Tech products, whether digital features, products, or services, need to achieve product-market fit if they have any hope of succeeding. This may seem self-evident, but ascertaining whether the product answers a genuine need and will actually be adopted by consumers is the first critical step in growing a company and one that is often – perhaps surprisingly – overlooked.
Coined by renowned investor Marc Andreesen, a company can achieve product-market fit when its target customer base is buying, using, and spreading the word about an offering. But many startups miss the mark. In fact, according to a recent report, out of 101 recently failed startups, 42% of them fell short because their products did not gel with the needs or demands of the market.
It is therefore crucial to anticipate market trends and assemble a strategic product roadmap that not only conforms to the present needs but also adapts to the trends projected to occur over at least the next two to five years.
The Art of Anticipation
Messages in the vein of “Build for tomorrow,” or “Plan for the future” may sound cliché, but they can be, in fact, very useful pieces of advice for entrepreneurs. A key goal any company should strive to achieve is to build a product that customers would want in roughly 5 years’ time. Today’s widely used cloud computing-based offerings, like Google Docs, Office 365, and Dropbox, for example, had been in the works long before they were launched.
The ability to decipher industry trends and accurately predict the trajectory of consumer demands are often the factors that distinguish a company with a long-term vision from those with a great idea applicable only to the here-and-now, but one which may become irrelevant in the foreseeable future.
Attaining product-market fit is a tricky and arduous process that can be helped by creating and executing a roadmap – a game plan that not only fits with your company’s vision but ensures its success in the years ahead. It’s rare to get it right on the first try – there are so many external factors that are impossible to predict until they occur. But the beauty of a good product roadmap is that it can be adjusted as necessary to better fit a dynamic market.
A Bumpy Road to Success
A solid roadmap includes a well-defined strategy for at least five years. This means anticipating customers’ needs sometimes in spite of current market trends, often utilizing analyst predictions and executive vision to gauge future market trends.
While the roadmap can very well take into account both current customer needs and hard to predict market trends, there is no magic ratio between the two – the final look and feel of a given product depends on a lot of variables such as a company’s runway, R&D capacity, current or predicted revenue, and others. Moreover, the “bigger” and more critical your product is to your customers, the smaller margin of error you have for mistakes. From a customer’s perspective, no feature is any less significant than another, no matter how small it may be comparatively.
Three key factors to consider when creating a product roadmap:
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Cultivate internal agreement amongst management, the board, and stakeholders regarding how much and how exactly to spend resources to satisfy current and/or future market trends while adhering to business metrics and the overall company vision.
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Pay attention to the needs of the customer and adjust your product carefully. At one of my prior companies, for example, a group of “super-users” would send our team useful feedback concerning every new feature before we released them. But when innovating your product in any capacity, be sure that those innovations reflect long-term market trends.
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Establish a degree of transparency with your customer base to make them aware of relevant market trends pertaining to your product.
A Delicate Dance
Whether you’re a seasoned CEO or an emerging entrepreneur at a new startup, designing a roadmap to ensure your product is fit for the market is absolutely essential. But staying one step ahead of the market is less a science and more an artform that requires a generous portion of finesse – a finger on the pulse of both current customer demands and fluctuating market tendencies. Achieving that balance is different dance for every organization as they chart the best path for signature products, seamlessly blending current market needs with those of the future.