we\u2019re not growing as rapidly as we could be.<\/em><\/p>\nQuite simply, the more products we make, the more people we appeal to, the more we have to sell and the more revenue we generate.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not complicated!<\/p>\n
Historically though, developing products quickly hasn\u2019t been my strong point. Part of the reason is that I\u2019m currently still the person who does all the briefs and testing, obviously that\u2019s going to have to change but\u2026<\/p>\n
…we\u2019ve put a process into practice that\u2019s massively increased the speed of generation.<\/p>\n
In the last month alone we\u2019ve developed two major products, a huge feature upgrade for an existing product as well as a load of bug fixes.<\/p>\n
And that’s with just me being the primary contact for all development.<\/p>\n
Imagine how much we\u2019ll be creating when it\u2019s someone else!<\/p>\n
Now it just so happens that a lot of our products are software based, but this process will work for any type of product.<\/strong><\/p>\nSo what is the process for developing products super-fast?<\/p>\n
Well the first step is to take your idea and strip everything away. And I mean everything.<\/p>\n
Ideas are great, but they\u2019re filled with a load of \u201cstuff\u201d that simply takes up time and space.<\/p>\n
You need to get rid of it.<\/strong><\/p>\nTake the first idea on your list and ask yourself:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat problem is this product going to solve?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nOnce you\u2019ve got that answer take your idea and distill it down to the one core benefit<\/strong> that is going to solve that issue\u2026 remove everything else.<\/p>\nYou should be able to write the sentence…<\/p>\n
\u201cUSER wants to use FEATURE in order to solve PROBLEM\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nReplace the words USER with your perfect customer, FEATURE with the single feature that you\u2019ve distilled your product down to and PROBLEM with the issue that it\u2019s going to solve.<\/p>\n
If you can\u2019t complete this as a single sentence then you\u2019re idea hasn\u2019t been distilled down enough.<\/strong><\/p>\nOnce you\u2019ve written this sentence you now have the perfect product to build\u2026 you have the bare minimum that\u2019s required to create something that\u2019s going to solve one of the issues that your prospective customers have.<\/p>\n
Anything that you make should be able to be put into this sentence whether it\u2019s a new product or new feature for an existing product.<\/p>\n
And the reason is\u2026<\/p>\n
You\u2019re reducing your development time to the shortest possible by shrinking your idea to the MVP (Minimum Viable Product).<\/em><\/p>\nConsider this stage of your development the testing phase. You can add more features later if you want to, but you may find that you actually don\u2019t need to.<\/p>\n
Creating an MVP will enable you to release your product for a lot less in a lot less time than if you were trying to build out your entire idea.<\/p>\n
If you release your product for a lot less, both in cost and time, then you’re going to find out much faster if it\u2019s actually going to be popular.<\/p>\n
If it is then great, you can take the feedback and add new features that your users are actually requesting instead of guessing what they may want.<\/p>\n
If it isn\u2019t as popular as you hoped, then you can ask both your customers and those who didn\u2019t purchase what they don\u2019t like about it and adjust it rapidly to make it into what they actually want.<\/p>\n
What it becomes is a living development\u2026<\/strong> it becomes a concept that\u2019s being tested but can be changed quickly and easily (using the same process) if it\u2019s not quite right first time.<\/p>\nAnd let\u2019s be honest, most products aren\u2019t quite right on their first release!<\/em><\/p>\nBy breaking your idea down in this way you\u2019ll also find that one idea may be able to be split up into three or more MVP\u2019s, each one solving a different problem.<\/p>\n
If each one solves a different problem but are related, then they\u2019re the perfect upsells<\/strong> to your primary offer.<\/p>\nUsing each MVP as small individual products instead of one big product will also generate you greater revenue and solve the question of what upsells you should put with them.<\/p>\n
Once you start doing this you\u2019re going to find that you\u2019re able to triple or quadruple the speed with which you make products. The emphasis goes from trying to create the perfect product, which may actually not be perfect for your customers, to try and solve a problem as quickly as possible and then adjusting the product based on feedback from your customers.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll almost certainly find that you\u2019re making products so fast you need a way to manage their development, and I\u2019ll share with you the software and process I use for this in my next post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve got to admit it, I can be a bit slow on the development of new products. Far slower than I am at coming up with the ideas.\r\n\r\nWe use Evernote to keep track of all our product ideas, and the list grows much faster than we are building them.\r\n\r\nAnd that means\u2026 we\u2019re not growing as rapidly as we could be.\r\n\r\nQuite simply, the more products we make, the more people we appeal to, the more we have to sell and the more revenue we generate.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s not complicated!\r\n\r\nHistorically though, developing products quickly hasn\u2019t been my strong point. Part of the reason is that I\u2019m currently still the person who does all the briefs and testing, obviously that\u2019s going to have to change but\u2026\r\n\r\n…we\u2019ve put a process into practice that\u2019s massively increased the speed of generation.","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,52],"tags":[],"location":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelwilding.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelwilding.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelwilding.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelwilding.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelwilding.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelwilding.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelwilding.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelwilding.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelwilding.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelwilding.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelwilding.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}