market), but does so in a way that is more effective than other alternatives. Dan Olsen, a product management consultant, expands on the subject further within his model; The Lean Product Process, which helps businesses to achieve market fit.

If you're planning to launch an entirely new product, or introduce a new service to an already existing product line, following this 6 step framework will help you determine the feasibility of your idea.

Step #1: Determine Your Target Customer

It is important to realize that while you might not be able to pinpoint the exact target market for your product. is at first, but making a generalized assumption about the people your product is intended to serve is sufficient for this first stage. If you continue to conduct market research and begin to segment your clients, you could discover that your original hypothesis could alter.

Establishing clear buyer personas to define your clients adds a human element to your design and helps your product team have greater insight into whom you're creating the product or service for. The most important things to include within your personas are demographics, behavior patterns as well as motivations and goals. The goal is to provide as complete a description as possible since these fictional personas will serve as a representation of the real users who will end up with your products.

Step 2: Recognizing the needs of your clients

When you've identified the core group of people you'd like to sell your product to then the next thing to do is to identify their wants. No matter what you're calling it, pain points or customer needs in the end, the basic principle is similar, and the effectiveness of your product's success in the marketplace will be determined by your ability to satisfy the unmet needs of your target customers.

Step #3 Step #3: Decide Your Value Proposition

The discussion has already covered what your product's value proposition will be evaluated against current market rivals. A clearly defined value proposition makes your product stand out against other offerings by outlining exactly the way your product will meet customers needs better than other products.

You may uncover a handful of needs that customers aren't being addressed in the conversations you have with your prospective clients, however it might not be possible to go to tackle the whole range of requirements. The value prop provides direction to your strategy for product development by making it mandatory to select an appropriate set of issues to tackle. What will you do to make your product perform better in satisfying these requirements compared to the competition? What are the unique benefits you offer in order to enhance the value of your product and please clients? Why should customers choose the products you offer over those of your competitors?

Step 4: Provide the Core Specifications for Your Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

The aim of this stage is to repeat the process until you've got the Minimum Viable Product your customers agree is viable. The ability to clearly define the features for customers to see can help determine what essential functionality your customers value and acts as a safeguard against investing considerable time into developing a product that your target clients don't want or prefer.

Through the process, you might be able to discover:

• Customers really appreciate an important piece of functionality which is currently not present from your MVP.
• You've added an additional function in your MVP which your clients don't specifically use.

Step #5: Build the MVP Prototype

Do not be frightened by the term "prototype! The Minimum Viable Product you create doesn't require a complete product, as product fidelity and interactivity will be different for each business plan.

Your MVP prototype will act as the representation of your completed product, without the need to build a complete product. The MVP prototype exists to help evaluate your ideas by giving users an alternate version of the product they are able to use and give comments on.

A good example is having a mock-up of an application's user interface (like a wireframe) is as feasible as creating the app in itself. At the end of the day the goal is to stay slim so that we are able to adapt to feedback received from our customers. It's inefficient to invest considerable time and effort into building an end-to-end product when it's necessary to dramatically alter the product or pivot down the path.

Step #6: Get Your MVP In front of your customers

When you're pleased with the initial version of your MVP It's now time to test it with your target clients. Integrity of data is crucial in this final step since your feedback can be crucial in shaping the direction of your product.

In the beginning, you'll want to only elicit feedback from people who meet the requirements of your target customers. If you're not cautious, you may end up re-inventing your product in a wrong direction to meet customer needs that might not necessarily be in the marketplace for your product. For this reason, you should consider creating a questionnaire or survey to be certain you're finding people who fit your ideal customer persona.

The actual test of your MVP in the hands of your clients should include a range of quantitative and qualitative questions. The more open-ended nature of questions is better to get feedback from customers as opposed to questions that are quickly answered by an "yes" or "no" response. Of course, you should take care to ensure that you're not asking leading questions because they could cause users to respond with a certain response.

When you are finished with each test, be sure to review both negative and positive feedback you are receiving and be aware of any patterns in the responses and behavior of the users who used your service or product.

Reflections, Pivots, and Iterations

The process of achieving the right product-market fit is a continuous procedure. There is a chance that the initial beliefs you had about your product, the potential market, or the customers you want to target be the same after every iteration of your Lean Product Process. As long as you stay persistent and receptive to feedback from your market, you're in the right direction to developing a product with great market opportunities.

After you've established the software or service is a good quality-market fit, then the next logical step is to figure out a viable go-to-market strategy and get your offering in front to as many potential customers as possible. 's ecommerce platform is designed to support a full spectrum of online products and distribution models, and has been able to help hundreds of companies to monetize their product offerings.