Step 2/5 of Product Development — Defining The Solution

5 min readNov 26, 2023

As for step 1, we’ve defined a need and target audience like below. You can check my previous article to read details.

Need: One of the challenges in pet care is the need to find a reliable and loving caregiver. Additionally, pet owners may want to track their pets’ daily activities and health status.
Audience: In this scenario, the target audience consists of pet owners, particularly those living in urban areas, having busy schedules, or frequently traveling.

That is the time to define solution

Defining the Solution

The step 1(defining the need and the target audience) and step 2(defining the solution) are interconnected at some point, but in my life I mostly see that people with ideas focus too much on the solution and forget the need and audience with the magic of the solution.

If we proceed by forgetting the definitions of the need and the target audience, the solution will be shaped according to the idea owner’s mind and wrong decisions will be made in the next steps.

I’d like to break the defining the solution step down into sub steps.

Consolidation of Solution Ideas

I write all things that could be a solution to the identified needs. I also include solution suggestions obtained from interviews with the target audience or found online.

You can use a paper, notepad, digital platforms or whatever you like. Some platforms I like to use are Miro, Excalidraw, Google Sheet.

I will use Excalidraw to draw a big picture and categorize them.

Then, all features take a shape that can be grouped at a specific point and form a product. Of course, not every idea needs to be grouped in the same product; grouping these ideas separately can create multiple product alternatives.

I’ve grouped the solution ideas for our sample need. You can see the solution ideas in the drawing below. I’ve used Excalidraw for this step.

Finding Similar Products Solving Same Need

You can think you are the first person finding out the need and find a solution but mostly there are a lot of people working on the same problem.

Usually, you can find so many solutions related to the need after some investigation. If you’ve found similar products, you can be happy because the need really existed and that solutions were developed. You are on the right way!

Don’t forget!

Developing a product is not just about being the first product to offer a solution. It is much more important to develop a better solution or define the right product.

For example; Google is not the first web browser. You can see all the companies and their progress over the years .

As for our solution, I’ve found some similar platforms or services related to concierge service.

Rover: a platform that connects pet owners with caregivers, offering a comprehensive range of services, including walks and in-home care.
Wag: an app that provides pet care services. Users can connect with local caregivers for services such as walks, playtime, or general pet care.
Pawshake: a platform that connects pet owners with local caregivers, offering services for various types of pets, including cats, dogs, and birds.
PetBacker: a platform offering pet care, boarding, and walking services. Users can connect with local caregivers and pet enthusiasts.

Benchmarking

Describing this step as simple and easy wouldn’t be accurate. There is a vast sector conducting market research and offering various solutions.

Here, I’ll explain how I conduct my benchmarking process.

I recommend not only add successful products but also products that address similar needs but have not succeeded or grown to the benchmarking list. The reason for this is to identify the shortcomings of these products and learn from them.

Also, including different products addressing similar needs in different areas can be beneficial.

At this stage, I recommend taking the following actions:

Read user reviews on sales platforms, blog pages, and different sites for each product.
Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the similar products.
Collect data on the number of employees, years in the industry, annual revenue, and active customer base for each product.
Examine the pricing and packages related to the features offered by the products.
Investigate the sales methods and communication styles of the products.

When extracting the results of this research, it helps to determine which features to focus on in the product and specify the criteria for the research.

I usually document the results of my work in a matrix like the one below.

Each row title represents my criteria, and each column shows the products under consideration and the research results for each criterion.
I use bold text or symbols for easy interpretation of this page.

Enrich Features

After benchmarking, it’s crucial to work on what solutions the product should have. All ideas generated before benchmarking may become more or less important after this study. We should add the good features we see in similar products to our own solution consolidation.

Value Propositions

We must clarify what value we will offer to our target audience with our product. This value study will guide us in the subsequent steps of the product.

For example, if we are creating a product that will make a customer feel valued, we can create all our marketing and design around this message.

For our sample, our value propositions can be:

We are planning to create a platform that provides pet owners with reliable and trustworthy caregivers, offering a wide range of services. Focused on the individual needs of your pets, we deliver real-time monitoring and notifications along with emergency services.

Positioning

I can say that this is a result of the studies we have worked on. We determine who our customer is, what their needs are, and how we will provide a solution.

Determining the Product-Customer Channel

After positioning our product, clarifying the channels through which we will introduce the product to the customer is valuable for the next steps of the product development process. At this stage, we can seek answers to the following questions:

What will be your product sales channel? Specifying the sales channel such as web site, via marketplace, face-to-face, referral-based methods is important.

If you want to develop a software application, I suggest you to specify product type too such as web, PC, and mobile applications.

What will be your marketing process? Marketing is one of the most important steps of developing a product. How will your target audience know that the product is available? Determining these methods is valuable for your road map.
How will you provide after-sales process? The sales channel is matters. Similarly, clarifying the needs related to this will be valuable for the product roadmap.

Now, we’ve identified the need, target audience, and solution.

Before starting to work on bringing this product to life, we move on to the next step “Market Research”.

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