There are 5 crucial questions (and a bonus question) to get to a great product, and it actually has been the fundamental and essential questions that most of us were taught in grade school:
Who, What, Where, When, Why, How
Why?
Why should the user be interested in your product?
Pro Tip: This should not be a list of features. This should be a story.
Inward: Why did you build the product or company? If you answer to make a lot of money –I encourage you to dig deeper and ask “why”? Usually it is because you believe that there is something much deeper that your relationship with money is just an indicator. It could be that you grew up poor and money meant security, and creating that sense of security for other people. But keep asking “why” until you scratch to the core value that is driving it.
“What?”
What do you want people to feel?
This will allow companies to design for motivations rather than a list of features. It will put your product in context. While conventional wisdom tells you to solve a problem. Not all products solve a problem (e.g. entertainment), but ALL products make you feel something (rage, relief, stress, anger, etc..). And that emotional connection and feeling can supersede much more. In fact, an emotional connection is needed to create loyalty.
Inward: What are the core motivations that drive (you) the company? The challenge of solving a problem, the meaning you can derive or the accomplishment you can achieve when the problem is solved?
“How?”
Outward and Inward:
How is your product different?
I remember when we had just started out in social gaming on Facebook, the question was asked how do I prevent someone from stealing my game and doing the same exact thing but better. I answered they can copy the interface, game loops, and systems, but they cannot copy the process or creative minds that created them.
Other people can only see the surface which is everything that can be copied. But, underneath the designer was building towards a vision. Otherwise it is just a product that is an imposter, and has a very little life span unless they start innovating.
The difference isn’t just what the user can see, it is what they can feel. The users see the features, but feel the process it took to make this product.
“Who?”
Who wants this?
This step is the most crucial and cannot be avoided. Most products and companies ultimately fail because the team could not build something that someone (or many people wanted). Answering the why and the what digs at a vision to either enable you to introduce your product and put a foundation to your company.
You cannot rely on the market to tell you who you are but you must rely on the market to tell you how you did.
I had a friend who created a game once and a fellow game designer asked him what is the vision. My friend answered “well we will test it and see what people like and then tweak it”. That is a surefire way to create an imposter game — it will look like a game, walk like a game, talk like a game but really isn’t a game.
When validating, always in the background be aware of the want/desire and motivation behind the action or metric. But, the most important piece of this process is learning. In fact, that is the whole goal is to learn as quickly as possible. Learning is not just book learning but also building intuition which takes time. Then repeat as often as possible.
The most inspiring story about validating and learning is from founder and CEO Miriam Naficy of Minted. When she first released her website, it was crickets. The metrics were horrible, just horrible. But they saw a small flicker of a flame in the product — very small. They decided to tend to this flame and grow it and grow it until it is what it is today.
Check out the video which is so much more inspiring.
https://techcrunch.com/video/fail-story-minteds-mariam-naficy-on-being-trashed-by-the-press/
And,now they have their own storefront in San Francisco:
“When?” and “Where?”
There are thousands of amazing products out there, but if no one discovers your product, does it exist?
Your product will exist, but it will be as if your product had never existed.
The when and where questions focus on the marketing and distribution portion of your product. When are you going to launch it? Where are you going to launch it? (phone, social media, radio, tv?) Where are you going to acquire users? These will all impact your ability for your product to be discovered and in essence if your product will exist. Without the focus on marketing, it will be as if your product never had existed.
Focusing on these 5 questions will prevent your product and company from becoming just another forgotten product — and really stand out.
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I am the co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Kabam, these perspectives are my own and do not necessarily represent Kabam.
