I love building products. Truly (hand on heart), obsessed.
And I'm not alone: People who build products typically tend to be severely dedicated to the cause.
While asleep, we dream of the product’s various user flows. When cooking dinner, we're equally stewing over the bug that no one anticipated. While walking our dog, we're unpacking the intricacies of that one feature that will be “the best improvement we’ve ever made”.
We become embroiled in our product, eager to deliver it to our users. This isn't a bad thing; however, we can attribute some (very) common missteps to the passion and haste that characterises a tech startup building environment. Red flags are ignored, important boxes get left unchecked, and mistakes are made. And while you might expect it to be less common among seasoned teams, the truth is, even the most experienced among us can fall victim to these traps.
Of the common mistakes we see product teams make, here are our top five.
If you’re strapped for time, then watch me summarise these points here:
Mistake #1: Insufficient Validation
I’ve spoken about this before, but insufficient validation remains a top mistake.
The minimum you need to validate is more than you think, and here's why: You’re too close to your product.
Your deep understanding of the product and the problem you’re solving makes it difficult to perceive what it’s like for a user encountering your solution for the first time. This cognitive bias is known as The Curse of Knowledge and, as described beautifully in this Harvard Business Review article, is akin to you hearing a melody while your users may hear "bizarre Morse code." With each passing day, the gap widens between you and your customer. The more you progress with your product, the further removed you are from the original, authentic customer experience. Validation—solid, serious validation—reconnects you.
Bear in mind that relying solely on feedback from friends or colleagues is, quite simply, insufficient validation.
Your baseline should always be to engage directly with potential customers through interviews, surveys, and prototype testing. Low-fidelity experiments can provide valuable insights at a fraction of the cost of developing a full-fledged MVP.
For a more detailed guide, check out our team’s go-to list of tried and tested validation experiments.
By validating your idea early on, you can adjust course based on real-world feedback, ensuring that your product addresses genuine market needs.
Mistake #2: Weak Product Strategy
Another big one: clarity in strategy.
At this point, on top of all the validation you’ve been doing, you probably feel like a horse at the racetrack that’s rearing to go. But before you can, you’ve been told to answer seemingly obvious questions like:
- What pain points does your product solve?
- Which market segment will you target initially?
- How does your solution differentiate from competitors?
- What is your go-to-market strategy?
- Have you outlined monetization methods?
These questions might seem simple, but if Mistake #1 has taught us anything, it's that we should question our assumptions and ensure our strategies are well-defined.
You want to start building with an on-paper product strategy that will serve as the guiding hand behind your product’s development. A document that articulates in as much detail as possible your vision, goals, and the roadmap for achieving them.
Two indispensable tools for refining your product strategy are the Value Proposition Canvas and the Business Model Canvas. Prominent startups like Airbnb, Uber, and Spotify have leveraged these canvases to refine their strategies and achieve remarkable success.
Value Proposition Canvas: This tool focuses on understanding the value your product delivers to customers by dissecting their pains, gains, and the solutions available. It's instrumental in crafting a compelling offering that resonates with your target audience.
Business Model Canvas: Complementing the Value Proposition Canvas, this framework provides a comprehensive view of your venture's business model. It covers essential elements such as customer segments, revenue streams, and cost structures, offering a blueprint for sustainable growth.
You can download both the Value Proposition Canvas and Business Model Canvas from Strategyzer’s website.
Mistake #3: Feature Overload
Our team discussed this in a webinar titled Avoiding the Trap of Building Too Much, and its relevance remains as strong today as ever. You can watch the full discussion here:
The temptation to add more features to your MVP can be irresistible. Striving for the optimal feature set can lead to ongoing delays and seriously inflated development costs. Instead, focus on identifying the absolute minimum set of features required to test your core hypotheses.
While this might feel like metaphorical shackles are being wrapped around your product, it’s actually your armour: a shield against a burnt-out runway, disappointing user experiences, and the risk of losing sight of your product's core value proposition. By prioritising essential features, you ensure a streamlined development process, conserve valuable resources, and maintain a laser focus on delivering maximum value to your users.
Mistake #4: Poor Tech Choices
Today, product development means wading through what feels like an infinite number of options for technical development to find the stack to build your product.
There’s a lot to think about, with a lot on the line: opting for uncommon or immature tech stacks can lead to costly rebuilds down the line. On the other hand, having aspirations for an advanced tech stack might be wholly unnecessary at this point of your product journey, exhausting your runway within the initial stretch.
A few tips here:
- Seek mentorship or advisory support to make informed technical decisions early on. One conversation can make the difference.
- Leverage low-code platforms for rapid prototyping and iterative development. Check out this article from our team on the power of low-code tooling, which includes some impressive case studies on ventures who kept it lean and mean.
- Prioritise established technologies with a proven track record in the industry. While cutting-edge technologies may offer enticing features, they often come with increased complexity and risks.
Your tech will form the backbone of your startup and it’s your responsibility to make sure it’ll empower, not hinder, your product’s future.
Mistake #5: Neglecting Analytics and Tracking
Don’t fly blind. Bake analytics into your product from Day 1, and make this a culture within your team.
Underestimating your analytics is similar to overvaluing your assumptions. You simply don’t know what you don’t know, and analytics – much like your validation test results – bring you closer to your user. Understanding their behaviour, identifying their pain points, and tracking key metrics are essential for iteratively improving your product and continually delivering value.
I love this quote from Hilary Mason of Fast Forward Labs: “The core advantage of data is that it tells you something about the world that you didn’t know before”, and uncovering the unknowns about your users – the way they interact with and gain value from your product – should remain an absolute priority, if growth is something you want to achieve.
Wrapping up
We’re all here because we hope to build products that will make a lasting, significant impact. Self-awareness is critical in the process; remain cautious of your own assumptions, biases, and desires. Prioritise the fundamentals: clarity in conceptualisation, rigorous validation, feature prioritisation, and smart tech choices.
Remember, the goal of your product (at least early or MVP stage) isn't perfection—it's learning and iteration. Embrace the process, stay agile, and keep innovating. And if you need a helping hand, reach out to our team. We’ve helped more than 100 startups navigate this terrain, and we’re eager to help you too.
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