A universal process in tech is the product development cycle. But everyone does it differently – from ideation to execution to rollout and marketing. How is that done and are there transferable lessons and best practices? We hear from product people on how it’s done.
Key Takeaways
Here are a few key messages or insights that we gleaned from this session.
- One of the top drivers for product inception and development is demand. That sounds obvious, but it’s more difficult to accurately ingest, transmit and translate demand signals into a finished product.
- Product-led growth is also growing. For example, OpenAI’s intended business model from the beginning was licensing software/APIs to enterprises to build chatbots for their customers (B2B2C). But it seeded that demand by releasing a direct-to-consumer product that got end-users hooked.
- As for product development, there are various roles and backgrounds needed. A technical background is key for defining the art of the possible. But customer-facing perspective can define the product-market fit. So cross-disciplinary teams are optimal.
- For example, product development can live in the engineering realm, but product marketing teams need to be involved as they have their fingers on the pulse of the market and the customers.
- All stakeholders should be in tune with the end goals. For example, engineers shouldn’t just be given piecemeal tasks. With a holistic view of the end goal, they can weigh in on better ways to get there that may not have occurred to a product manager.
- Then, when it comes to execution, product managers are also needed for organizational skills and making sure all the trains run on time through agile scrums or whatever the methodology happens to be.
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Anatomy of the Product Development Cycle
How do SaaS products get built? We probably all think we kind of know how this works. We’ve gathered some product pros and veterans to walk us through the product dev cycle, offering some key do’s and don’ts along the way.
David Lehman, Birdeye
Randall Turner, GrowthWare
Joel Headley, RIOSeo
Kevin Hill, Sproutloud
