The document discusses essential business skills for startups, emphasizing the importance of identifying product features that solve market problems and delight customers. It advises on validating product ideas through feedback and iteration before full-scale development, and warns against building products that do not address real customer needs. Key steps include understanding market dynamics, establishing buyer personas, and continuously testing concepts with potential users to maximize success chances.

1. Business Skills for Start Ups

2. How to Select Your Initial Product Features
Barry Doctor, Harborlight Partners

3.  What is it?
 What is it NOT?
 How do you know?

5.  Delight customers
 Get lots of them signed up
 Make a lot of $$
 Realize some big vision or change the world

7.  “Maximize chances of success”
◦ Build a great product with enough features that
increase the odds that customers will want it
◦ Problem: no feedback until the end, might be too
late to adjust
 “Release early and often”
◦ Get as much feedback as possible – quick
◦ Problem: run around in circles, chasing what
customers think they want

8.  Avoid building products that nobody wants
 Maximize the learning per dollar spent
 Probably much more minimum than you
think!

9.  Visionary customers can fill in the gaps on
missing features, if the product solves a real
problem
 Allows us to achieve a big vision in small
increments without going in circles
 Requires a commitment to iteration

10. Saeed Khan
http://onproductmanagement.net
One Expert’s Opinion

11. Anther Possible Definition:
Good products for startups to build
Minimum Viable
Crappy products nobody wants to use
products built by companies better
financed than you

12. http://blog.fastmonkeys.com/2014/06/18/minimum-viable-product-your-ultimate-guide-to-mvp-great-examples/

14.  What is the Market Problem that your product
solves?

15.  I just had an idea
 I needed it
 I thought it was cool
 I had this one guy who wanted it

16.  Who has the problem?
 In what industries?
 Identify buyers and users
 What are they using today instead of your
sparkly, glitzy, innovative, never before seen
product?

17.  The simplest solution that someone will pay
for is the MVP

18.  Describe your MVP concept to possible buyers
 Share wireframes or mock-ups
 Gather feedback from possible buyers
 Do NOT build the product… yet

19.  Do you have a solution seeking a problem?

20.  Identify who (buyers & users) has the problem
 Research the target industry
 Talk to potential buyers & users
 Establish your positioning
 Test the concepts

21.  that version of a new product which allows a
team to collect the maximum amount
of validated learning about customers with
the least effort.

22.  It’s like [reference
product in another
category]
 but for [new
application]
The Amazon Kindle
Paperwhite: it’s like
an iPod but for books.

23.  Our <products and services>
help <buyers/users>
who want to <solve a problem>
by <reducing something>
and <increasing something else>
unlike <competing solution>.

24.  because the concept is flawed
 because the solution doesn’t solve the problem
 because the product isn’t yet good enough
 because the market positioning is wrong
 because you’re targeting the wrong customers

26.  Understand the market
 Define the market problem
 Create Detailed Personas – details in ebook at
www.outsideinview.com

27.  Identify the Market Problem first
 Determine the target buyer persona
 Ensure that the solution will solve the
problem AND it is something the target buyer
needs and is willing to pay for
 Mock up/smoke test/alpha test concept
 Collect buyer feedback
 Revise & Iterate…

28.  Smoke test / landing page / AdWords / SEM
 Alpha test / In-product split testing
 Remove some features
 Paper prototypes
 Customer discovery/validation/feedback –
physically do some interviews
◦ Find/create user community
◦ Use Google Hangouts, LinkedIn, Dev communities

30. Barry Doctor
Harborlight Partners
952-240-7399
Barry.doctor@gmail.com
@bdoctor