Design and Development for Cloud-Based Products

What is the most important factor to measure the success of a product? When a product becomes an integral part of people’s daily lives, you know it has truly achieved success. Some examples; Whatsapp, Uber, Airbnb, and more. When a product creates a positive impact on its user’s life then it becomes a necessity. This positive impact can be gauged through the product’s effectiveness, problem solving, and affordability. These factors must be considered during product development.

Target Audience

It is very important to identify the target audience and their problems. Every great product tends to solve problems and helps to increase quality of life. In order to identify the target audience you can start by answering following basic questions:

• What problems will your product resolve?
• Who will use it?

Answers to the above questions will lead you toward basic features of your product.

Starting as a Minimum Viable Product

When starting out, it is important to make sure that you don’t get overwhelmed by the scope of the task. To do this, we recommend an approach called “The minimum viable product (MVP)” which is the practice of developing the core functions that define the product and then iterating and building upon this foundation over small increments. Upon releasing the MVP, you can monitor user behavior and explore the customers’ needs and determine the product’s additional features. Launching a product with basic features to improve a particular area and then gradually building up additional features is a key part of the MVP strategy. This way you can keep users interested and increase their input for further product development.

Serving the Ideal Customer

Before launching a product into the market it is very important to have an ideal customer profile in your mind. Any new product will be a disaster if it fails to comprehend the customer’s need. Defining the need will help developing basic features of the product.

Queuing up the Additional Features

A product’s growth should be carried out in several different phases. It is wise to keep customers informed about these phases. Each phase should add more functionality to the product. Customer feedback and suggestions play a vital role in future developments. Such requests should be ranked properly in the priority list. Following a specific priority list will also be helpful to devise a strategy for adding new features. This will help you outline the next phases of your product.

Shylock Approach

Getting every single penny out of your customer’s pocket will not lead you to success. Such approach towards the client normally results in poor growth and eventually failure of the product. The difference between a good product and a great product is the natural growth of the idea. The idea on which a product thrives is fulfilling what it promises and getting what it deserves. Keep pricing minimal and basic so that customers can use it without giving too much thought in monetary terms. Once your products occupy marketplace and build a strong base of loyal customers then monetary goals can be achieved through new versions or features.

Conclusion

Launching a new product is not an easy decision and it is also a very complex process. However it is better to launch a minimum viable product and gradually build it into a complete package. This approach is very useful for companies exploring new horizons while keeping the existing customers in view.