Ask Yourself These Smart Questions Before You Develop A Product
What's driving your desire to set up an internet business? Is it to develop your own product? But do you really understand the people in your market and what they will buy? Or are you letting your product come first and your customers second? Before you rush in to develop your own product, it pays to really understand your market and deliver exactly what people are searching for.
The three key market categories are: Everyone, Subcultures & Niches.
Remember, if you try to develop a product that is for everyone then you're not going to succeed.
When products are developed for mass markets they are launched with multi million promotional campaigns to get them off the ground - and the advertising budgets for big brands continues to be huge.
Here are some facts that you must not ignore… It takes 3,000 ideas to come up with 1 successful product for large multinational organisations.
That's pretty frightening! For every 3,000 ideas, only 100 will make it to the next stage of an exploratory project.
From those 100 only 10 will make it the next phase where a well developed business plan and projections are developed and analysed.
From those 10 only 2 will make a fully fledged product and launch… and of those two launches only one will survive.
But even that may not have a long and profitable life.
Now the learnings here are that product development is an expensive business… and even if all the numbers stack up you're still not guaranteed a winning product.
So, with corporate giants who have gazillions available to spend on new product development and advertising struggling what chance have us solo entrepreneurs got? Well, the answer is surprisingly we actually have a very distinct advantage over the big boys as long as you follow a few simple rules: Don't try to develop a product for everyone.
Laser focus in on a subculture or niche.
Listen really carefully to what your market is looking for and then give it to them.
Very simple… but Wallet Bustingly Powerful.
So what do you need to know about your subculture or niche market before developing a product? Here are 10 questions that you should be able to answer before you put pen to paper, finger to the keyboard or switch on the video recorder to make your product.
What keeps them awake at night? What are they mad about? What is their number 1 frustration? What do they secretly want the most? Who are they mad at and why?How do they make their buying decisions? Do they have their own special language and vocabulary? Who else is selling something to them? Who has tried to sell something but failed… why? What is it that you have or know that could be turned into a competitive advantage? If you can answer these questions in real depth then you'll have a good grounding to start your own product development.
Actually, here's an additional tip for you that is worth it's weight in gold.
Question 9 is worth exploring - "Who else has tried to sell something but failed?"… a smart entrepreneur will turn this question round to ask "Who else is selling and winning?" More importantly, they also take this question a step further and establish WHY they're winning.
I've heard some pretty dumb people talk about competitor analysis and doing their homework… but many aren't sophisticated as to how they do this.
They see another entrepreneur or business doing well and think I'll just replicate what they're doing.
But they don't dig deep to understand the unique thread that binds the customer to the product and the entrepreneur.
Worse still, I've seen people replicating marketing tactics that aren't working either.
Product development is no different.
It just doesn't work buying one product, reverse engineering it and building your own.
All the factors I've listed and a few more play their part in successful product design, development and marketing.
The three key market categories are: Everyone, Subcultures & Niches.
Remember, if you try to develop a product that is for everyone then you're not going to succeed.
When products are developed for mass markets they are launched with multi million promotional campaigns to get them off the ground - and the advertising budgets for big brands continues to be huge.
Here are some facts that you must not ignore… It takes 3,000 ideas to come up with 1 successful product for large multinational organisations.
That's pretty frightening! For every 3,000 ideas, only 100 will make it to the next stage of an exploratory project.
From those 100 only 10 will make it the next phase where a well developed business plan and projections are developed and analysed.
From those 10 only 2 will make a fully fledged product and launch… and of those two launches only one will survive.
But even that may not have a long and profitable life.
Now the learnings here are that product development is an expensive business… and even if all the numbers stack up you're still not guaranteed a winning product.
So, with corporate giants who have gazillions available to spend on new product development and advertising struggling what chance have us solo entrepreneurs got? Well, the answer is surprisingly we actually have a very distinct advantage over the big boys as long as you follow a few simple rules: Don't try to develop a product for everyone.
Laser focus in on a subculture or niche.
Listen really carefully to what your market is looking for and then give it to them.
Very simple… but Wallet Bustingly Powerful.
So what do you need to know about your subculture or niche market before developing a product? Here are 10 questions that you should be able to answer before you put pen to paper, finger to the keyboard or switch on the video recorder to make your product.
What keeps them awake at night? What are they mad about? What is their number 1 frustration? What do they secretly want the most? Who are they mad at and why?How do they make their buying decisions? Do they have their own special language and vocabulary? Who else is selling something to them? Who has tried to sell something but failed… why? What is it that you have or know that could be turned into a competitive advantage? If you can answer these questions in real depth then you'll have a good grounding to start your own product development.
Actually, here's an additional tip for you that is worth it's weight in gold.
Question 9 is worth exploring - "Who else has tried to sell something but failed?"… a smart entrepreneur will turn this question round to ask "Who else is selling and winning?" More importantly, they also take this question a step further and establish WHY they're winning.
I've heard some pretty dumb people talk about competitor analysis and doing their homework… but many aren't sophisticated as to how they do this.
They see another entrepreneur or business doing well and think I'll just replicate what they're doing.
But they don't dig deep to understand the unique thread that binds the customer to the product and the entrepreneur.
Worse still, I've seen people replicating marketing tactics that aren't working either.
Product development is no different.
It just doesn't work buying one product, reverse engineering it and building your own.
All the factors I've listed and a few more play their part in successful product design, development and marketing.
