Cementing your Research Focus with Zero-To-One Products

Building a feature or an entirely new product line which could drive revenue, engagement AND create a compelling competitive moat is something every consumer-tech firm dreams of, but very few actually deliver on with their users. 

Why?

A key reason for this, in my experience from a Business perspective and later in my career Insights Lead while designing 0 to 1 products in India, is the negligible focus on research through the new product development journey.

Why is focus on Research in building new products so poor?

The initial reaction probably is,

1. I don’t have time or budget for research.
2. I don’t have the patience for research.
3. I understand my customer’s well enough already. Research is not going to tell me anything new!
4. I’ve never gotten anything actionable with research before
5. We’ll learn way more by launching and iterating, than spending time on research!

We all know that “Ideas are cheap, execution is everything”

In the quest for Innovation, logical assumptions are made, numerous ideas are listed out, prioritisation exercises follow in order to launch quick MVPs - but without structured user and market research you risk the product from falling flat with your users. E.g. Google Glass where there was a huge disconnect between the user and the product leading to millions of dollars lost.

What are the research interventions that Insights & product stakeholders should be cognizant of for new product offerings?

Let’s start at the very beginning.

1. Strengthen your Problem statement through Secondary Research : Inspiration rarely come from tracking established trends. Go one step back to follow emerging user behavior trends in the market & interesting startups in your sector, or what users have been asking for from your organization on social media or through anecdotes. This to help crystallize your initial problem statement and hypothesis.
2. Define your initial audience in detail: Cannot stress this step enough. Having a specific definition for the audience you want to understand first, can greatly help with focussing all your research through this cycle. The number of times a product managers will speak of x working well with a certain audience, while the core audience is completely different is not funny! Different audiences will have different demographics, needs and interpretations which can confuse the solution.
3. Leverage existing user data: Creative analytics & tinkering with data can throw up some interesting patterns and hypothesis to test even with unmet user needs, and also help define your audience better.
4. Use ‘Design Research’ methodologies to understand your user: Building an agile ‘Design research’ approach, with clear hypothesis which aims to discover unmet user needs and pain points should be preferred in early stage product research. Due to it’s exploratory nature, centering the research around your user their needs, and their context can lead to a very targeted understanding
5. Add a layer of Competitor research: To truly stand out, It is crucial to understand what you are possibly competing with, and to understand whether the identified needs have existing or tangential solutions that they already use. Understanding how satisfied they are with these solutions, and assessing these solutions should play a key role in your final opportunity design
6. Synthesize all the Research from User, Data, Competition and Market together into clear principles. Having a holistic view of Insights helps design product principles in a much clearer fashion, while using tools like JTBD and ‘How Might We’s can give you a clear view of what users need within a certain context and what the gaps to solve for could be.
7. Brainstorm on opportunities collectively as a Team : Seems obvious enough, but does tend to happen in siloes in real situations. Research and Insights teams can provide the guardrails and principles within which to operate, and should be an integral part of all discussions with Product and Business stakeholders while designing the final product to be taken forward for prototyping.

Too often, in the enthusiasm to take move the process along, does the research get disregarded or forgotten leading to unsatisfactory user solutions at the end of it all!

A few things to remember during this process

Going straight to a solution before synthesis is comforting, but should be avoided at all costs. Do not jump into solution space without understanding the core user centred principles to design the product with. Be okay with the ambiguity, especially in the beginning of research.

Get cross-functional stakeholders to participate in the research right from the beginning to ensure that everyone has skin in the game. From giving inputs on the brief and objective to sitting in on a few interviews. This step can often be overlooked as well, but is so important for everyone to get aligned on from day one.

Be particular about biases in research design. Some Insights professionals overlook the biases that can creep in with recruitment, the research guide and other aspects of analysis as well. This is the single biggest threat to good research and being able to gain the confidence of your stakeholders.

Be particular about one’s own biases! While it is easy to make unfounded assumptions based on a bias or prior knowledge or expectations,

And Voila! There you have it. So while failing is a part of the process, strong focus on research and learnings at every stage helps increase the probability of building a successful product to a much higher degree with reduced time and cost. So why wouldn’t you?