How to Make Products Both Well-Received and Commercially Successful? Stop Focusing Solely on R&D

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Recently, I chatted with a product manager who lamented that despite conducting research, users still didn’t buy the product. It had numerous bugs and lacked unique features compared to competitors. For products with mediocre feedback, many people would say they "fall short," but when asked where exactly, they couldn’t specify the details. Therefore, for business owners, successful product development has never been about creating something good and expecting customers to buy it. Instead, it’s about understanding what users are concerned about and addressing them through the product. To meet market demands and win user recognition, let’s discuss today how to make products both well-received and commercially successful.

Step 1: Don’t Rush to Ask Users for Answers

An important saying goes: Actions speak louder than words. When conducting needs research, many people habitually ask users directly: "What specific challenges do you face when using [product type]?" or "What do you dislike about the existing product?" However, this approach often yields minimal results. Users vary in their ability to express themselves and cognitive levels; most of the time, they cannot accurately articulate their true needs and may even provide misleading answers.

Instead of directly seeking answers from users, try to first immerse yourself in their real-life scenarios to unearth latent needs that users themselves haven’t noticed. In the era before smartphones became popular, most users’ needs for mobile phones were limited to basic functions like making calls and sending text messages. The emergence of smartphones has redefined people’s lifestyles.

There are many methods for user needs research, such as User Story Maps, Customer Journey Maps, and Impact Maps, which are familiar to most professionals. Take the User Story Map for example: it visualizes a series of user behaviors and needs during product use, helping the product team understand user needs more comprehensively and systematically. By prioritizing user needs based on importance and frequency of use, the team can clearly identify the product’s core functions and optimization directions, avoiding the trap of chasing feature overstacking (mindless feature stacking) in the design process.

Step 2: Don’t Jump to Conclusions

Have you ever wondered: Is the product (that) "I" envision truly what users need? In the product development process, we often fall into a thinking trap: over-relying on subjective judgments and assuming that "what I think the product should be is exactly what users need." However, market demands are complex and ever-changing, and user preferences are evolving continuously. Developing products based solely on subjective assumptions is like building a skyscraper on sand — with an unstable foundation.

This is where MVP (Minimum Viable Product) market validation becomes crucial.

An MVP refers to distilling a product’s core functions into a streamlined version, rapidly launching it to the market, and acquiring user feedback at minimal cost to verify whether the product truly meets user needs. A classic example of MVP is Zappos, the renowned online footwear retailer acquired by Amazon for $1.2 billion in 2009. Initially, Zappos’ founder Nick Swinmurn wasn’t sure if selling shoes online would work. He decided to test the hypothesis: Would people be willing to buy shoes online without trying them on first?

Instead of following the traditional approach of building inventory before selling, Nick adopted a novel method for validation. He visited local stores, photographed shoes, and posted online ads. When a customer purchased a pair online, he would buy the shoes from the store and ship them to the customer. The idea proved successful, and the business quickly gained momentum. Using this MVP approach, Nick built a billion-dollar business from scratch at a low cost, a model known as the "Wizard of Oz" MVP. By leveraging MVP for market validation, product teams can quickly collect user feedback, identify product strengths and weaknesses, and adjust directions and features in a timely manner. This user-feedback-driven development model effectively reduces product development risks and increases the odds of success.

Step 3: Don’t Neglect Continuous Product Optimization

Many product teams mistakenly believe that launching a product signals the end of their work. In reality, to maintain competitiveness, a product must undergo continuous optimization and iteration.

After launch, it’s crucial to establish a robust user feedback collection mechanism. Teams should comprehensively understand issues and suggestions users encounter through user reviews, customer service feedback, data analysis, and other channels.

Take a social media app developer as an example. After launching their app, they analyzed embedded tracking data and found that user churn primarily occurred during the friend-addition process. In-depth user interviews revealed that the cumbersome friend-addition workflow frustrated users, causing them to abandon the action. The product team swiftly optimized the feature, simplifying the process. This led to a significant improvement in user experience and a subsequent increase in user retention rates.

Beyond user-feedback-driven optimization, teams must also monitor market dynamics and competitors’ moves, stay updated on industry technologies and trends, and integrate these insights into product development to maintain innovation and leadership.

Creating a successful product isn’t a result of isolated efforts in one phase or by one individual; rather, it requires building a comprehensive market management system that organically integrates market research, product planning, development, promotion, and operation into an efficient closed loop:

• Market Management Phase: Establish a professional research team.
• Product Planning Phase: Define the product’s development direction and phased goals.
• Product Development Phase: Build an efficient R&D process.
• Product Operation & Promotion Phase: Formulate suitable marketing strategies.

Making a product both praised and popular is no easy task — overtime work from R&D engineers alone isn’t sufficient. Success requires the entire team to adopt correct product management principles: deeply understand user needs, scientifically validate product directions, continuously optimize user experience, and construct a sound market management system. Future competition will essentially be a contest of market insight and product innovation. Leveraging IPD (Integrated Product Development) can embody the best practices for product innovation.