What is Product Discovery and why does it matter? TLDR;

What is Product Discovery?

Product Discovery is a process that spans the spectrum of product development from research to development to release. Product Discovery allows us to define, develop, deliver, market, sell and operate products that completely meet our customer's demands and customer needs.

Product discovery should be a critical part of your startup. It's time to leave the disappointing "build, and they will come" world behind.

A successful product discovery process will reveal if the problem is a burning issue for the customer and then uncover the right solution for that burning issue. It should also show what your customer needs are, to what extent they are willing to pay for an answer, how people find out about new products, so that you can design your marketing and sales process accordingly.

The problem is that too many startups blindly follow the herd. Many products are brought to market that fails, and the number one reason for failure is "No Market Need." The following are the top 5 reasons for startup failure from CB insights.

42% of companies cited "No Market Need" as their main reason for failure. Think about that.

How did they imagine this product would be used? Who is the typical customer? What features do customers value? Defining these elements will help make their product more successful.

In any business environment, discovering new opportunities for revenue, cost and time savings, or customer service improvements is an ongoing endeavor. No single discovery will solve all of your business problems or make you successful. To succeed in product management, a professional approach to continuous discovery is critical.

Discovery is the most crucial part of winning in markets. Companies that don't have good discovery practices can't win against competitors with suitable methods. Discovery is one of the easiest things to beat competitors at.

What are the different types of Product discovery?

Since there are two types of product discovery; Generative and Evaluative, productive research helps create the ideas and thoughts behind a product. Still, evaluative research verifies the views of a product.

Generative Research

Generative work, or exploratory work, combines traditional market research techniques with more advanced data analysis and visualization methods. It involves continuously generating new ideas by actively querying a relevant data source and refining hypotheses through iteration.

Evaluative Research

Evaluative research is typically used to evaluate a particular product attribute or behavioral pattern, identify inconsistencies, and suggest new opportunities for improvement. E.g., you've heard from many customers that your product has security issues, and you want to identify them and then decide how to address them.

Product Discovery combines two types of research—Generative and Evaluative—that work hand in hand to ensure you're focused, organized, and clear on topics. Generative research expands your knowledge (breadth), and then evaluative research takes you deeper into specific issues.

Qualitative and Quantitative research both play a vital role in product discovery. Generative design is more qualitative based (i.e., interviews, observations, card sorting), while Evaluative design tends to blend both qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Who should be a part of discovery? And how does it change depending on Product type (B2B, B2C), Stage of the company (Startup vs. Enterprise)?

Product discovery is a cross-disciplinary, collaborative approach to product development.

Product discovery is in the process of defining what the product is and will be. When teams collaborate with their counterparts, it's a time to learn about their particular job roles, gather first-hand knowledge about the product, and help interpret research results in a startup versus a larger enterprise company context.

Depending on the type of product you're building, the team might have different roles. For example, if you're building an application that uses artificial intelligence (AI), it may be helpful to get a data scientist or a machine learning engineer involved. And, of course, if your product requires hardware, you might want to include some domain experts or people who are highly experienced in domains related to your product.

A cross-functional team should be involved in product discovery, but don't make the group too large.

The Product Discovery Platform ensures that critical decision-makers are never a second-hand source of information. The platform enables them to have first-hand knowledge of the product under development to make better decisions.

A key goal of product discovery is to involve the right internal parties, evaluate what was learned, make decisions with consensus, and sustain support for the project. This work makes internal alignment—and ultimately external success—more likely.

This question is not easy to say; compared to the difference between business-to-consumer (B2C) applications and Business-to-business (B2B), B2C applications tend to be more straightforward in terms of use cases they support than those in B2B scenarios, and it can be challenging to get a person from the company to do detailed interviews.

In B2B, you will usually do more qualitative and indirect research than in B2C, where you *should* have more direct access to your customers.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) enables you to streamline your application and promote product and user analytics. However, to understand the "why," it is important to hear directly from users.

How does discovery change for remote Product teams?

We do many things remotely these days, and we're not alone. It is common to see people dialing in from remote offices.

Distributed Teams

I prefer to use the term "distributed" vs. "remote." We live in a distributed world, working collaboratively across geographies and time zones.

Distributed teams still have challenges, have far fewer limitations than they did just 5–10 years ago. The most significant shift, in my opinion, is the cultural shift within companies.

Being "remote" was once considered a short-term project. But the trend towards distributed companies has accelerated this last year rapidly. Now more than half of the teams at Airbnb have fully distributed teams, and leading technology companies have announced their remote workforces (e.g., Amazon, Facebook).

Designers and product managers need detailed data to understand their users better. Screen recording, contextual inquiry, and field research are ways to do it. They use these to refine their design and validate their work.

In-person meetings and discussions are essential to get to know your customers. Not only is it easier to build a relationship that goes beyond professional ties, but it allows you to forge business relationships that last.

Those relationships become incredibly valuable over time and can help accelerate discovery efforts significantly.

What are some strategies that you recommend to overcome the challenges for Product Discovery?

1. The time to conduct discovery

When most people talk about the discovery, they use words like "it's not part of our job description," "we don't have the time," or "we don't see how it helps us." This is unfortunate—especially when you consider that teams that practice agile discovery techniques are much more likely to deliver customer value at a predictable cadence.

That's a cultural problem that needs to be addressed in the company.

A good product-centric company is a learning company. It's about creating a proactive culture that can address market needs and gain a corporate advantage.

One of the most valuable product manager activities is to research to understand a market better. When done effectively, it can lead to many wins for your team.

CEOs and leaders need to understand that discovery is an investment in the future success of the company.

Managers and leaders should support teams to make those investments in discovery for the future benefit of the company.

* Access to customers

In most companies, product teams don't have direct access to customers. They can go through sales or specific roles within sales, but there is often a built-in resistance in general.

Primary concerns are trust in the company, misalignment of product development and sales teams, lack of clarity around product strategy, inadequate product roadmaps,

In addition, Sales reps should consider that customers will not be open to sharing confidential information in the presence of Salespeople.

2. The skills and ability to conduct discovery well

Product discovery is an essential process in companies with product development and product management. Despite the investment in this process, however, a successful outcome is not guaranteed.

Product discovery is about finding unmet needs and new opportunities and leveraging them to benefit your business. Not many are trained in a skill, so you must be intentional and diligent if you want to achieve desired results.

Interviewing people, running surveys, and other iterative methods to discover needs are pretty standard. But finding the right people, asking the right questions, and connecting the right dots to identify specific insights you can act on is an art.

Clients come to us for direction at all levels of their business. It's rare to stumble onto something that's truly obvious and fully fleshed out; signals are like that. We listen, ask questions, and dig deep to unearth opportunities.

The product discovery process is not deterministic work. However, you can't simply follow a prescribed set of steps and expect a positive outcome.

As you can see, a generative research approach requires a great deal of rigor and discipline. There's no simple formula or algorithm to follow, and the data is qualitative.

3. Implementing discovery findings within your company

Endeavor to review the discovery findings with your team to identify any gaps or discrepancies in identifying your buyers' needs. Once this is complete, you should begin reviewing how you will implement the discovered buying triggers into your company's analytical framework.

Product Discovery is an essential step in a well-managed product development process. It can help companies bring new products to market much faster, with less risk, and in a more cost-effective manner.

Culture has always played an enormous role in business, and people have long talked about the importance of having a company culture where innovation is not only possible but celebrated.

Discovery is the basis for innovation, differentiation, and competitive advantage.

I hope you all liked it, we will discuss much more in the next part.