Don’t waste your time building the “commodity stuff”
What should I build first? That’s one of the most frequent questions when starting to build a product from scratch, especially when you are working with a small team. However, this article will not answer what you should build first, but what you should not.
Let’s make some assumptions to make our lives simpler. I am assuming that what you are trying to build will be operating in a mature market. This means that there is competition, complementary products, SaaS specifically designed to cover some of your needs. In a nutshell, the market you are trying to penetrate consists of people that are doing something similar or related to what you are trying to create prior to you. Of course, what you are hoping for is to dominate this market.
So, you’ve done your market research, explored your competitors and have seen an opportunity. You have spec’ed your MVP or the fully fledged solution and you have created your execution plan. What should this plan not contain? All the commodity stuff that you can avoid. In every single industry, there are specific features or functionalities that are part of every product and work in pretty much the same way. From now on let’s call them the “commodity stuff”. Those features do not offer any added value or a competitive advantage, however the product could not exist without them.
Such an example in ad-tech are targeting capabilities. When an advertiser is choosing a platform, so that they can serve ads to their target audiences (think of Facebook Ads), one basic requirement are the targeting capabilities of that platform. They need to be able to target using specific parameters to define the targeted audience. Such parameters could be country, device operating system, device model and many other. All of the above are pretty basic targeting parameters, that every single advertising platform can support. Supporting the above targeting parameters would not offer any advantage against the competition. At best, it would just bring the product at the same level compared to the competitors. However a platform that would not support them, would most probably struggle against the competition and have serious issues in attracting customers.
Having said that, I am suggesting the following: If there is someone out there that can provide you with the “commodity stuff” (or part of them) that are related with your product for a fair price or even for free, then buy it. Even if you cannot find plug-and-play solutions for some of them reuse whatever you can. Obviously, in order to do that, you have to know very well what you want to build, your current needs and future requirements. This way you can ensure, that the external components that you are intending to use are going to serve you in the long term and help you build a reliable, scalable product. In simple words, don’t bother building the commodity stuff. Replace them, at the degree that is possible (if possible at all). Especially when you are in the early stages of the product, trying to penetrate the market.
Having all the “commodity stuff” scratched out of your roadmap, you now have time and most importantly resources to focus on the value adding features. The features that will make a difference for your clients and not those that can be found in any other solution out there. Your team can now focus on developing all of those functionalities that will be your actual product USPs, give you a competitive advantage and help you differentiate.
Another important benefit is that you can significantly reduce the “time to market”. Product managers, constantly have in mind when trying to design a solution, what is the fastest way to the market. Cutting some “non-adding value” work, could save you some time and give you a head start. By being in the market earlier, you can now benefit from the market feedback that will be acquired earlier as well. As more market knowledge flows in, there is the opportunity to make even more educated decisions regarding the evolution of the product.
We should also not ignore the internal impact of such a move. The team will be working on creating innovative and exciting stuff. Not something that already exists and almost everyone with an average skill set and some industry experience could build. It is a real waste or at the very least not optimal to have really talented people doing that. Of course, we have to accept that in many cases this is something that cannot be avoided.
So, the next time you will decide to build something, make your research first. There may be something out there that can help you save time and work more efficiently on the things that can make a real impact. It is not an easy decision and you have to make your peace with the idea. The first time that I had to make this choice I was very reluctant. I could not easily accept the fact that we will not build such a big part of the product ourselves and most importantly rely on something that someone else has built. It is clearly a matter of trust. But you can resolve it with thorough research, provided that you know very well what you want to build. Make an extensive and in-depth research and ensure that what you are intending to use is reliable and can cover your future needs as well. Having that figured out, it is worth to make this choice.
