20 questions before you build a product.

Unearthing a product’s why, what, how, and how well.

Photo by Freddy Kearney on Unsplash.

“We want that.”
“How do we get that?”

The moment a customer says that they want a product, I get a rush. The adventure begins. It’s time to create. It’s time to go to work. I love the feeling of not knowing what I don’t know yet. I love the uncertainty of what I am going to find. I love that I am going to be surprised along the way. I love that I am going to learn.

I love the digging of product discovery.

I love digging with my Twenty Questions.

The First Five (Product Value).

1. Goal. What is the single over-arching goal of the product? Just one goal, no fluff, no hyperbole.
2. Need. What need is there for the product? What problem does it solve? If it does not solve a problem, does it address a real need? Or, does it provide joy in a specific way?
3. Users. Who is it for? Who will care about the product? Whom are we imagining using this product?
4. User Value. What value should the product provide to these users? How do we imagine our users benefiting from the product, enjoying the product, or loving the product in a tangible way?
5. Business Value. Products exist because business get behind them. Ultimately, a product also needs to provide tangible value to the business. Many products get sunset when the business sees no value in them. So, let’s answer this. What value will the product provide to the business? How will the business benefit from it?

The Middle Ten (Product Requirements).

1. Functionality. What are the core features of the product? How should it work? What will the product do? How will the user use the product?
2. User interface. How should the product look? How will the user perceive the product? How will the user interface with the product?
3. Performance. How should the product perform for the user? How quickly should it respond? How will the user perceive the performance of the product?
4. Must-haves. What is cake? What are the high-priority features of the product? What are the absolute must-have features of the product that should come first?
5. Nice-to-haves. What is frosting? What are the medium-priority or low-priority features of the product? What are the non-essential features of the product that can come after the cake has been baked?
6. Segmentation. What types of users do we see using the product? Are there multiple types of users? Should the product behave the same for all types of users? Should it behave differently for different types of users, based on the time of day, the location of the user, etc.?
7. Personalization. How does the product individualize itself for a specific user? What can a user customize, or override? How can the user make the product their own?
8. Scale. How will the product handle the trappings of success, which are lots of users and loads of traffic?cHow can the product be built to handle a large number of users, and withstand the onslaught of significant spikes in traffic?
9. Reliability. How will the product operate with minimal downtime, and how will the product be built to be available to the user at all times? How can we have enough redundancy so that the product never keels over?
10. Privacy and Security. How will the product maintain user privacy, and make privacy settings explicit to the user? How will the product have adequate security measures?

The Final Five (Product Measurement).

1. Metrics. What should we measure about the product? How can we monitor the health of the product on an ongoing basis? What are the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the product? How will we measure the user value that we set out to achieve, at the beginning?
2. Success. What is the single metric that will define the success of the product? Just one metric, mind.
3. ROI. How will we measure the product’s return-on-investment? How we will measure the business value? How is it built in from day one? How will we measure the business value that we set out to achieve, at the beginning?
4. User acquisition. What is the plan for the product to gain more users? What is the plan to increase user adoption of the product?
5. Stickiness. How does the product retain users, and create repeat usage? What is the plan to keep users finding value in the product beyond the first touch, and finding repeat value over days, weeks, months, and years?

So, where do we fit in product evolution, upgrades, marketing, user feedback, A/B testing, and more? I’ll save those for future questions.

What matters to me most at product inception are the core Twenty Questions around the product’s why, what, how, and how well. I like to focus my attention and everyone’s attention around that first critical version of the product.

These Twenty Questions educate me. They help me take the, “I want it,” from the customer onto paper, into reality, in a way that I can start to see the image of the product emerge in my mind. The product feels real, it feels possible.

These Twenty Questions have never failed me so far.

They get me asking, listening, and learning, before I start building.