Product thinking: The criteria for a successful business

The product thinking process is usually a combination of a lot of steps. They include examining different angles of the design aspects, users’ demands, and solutions to users’ problems. Product thinking plays a huge role in specifying the precedence and the requirements in an arranged timeline.

Since product thinking is too much of a huge topic, it causes misconception a lot of time. As we talk about users’ experience, it all comes down to characteristics such as being user-friendly, attractive to the eyes, and simple to use. They may seem important due to their ability to convince potential customers to buy the product. However, they are not the most important criteria.

When talking about product thinking, the ability to solve users’ problems is the most critical factor that defines the success of that product. The function and design of the product come second. They are meant to support users to have a greater experience in using the product. 

The list that you should keep in my when you do product thinking 

To start doing something in detail, you always have to make a list. The same occurs to product thinking which requires you to answer some simple questions. 

• What’s the product?
• Why would someone need this product?
• How will you create this product?

Those 3 questions are the most important materials on your google sheet. They direct you into a clear direction of what you do and why you do it. After answering the important ones, you explore further into the mind of the potential users. There’s a thing that you will always have to remember is that when coming up with a product idea, you have to think about the users first because they determine whether your idea is a success or a tragedy. The list of questions describing your customers including:

• What are the problems that the users are facing?
• How will you solve those problems?
• Who is going to buy your product?
• How can your product help the users solve their problems?

When you have got the main outline, it’s time to focus on the details. To succeed in anything, you have to establish a well-organized plan. This step usually varies depending on the culture of the business. In my case, I usually list them out into 4 different questions including:

• What is the vision of the company when coming up with this idea?
• Is this vision suitable for reality?
• What is the strategy?
• How do you create the product in the most efficient way?

After considering different aspects of the core of the product thinking process, you come to the ending point of the list: The result. It has to meet your expectations because the point of this list is to make sure everything matches what you have in mind. Being able to have full control over what you make is important. The questions for this phase are: 

• What are the goals of the product thinking process?
• What do you want to achieve after creating the product?
• What features are included in the product?
• After possessing your product, will the users be able to solve their problems?

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A clear understanding of the users’ problem

It is necessary to point out that users’ problems are somewhat real and existent. They’re not what you imagine in your head and conclude that those are what your business needs to focus on. Your idea might be true. However, it’s only true less than 5% of the time. Additionally, it makes no sense if you create a product based on your own opinion and you expect people will buy it. From the standpoint of a business, it’s always about understanding what buyers need. To understand their needs, you have to do a lot of things to get closer to what the users think.

User’s problem also means the problem that “a lot” of people are struggling with right now. For example, the situation of education during Covid-19. From a B2B perspective, you have to think of a way to solve that problem because it’s the concern of a lot of people all over the world. Therefore, you will have to do a lot of surveys, observations, and interviews so that you can come up with the right product idea. 

Around 95% of products released fail every year due to their inapplicable characteristics. Therefore, you have to think clearly before deploying your plan. The first step may seem challenging. Nevertheless, once it’s done, the effort pays off. 

The benefit of product thinking 

Product thinking offers great benefits to a company. It helps businesses understand better the market that they’re working in so that they can make better decisions. Most of the time, the biggest challenge is when companies have to make their own decisions without any solid motivation. A business cannot work by saying to each other that I feel like this idea is the right move for us right now to come up with an applicable product. Before a product is released, product thinking has to come into play to support the foundation of the business and its vision. 

Also, not only it helps from the product management perspective but also the users’ experience perspective. The users’ experience usually encourages an increase in sales. If a product has a good-looking theme, cool and convenient features, and attractive design, it can draw more attention from the public. It’s known that customers usually choose to support a product not only because of its application to their problems but also the composition of the product. For example, if an eCommerce website has features that help customers shorten the time looking for the products they need, it’s usually more successful in convincing those customers to come back again. This detail can be seen a lot on the sites of many famous companies such as Nike, Microsoft, Apple, etc. 

Product thinking creates the balance between the product application and users’ experience. It makes everything a lot more organized for a business to be successful and it creates a greater service that keeps the positive customer retention. 

I hope this piece of content will help those who are thinking of introducing a new product idea to the public have a clearer look at what you should do next. Make sure you follow TECHVIFY for more helpful business and technology topics in the future.