What is Product Discovery and Why

It Should Come Before the MVP

deirdre clarke

One of the most important jobs as a product manager when launching a

new product is knowing when you are on the right track. With so much
emphasis on building an MVP and “The Lean Startup”, one would think it
would be as easy as building a simplified demo version of an idea and
then talking to customers to see if they like it, and more importantly, if
they will buy it.
But hold on a sec. Before we waste our time on building anything,
shouldn’t we first validate that a market even exists for it? How do we
ensure that our future customers will be so excited, that they can’t wait
to get their hands on it? How do we test out our theory that this is a good
idea? That, my friends, is product discovery.

This year, Silicon Valley Product Group visited our Bandwidth office to
provide an in depth session on “How to Create Products Customers Will
Love”. There were a ton of valuable lessons that I learned in those 2 days
but the biggest take away for me was taking a step back, before building
the MVP, and instead iterating through a product discovery process.
During this phase, it is purely about validating that the problem we are
trying to solve, really is a pain point and that the solution we are thinking
about is one in which our customers would be willing to pay for.

Let’s talk through an example of how this would apply to a new idea in
the B2B world. The background is that employees in offices
communicate on their desk and mobile phones every day as part of their
daily job. They communicate internally with their co-workers, as well as
externally with customers. The product hypothesis is that those
employees want an easy way to have a conversation, no matter where
they are or which phone they are on. So how do I go about performing
product discovery for this?

Create slides to facilitate a discussion — Sure, I could just start talking

to people but guiding a discussion with visuals works best as it helps
frame that we both are “seeing” and talking about the same concept.

Detail a list of questions — The purpose of these questions is to gauge

how much pain they are suffering with in their current process. Have
employees complained about having multiple phone numbers (desk and
cell)? Would they prefer to have the ability to send text and picture
messages too? Would they prefer to be more mobile and have the same
conversation on either phone? Would they prefer to use one app to
control all of their phones? All of these types of questions will get to the
crux of how big of a problem it is and if I am headed in the right direction.
Determine the market segments and potential customers — Before I
can ask those questions, I have to know who to talk to! So if the problem I
am trying to solve revolves around employees using work desk phones,
then my target segment is businesses that sell office phone systems. I
then need to create a list of companies who meet that criteria and that
list becomes the top of my funnel.

Choose which people in those companies to talk to — I usually start

with fellow product management people first. Why? Mostly because they
are in the same boat as me and understand the criticality of bouncing
ideas off each other. They are also the ones who want to make their
product user experience better. However, sometimes it makes more
sense to talk to the person dealing with the pain each day, in this case,
perhaps customer support.
Start reaching out by asking for advice — I always start the
conversation or email by asking for their guidance and advice, because
that is essentially what I am doing. Personally, I know for myself, that if I
am being asked for my opinion vs. trying to “be sold” on something, I am
much more willing to have the discussion. This step in the process is
sometimes the hardest part because you need a thick skin and can’t let
rejection rattle you. There will be lots of ignored calls and emails, but if I
am stumbling on a big pain point and am not too pushy about it, people
will talk openly to me about it.

Listen! Ok, so this one needed a big ‘ol exclamation point because it is so
true. Really pay attention to what they are saying during our discussion.
Do they seem to relate to the questions and wholeheartedly start telling
me, yes indeed, employees want a better way to communicate than just
talking on their desk phone? Do they start asking what my new app is
and how it will work? Do they get excited? If so, then Boom. Game on. If
not, then I have to start thinking of how to make the necessary pivots so
that I can get that kind of reaction.
So, I made it all the way through. I have pretty much successfully
validated that there really is a problem that my product can solve, and
that there is a market for it. Bingo. So am I poised for product stardom?

Maybe.

Seriously? Why not yes? Didn’t I just prove that my idea solves a
problem? Yes, but now I must prove that my view of the solution will be a
hit as well.

It is now time to move on to building the MVP, the minimal viable product.
It is the simplest form of my proven hypothesis and a version of the
solution. For me, it might be an app that simply allows me to add my desk
and mobile work phones and have a conversation start on one and end
on the other. I now have to prove that this simplified version of how to
solve the problem is going to be the beginnings of an awesome product
— the golden ticket to their happiness and one that they will love and
buy.

This blog is the first in a series of blogs that I will be writing around “How
to Launch a New Product.” In future blogs I will be talking about iterating
on an MVP, beta testing, creating the right product marketing materials,
educating and empowering internal teams, declaring official “product”,
and scaling & growth. In the meantime, I can’t wait to hear your thoughts
on product discovery. Cheers.