If you’re a startup and want to develop a product that customers love, make sure it caters to your target market and can solve their problems or pain points.
Sometimes, entrepreneurs get so engaged in making an all-features-enriched product that they forget its purpose. It’s not correct. You need to take time before you start working on building a product that resonates well with the end users. From conception to creation, a focused approach is the key.
Many times, startups go on to build a product without taking into consideration the actual pain points of the target audience. By doing so, startups fail to garner the love and support critical for their long-term success and stability.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on building a beloved product for your startup that customers will love
Develop A Prototype
The first stage of creating a startup’s product is developing a prototype. It means you have got the basic structure of the product ready.
In the next stage, you need to get in touch with people and take their opinion. You should test the product and examine if the product features or utilities are in sync with the demand of your customers.
Product testing can be difficult at times, but it helps you know if the product has any shortcomings and get the same rectified then and there.
There is no rule regarding how many prototype or model products you should develop before rolling out your final product, but some startups build at least 10-15 different prototypes before zeroing in on their actual product and getting it launched.
Take Interviews with Your Potential Customers
The journey of a product that users love is not easy. You should reach out to your potential end-users first. Then, ask them questions relating to features they want regarding the product you’re developing, along with their expectations about the same.
Stay in Touch with Users
Once you launch the product, you still need to stay in touch with your target audience. For any startup, staying in touch with its target audience is not always possible. However, you can use social media, email marketing, or personal mail to stay connected with them.
Occasionally, you can launch your surveys to receive useful suggestions and negative feedback from customers. Keep a tab on all negative comments and complaints from users to improve the quality of the product you’re currently working on.
Excellent Customer Support Services
Your target audience will love your product more when they get exceptional customer support services. If you are a startup and wish to create a world-class product, you have to improve your customer support services, too.
Don’t forget that once your product is sold, your next goal is to create an effective after-sale service strategy through which you can assist your customers whenever they require the same.
Keep Customers at the Centerstage
When you are creating a product, you need to make sure that you keep the customer on focus at every stage. Startups create great products when they exactly know what they are building and why.
This ‘why’ can mostly relate to the pain points of customers. Through your product, you need to ensure that your customers feel privileged and happy.
Initially, you may be tempted to do a lot of things, but don’t forget that simplicity is the key. When your product is simple but effective, it can soon become their favourite.
But if you try to do too many things in no time, it can lead to a complete disaster.
For instance, take the case of Dropbox. It offers a simple file-sharing process that helps you store and share files online while working collaboratively on any project. It has become indispensable to people who need to share files with other team members while working on the same project.
How Can Creating Popular Products Help Brands
- If your product is innovative, it will grab maximum attention.
- A great product will become synonymous with your brand.
- It can help improve your ROI and profits.
- If your products are great, your employees would love to work with you.
- A great product helps you get customer delight, it refers to the feeling that customers get when they’ll use your product and feel happy about it.
- Your product addresses customers’ pain points while being an active solution to the same.
In Conclusion
Customers love great products that address their pain points. However, building a great product on the first attempt is not easy. You should know that first ideas don’t work most of the time.
Even the great scientist Thomas Alva Edison once said that when his 1000 experiments had yielded no significant results, he didn’t consider it a failure. Instead, he viewed them as ways to discover 1000 ways that the light bulb couldn’t be invented.
The same goes for every startup. Here, motivation and innovation are the key. Startups need to understand the problem first, otherwise, they can’t work on finding out its solutions.
It may take some time to develop a beloved product, but if you successfully go outside your comfort zone and do it, you’ll soon get a pool of loyal and dedicated customers.