Architecting Feedback Driven Web Products

One of the biggest mistakes of product development is the whole “build it and they will come” mindset.

Don’t get me wrong, it does work. But it’s usually predicated by developers that believe they know what the next best thing is (what entrepreneur doesn’t) and instead of listening to what the users want, play off of what they think users will want. But in an innovation play, there designing from user feedback is probably not only the safest way to do things, it’s also the most effective. Believe me when I say that having seen over a decade of product designs come and go in the telecommunications industry, sometimes you wonder why people choose to use market research instead of just going to the mall and asking people what they thought about your brand. Active research, not passive, is what gets results.

Another great mistake is the assumption that because you’re in the in-crowd with technologies, that everyone else will soon be. That’s why when I read about this study recently released by Accenture on how the majority of Americans are not in-tune with the latest of web technologies, I wasn’t surprised. At all.

Part of my responsibilities at my startup is to see trends and plan based on what business owners need and want in their small business accounting solutions. And one of the first key factors that I had identified was that most small businesses knew very little about accounting. Let’s be honest here… if the opposite were true, then we would not have so many training classes on how to do your business financials in not only book format, but at local community colleges. Thus, you realize that the current market does not satisfy the needs of their customer base.

In the end? The best way to look at any product development is to do a sampling of your potential user base and find out if your newly launched product will make an impact on their business with as minute a learning curve as possible. If not, then you have to justify all sorts of reasons on why you are pushing forward. If so, realize that you’ll be bearing much of the development burden due to figuring out the process behind the ease of use.