Creating a tech product that has a good chance of success means going through a few development stages. From thinking about a product idea, creating a business strategy, and testing the product until launch and sales — the process covers all bases.
The best approach to tech product development in 2021 is as consumer-oriented and research-informed as ever. By investing more in product and customer research, business owners get the insights they need to create a successful product.
Let’s now go over each stage in a tech product development process, so you know how to create an excellent product.
5 Product Development Stages
Here are the stages to follow to develop an original product that has a great chance of success. Although those might differ by market niche, we can break the process down into five stages:
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Ideation
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Research
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Prototyping
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Development
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Marketing
Let’s now take a look at each one.
Stage 1: Ideation
The ideation stage involves:
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Idea generation — creation of an idea for a tech product
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Initial definition of a product concept — more detailed description of a product idea
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Basic business analysis — description of how a business operates to sell this tech product
The main goal is to come up with that genius product idea and confirm an appreciable market demand.
This is easily said than done, obviously, especially when it comes to idea generation.
But hey—
The best person to come up with an original idea for your business is you. Brainstorm, get inspired by competitors’ products, talk to potential customers, etc. — you never know when that “aha!” moment will arrive.
Stage 2: Research
When you have a product idea, jumping straight into prototyping might feel like the next logical step. But we need to validate that idea through research, which will help ensure that you’re not wasting your time.
You have many options for market research.
Let’s assume you want to create a new, exciting app. In this case, you can follow these market research stages:
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Target audience definition — demographics, lifestyle, needs, habits, etc. This information will help come up with app features and usability aspects.
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Competitor analysis — finding out information about competitors helps understand what has worked so far + gives ideas of features.
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SWOT analysis — defining the SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) of your app will help understand your unique strengths and challenges you might face when the project is running.
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Business plan — this is a roadmap that includes data like predicted sales, downloads, revenues, profits, and marketing strategies.
Market research approaches might differ a bit depending on the tech product, but they have the same goals: confirm/reject product hypotheses and give a roadmap to developing and marketing the product.
Stage 3: Prototyping
The goal of prototyping is to create a product sample — “prototype” — that fits your target customers’ usage goals. Also, called MVP, it will be a minimalistic version of the product that’s ready to be used to achieve its basic objectives.
Having a prototype is important because you can present it to target customers and get their feedback. For example, customer experience can suggest some issues that need more work or additional features.
A prototype of a mobile app should include these elements:
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Screen layouts
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Data visualization
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Real content
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Essential UI design
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Basic clickability between screens
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Realistic results
As a business owner, you should be closely involved in creating the prototype. You’ll need to ensure the availability of resources and talent to build it. In many cases, business owners choose to outsource some parts of the work to reduce the costs.
You can outsource pretty much everything related to building the prototype of any tech product. A reliable outsourcing partner can provide you with all the talent you need — web designers, developers, UX designers, etc. — to make a photogenic and attractive product.
A ready prototype should be tested until it receives zero negative feedback from users. It means that the product does what it’s supposed to do well.
Step 4: Development
At this point, your prototype has gone through all the tests and improvements and received zero negative feedback. So, it’s decent and ready to serve the needs of target customers appropriately.
Assuming there’s a budget for product development, your team can start creating:
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Website for the product
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Technical specifications for and the final product version
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Marketing materials
Product development is a complex process of designing, developing and testing, so your team should have enough expertise to ensure on-time delivery. That’s why business owners get access to expertise by hiring both in-house and remote teams of developers.
Example: when Brian Chesky reached this point when creating Airbnb, he needed a website but didn’t have any coding skills. So, he invited Nathan Blecharczyk, a developer to create a website and eventually become one of the co-founders.
At Brainberry, we have a decade of experience helping startup owners with prototyping and product development. If you’re looking for talented developers to help build your product, feel free to reach out.
Stage 5: Marketing
Getting marketing and sales right is essential to achieving business goals. Your marketing team should have a plan for product promotion to generate new users and conversions.
The most common ways to promote new tech products:
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Writing promotional articles — write promotional articles to educate your customers on how to use your product to solve their issues
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Paid advertising campaigns — paid ads can drive a lot of traffic to your website and generate conversions quickly
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Guest post writing on other websites — being featured on popular websites in the target market is an excellent idea to build brand reputation and attract attention.
Consider doing some marketing before product launch to find the ones that worked well. This way, you might avoid investing in poor-performing marketing techniques when the product is ready.
Product Development in 2021: Summary
Product development is a daunting but rewarding journey. Consider using the tips from this article to make it smooth and successful — they will make your process focused, organized, and reliable.