Product Development: Balancing The Possible And The Impossible

Is it feasible? Is it visionary? Can it be both?

In creating a new product, a founder has to grapple with the challenge: make something that no one has ever seen, or make something familiar into something better.  The best new products balance the possible and the impossible.  If the product is too “possible”, chances are the customer won’t appreciate it, and it if the product is too “impossible”, the hurdles for adoption may be too high.

In addition, some decisions that founders must make when creating a new product:

1. Identify the customer pain point and opportunity
2. Validate the idea with customers and strategy
3. Identify how the product will be built
4. Test and build the new product
5. Launch

It doesn’t matter if the entrepreneur is creating something brand new or improving upon something old, the new product has to be enough to move customers from what they are currently using. Many experts say adoption of new product requires it to be 10x better than the status quo.

Did you launch a new product? Was it closer to possible or closer to impossible?

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