How to Validate Your Product’s Business Case

Are you potentially overlooking a highly scalable and profitable opportunity within your business?

Every organisation operates on the foundation of one or more products or services to generate income, instigate change, or make a difference. However, a common challenge is that some businesses centre around a single product, often without assessing its effectiveness, value, or appropriateness for their goals.

This oversight can critically impede a business’ ability to profit or fulfill its mission — a key issue in today’s rapidly evolving market.

But there’s good news. There is another way.

We have developed a modern Product Discovery process that validates customers’ needs, which has resulted in halving the cost and doubling the speed to market while maintaining the ideal product goals for our clients.

So, what does Product Discovery bring to the table?

At No Moss we use a qualitative business process called Product Discovery to validate product assumptions. This can reveal the untapped potential of your existing offerings, sparking fresh ideas that could be honed into effective solutions, bringing enduring success to your venture.

Regrettably, some business owners still perceive the Product Discovery process as costing time and money that’s better spent on the delivery. They miss the essential point that, by building products based on unvalidated assumptions about them and their clients, they’re pouring resources into constructing something their customers do not need, thus missing the golden opportunity to provide exactly what they’re seeking.

Here’s what they should be considering:

• Why is this product/service a promising opportunity?
• Who are the intended users?
• Who’s going to fund it?
• What issue does it address for our customers?

Although they might have a surface-level answer to these questions, often, they lack the required depth and understanding.

This is where Product Discovery shines

This process inspires a realisation that often dawns when businesses grapple to market their product. Suddenly, they become aware of their limited knowledge about their customers and product.

This is why we’re excited to share the Guide To Product Discovery.

This guide demonstrates the importance of this critical process, breaking down exactly how product discovery works and how you can leverage it to facilitate your new or existing products’ journey from a conceptual stage to a successful and innovative launch, effectively optimising it to make a tangible outcome.

Let’s begin our exploration.

“But wait… I already know my product. I don’t need help with Product Discovery.”

We hear you loud and clear. You might be thinking:

• Why do I need Product Discovery? I already have a product.
• Why do I need to talk with my customers? I have all the answers.
• What more can Product Discovery offer me? I already have a business case for my idea.

If you’ve got existing products, take a moment to evaluate:

• Is our product failing to impress our customers?
• Is there a lack of demand for our product?
• Does our product have a slew of unused features?

Should you answer affirmatively to any of these, Product Discovery can work wonders to optimise your product, maximising its appeal and demand amongst your target audience.

If you’re in the process of creating a new product and you already have a polished business case, you might wonder what else needs consideration.

Ask yourself:

• Where do we start to ensure we’re building the correct concept to test the market?
• Are we unsure about the idea we’re investing in?
• How well do we understand our customers?
• Can we define who is going to use our new product?
• What is our vision for this product?
• Why are we interested in launching this new product?
• How long will this take?
• What are the crucial features for a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), and what can be saved for later?

If uncertainty looms over any of these questions, Product Discovery can help you to ensure your product is optimised, it resonates with your customers’ needs, and aligns you towards your business goals.

“Is Product Discovery a costly exercise?”

Cost is a considerable concern for many businesses. However, we believe the shift needs to be from apprehension about the cost to interest in what your customers have to say. Doing so enables you to focus on building and developing the best product that often prevents unnecessary expenditures.

Having identified the need for Product Discovery, let’s delve deeper into what this process entails.

What is Product Discovery?

At its core, Product Discovery centres around facilitating research and co-design activities with your team and your target audience. These ensure your new or existing business solutions are validated and that they meet your critical business challenges and objectives.

By allowing you to connect and co-design with the end users of the product, while staying data-driven throughout the entire decision-making process, Product Discovery enables you to tweak your products for maximum engagement and demand.

Put simply, Product Discovery validates opportunities and ideas with your target customers. It ensures your team is creating the right product for the right people at the right time.

What’s at stake without conducting Product Discovery?

Without the requisite knowledge and understanding that comes from Product Discovery, companies often find themselves investing bountifully into something that’s significantly misaligned with their customers’ needs and demands.

This doesn’t just result in disappointing customers — taking a lackadaisical approach could also waste time, capital, opportunities, competitive advantages, and potential revenues.

If you’re doing your due diligence and gathering all the required information before building your product, but you’re rigid in your plan without any intention to learn and incorporate changing realities, by the time you launch your product, you’ll have incurred significant losses.

Why?

Because the world, and particularly technology, is always evolving, and so must your product planning. The Product Discovery process allows for creating and maintaining a product plan while still incorporating learning and adaptations along the way.

So, when we weigh these risks against the potential success that Product Discovery can usher in for your business, the best decision appears very clear.

What do we require for Product Discovery?

From our hands-on experience, the best results from the Product Discovery process emerge when there’s a diverse set of voices assembled, each adding their unique expertise and perspective to the mix.

Hence, at No Moss, we advocate bringing in a multi-disciplinary team of up to seven of your experts, plus four of our Product Discovery specialists.

We advise you to consider these roles:

1. Product Owner
2. Product Designer
3. Technical Delivery
4. Marketing
5. Sales
6. Customer Service
7. Industry Expert Consultant
8. Leadership

How does Product Discovery work?

As we’ve discussed, Product Discovery — whether you have a product that’s not hitting the mark or you’re looking to create a new product — helps you understand how to optimise your product to maximise customer demand and revenue.

