5 Lessons to Follow as You Take Your Product to Market

The following excerpt is from Scott Duffy's book Breakthrough. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | IndieBound

When launching a new business, product, or service, the most common mistake entrepreneurs make is trying to do too many things at once in the belief that going to market with "more" is better.

It isn't. During your initial launch period, or when relaunching new products or services, "more" means additional risk. More also means unnecessary complexity, as well as additional time to market, so more capital will be required.

Below are some important things to remember as you prepare to take your product to market:

1. Don't try to build Rome in a day

I have a good friend who raised $2 million in a very tough market to start a consumer internet business. Finding that much money to start a new business was amazing, and I congratulated him on a big win. He was ecstatic and told me he couldn't wait to get to work on the site.

One year later, I ran into him again and asked how it was going. He sang the blues. He said he was doing terribly. In fact, he was on his way to his attorney's office to shut the company down. They had launched a few months before but had already run out of money. I asked how that was possible, and he talked about his big vision, how his company aimed to provide everything their target customer could possibly want to buy in the category. Their goal was to be a one-stop shop. He and his team invested all their time and money building something big and comprehensive, confident their target customer wouldn't want to go anywhere else once their website was up and running.

When the company got started, they were solving one problem for one target customer. It was a simple concept. But when the money came in, everyone started working on other "great ideas" and "shiny objects." They kept building and building and building. They went from solving one problem for one very specific target customer to building a one-stop shop that did a lot of things for a lot of different people. Then they started running low on cash, so they decided to push the product out.

After the launch, they learned, much to their surprise, that about 95 percent of their users used just 5 percent of the site! And that 5 percent was the original product to solve the original problem.

So that means 95 percent of the time and money invested was essentially wasted. What can you learn from this?

2. Focus on one thing, the simplest thing

When kicking off a new product or service, put all your energy and focus into that product or service. Focus on one thing at a time. It shouldn't be the hardest thing; it should be the simplest, what we'll call the minimum viable product (MVP). The MVP provides the opportunity to learn the most about your customers, with the least amount of time, money and effort. The MVP puts you in a position to go to market quickly, collect valuable feedback and not waste time building things customers don't want. This strategy significantly mitigates your risk and helps avoid the trap my friend fell into. Remember, Amazon started just as an online bookseller.

3. Follow the 85-percent rule: Good is good enough

Striving for perfection is the enemy of any product launch. As a rule of thumb, when the new business or product is 85 percent of the way there, you're ready to go. In my experience, the level of effort required to reach 100 percent isn't worth the additional time and expense at this stage. You'd be much better off getting something into the market and beginning to test.

4. Be great at collecting, and learning from, feedback

Once you've launched, listen to and learn from your users. Develop feedback loops to learn everything you possibly can. What do users like and dislike about the product or service? What features would they like to see added to enhance their experience? Which features don't work or generate little interest? Do whatever you have to do to engage with your users. That may include offering incentives to get feedback on surveys or in focus groups, reaching out on social media, or generating outbound calls to learn more.

The hardest part of this process for many entrepreneurs is to be completely receptive to what customers tell you. Given your passion and all the time you've spent on the project, you may not want to hear negative feedback. You may be inclined to think the customer just doesn't get it. But feedback is the most valuable tool you have as an entrepreneur. So listen, consider, and use what you learn to iterate, improve, or even throw out some of what you have built or planned.

5. Avoid the shiny ball syndrome

As you start developing your MVP, you must fight "feature creep" at every step. You, your team, partners, and everyone else you share your vision with will have ideas about what should be added. While many of them will sound good at the time, they are instead shiny objects that distract you. Your job is to stay focused on one thing, get it to market and then deliver the next thing. By focusing on one thing at a time, you can get to market quickly, learn a great deal about your product or service from actual customers and make changes based on their feedback And if your launch doesn't fly, you have significantly mitigated your risk.