Let’s say you own a B2C startup, and you are working on a great product. After some time, if someone ask you whether you are able to make a successful product or not. What will be your answer?
Just like “A beauty lies in the eyes of beholder”, we have “A successful product lies in the eyes of stakeholder”.
Now who are the stakeholders responsible with your product?
Some of them are:
- You(Owner or directly interacting in product creation)
- Product Creators (Technology people, Design, Devs, Product team)
- Product spokesperson (Marketing team, Sales team)
- Product users (Customers)
- Product sponsors (VC funds, investors)
- Product competitors (Your competitors with similar product)
Broadly your stakeholders can be classified into external stakeholders (customers, competitors, regulatory bodies, laws) and internal stakeholders (team, investor etc)
Biggest value is derived from external stakeholders- customers. Your internal stakeholders also derive value to make the product competitive and sellable.
Key factors determining product success
Let’s see what are the key factors which are responsible for a product success.
Product can be termed successful if it fulfill following conditions
- Usability
- Adaptability
- Competitiveness
- Achieve Premiumness
Usability
It is first start point to check whether you are making a right product or not. If your product is being used by customers to fulfill their need/demand/desire successfully, then you have crossed the first hurdle, and you are ready to enter the market.
For example:
- Google solve need of people to search anything, anywhere over internet.
- Amazon solve the need of people to buy anything over internet
- PubG solve the desire of people playing online game
Adaptability/Exclusivity
Usability check help you determine that your product is ready, but it don’t mark that product is different from 1000s of other similar product. The extra features or adjustment that your product give to the customers will help you stand apart and sell better.
For example:
- Sony products stand apart with leader in technology
- IKEA products stand apart with easy to fix furniture
- Apple launched Mac to be marketed as personal computer, which can be used at home
If the feature that you are giving is only yours, then your product will enter into exclusive segment.
Competitiveness
Everywhere, markets are full of brands and products. Companies are fighting over each other for grabbing customer share.
How does your product fare in term of competitiveness factor? Do you attract your customers with price, brand, product features, and customer support? Don’t forget, customer support and other processes also associated with your product.
For example: The famous cola war between Coca Cola and Pepsi. Coca Cola is leader in marketing spend, and have captured wider mind share, and retail presence. Pepsi, has adopted cost leadership positioning and marketing focus to youth (associated with sports, teenager mostly).
Premiumness
This is end stage, and often called nirvana for companies. This is stage, when you can demand premiumness for your product based on special features associated with it.
This often occurs when you establish a monopoly in the market. For example: De Beers in diamond industry or Microsoft Windows in Operating System industry.
Lots of companies, which are fast innovator/technology movers, do reap in premiumness of their product for limited period, till their competition catches up. For example: Sony and Apple
See also: What is Product Management?
End note
We hope that you have liked this article on evaluating product success. Please feel free to share your opinion and queries to us. You can comment on the thread below, or write to us to info@xamnation.com
This article is written by team with strong product management experience. If you are looking to learn product management, please contact us info@xamnation.com