Let’s break down this process:

Stage 1: Lean UX

The first stage primarily builds out the following components to glean a better understanding of your business and your customers:

• Customer Journey Map
• Business Goals
• Target Demographic
• Research interviews with target users

Stage 2: Design Sprints

This stage is a two-parter. The first is a Design Sprint. Its aim is to:

• Align
• Ideate
• Prototype, and
• Test

your product idea in just four days.

Following this, we move on to an Iteration Sprint, where we:

• Revise
• Design
• Prototype, and
• Test

a new iteration of the initial concept based on testing and feedback from real users.

This Design and Iteration Sprint is invaluable. It maximises early learnings at a greatly reduced build cost, enabling you to make the required alterations before it becomes prohibitively expensive.

Stage 3: Summary & Alignment

At this stage, we summarise our learnings and align stakeholders, detailing prioritised outcomes and conducting further tech investigations and proof-of-concept testing.

Stage 4: Product Inception

This stage integrates all elements of the Product Discovery journey. By its end, we have:

• Product Vision Statement
• Key Business Outcomes
• Proposed Tech Architecture
• Product Roadmap
• Prioritised Backlog
• Investment Forecast (Time & Financial Cost)

Once the initial Discover & Validate phase concludes, we move on to the Build & Deliver phase, maintaining continuous engagement with the target users to produce your final business product.

Why should you consider an external expert for Product Discovery?

There are significant benefits to drawing on external insights rather than attempting to administer Product Discovery independently. Seizing the opportunity to tap into their years of expertise and experience is perhaps the most notable advantage.

At No Moss, we’ve launched dozens of product systems and solutions for various clients, each with their unique set of goals and user requirements.

This breadth of experience empowers us to understand exactly what questions need answering throughout the Product Discovery process — crucial for your product’s success. Furthermore, as an external consulting expert, we can recognise similar scenarios from our history of diverse projects.

One of the advantages of working with external consultants like us at No Moss is that we understand the importance of specialising in a specific niche, unlike trying to create an all-encompassing solution for multiple audiences that seldom work.

How to choose the most suitable Product Discovery expert

In selecting your Product Discovery expert, their level of experience and expertise in handling product ideas akin to yours should be your key consideration.

Moreover, an expert who can bring a diversity of voices and perspectives is invaluable.

A single decision-maker determining product development is a perilous path. By neglecting to include the product designer, technical consultant, or customer-facing team members who understand why users need the product, disaster looms.

Hence, at No Moss, we advocate for a broad range of voices in the room — and your choice of subject matter experts should do the same.

Why creating a business case for a new product is merely the starting point

When you’re incubating a new product idea, the initial step is to sketch a business case to support your brainchild and procure the backing of key decision-makers.

Usually, this business case outlines:

• the rationale for the product’s existence
• the reasons sustaining its promise
• the projected development costs.

Unfortunately, our experience highlights that most business cases bypass the Product Discovery phase entirely, and thus organisations miss a golden opportunity to deliver the best possible products for their clients.

Whilst some argument is made for vital elements such as overarching business goals and target users, we find ourselves posing a slew of additional questions. These are pivotal to ensuring the success of the new product as we’re building it.

For this reason, while a completed business case serves as a stepping stone, we strive to take it much further. This enhanced approach allows us a richer understanding of the new product a business plans to roll out.

What can you expect from our Product Discovery process?

As part of our No Moss Product Discovery process, your business will be equipped with an actionable roadmap for your product development journey, as well as a detailed investment forecast.

This facilitates a clear understanding of:

1. the WHY behind the product you are developing
2. the WHO you are designing it for.

This ensures your product development journey is always fine-tuned to the needs of your customers and your business goals.

You will be able to present your product idea to the decision-makers backed by extensive details of the required investment and the anticipated returns on this investment, giving you complete confidence that everyone is moving in the same direction.

What benefits do our Product Discovery process offer?

Markedly, the majority of businesses experience reduced long-term costs post the Product Discovery process — a consequence of validating their initial assumptions which often prove unnecessary or not as crucial as initially thought.

Product Discovery helps to trim project scope, minimise the development timeframe, save on development costs, and simplify and realign the focus of the entire build.

Essentially, all these benefits that substantially contribute to your product’s success and business revenue stem from the one single decision to validate your ideas and assumptions.

What’s next after completing the Product Discovery process?

Product Discovery is far from a ‘one-and-done’ process — it essentially never ends.

While there is an upfront element of the Product Discovery process that sets the ball rolling before development can commence, the process continues throughout and even after the product launches.

Once you have your initial product release, the testing phase could propagate multiple changes in your project’s scope or requirements. Be prepared to pivot your product based on new market opportunities or revise requirements that seemed pivotal during the discovery phase but proved ancillary during development.

So, as you navigate the building process, be open to constantly nurturing new learnings and insights by validating your assumptions through extensive testing.

Keeping up with the fast-paced world of technology

The world, and particularly technology, progresses at a breakneck speed. If you spend a couple of years in isolation building a product, you might find the world has moved on, and the customers now yearn for something different.

For that reason, constant discovery and iteration are critical during the development process. By doing this, you can create a significant competitive advantage to deliver products that delight your customers.

Adopting an ongoing Product Discovery mindset is the most effective way to stay competitive, meet evolving customer demands, and manoeuvre the regular shifts in technology and the marketplace over time.

No Moss: Modern Product Discovery

At No Moss, we combine bespoke agility transformation with purposeful product innovation and empathy-led technology development.

Through our Product Discovery service, we engage with people, processes, and ideas, bolstering your business’s design and development of new products and services.

Reach out to us today and explore Product Discovery with No Moss.