Step 5 – Shape the product vision
Now that you have selected one possible product idea, let’s dig deeper into this idea. You will look at the idea from both a grand point of view and from the smallest possible point of view.
Let’s get started!
| Question | Description |
| What could the best possible customer experience be? | The product idea you have chosen solves a problem a customer has. The customer experience is then all the perceptions the customer have related to your product, from the moment the customer hears about your product, buys your product, uses your product to solve his or her problem, and so on.
Brainstorm how the best possible customer experience could be. Describe concrete features. Forget all restrictions, for instance scalability and cost. Limit your thinking to only one customer, preferable a customer you know. How could you design your product to blow this person’s mind away? what would a five star experience be? Temporarily forget that you eventually must provide such experience to many customers. |
Step 6 – Define Minimum Viable Product
What you answer in question 10 is the ultimate customer experience. But it may not be feasible at this point. And we need something to act on today, so we can harness feedback from ourselves and the world. So, let’s be realistic.
| Question | Description |
| What could a shitty first version be? | What small part of the product vision could you create and test within one week?
Don’t you mind that you would be embarrassed calling this version a product. Even if the solution is low fidelity and contains a lot of manual work, as long as it solves some part of the customer problem, it’s good enough for now. The most important thing is to take some action and test your idea. |
| Sketch your favorite first version | Visualize the first version and sketch it on the paper. This will make the product idea more real and easier to act on. |
Next steps
You now have a product idea that you could build and test within the coming week. The only thing left for you is to take action. Free up time and start building and testing the product idea. As you spend time on your chosen idea, pay attention to your inspiration and motivation. How easy is it to invest effort and time on the product idea? If it is easy, you are probably doing something right. If it’s hard to invest time on the product idea, consider choosing another product idea, another problem to solve for some other customer, or even another topic of interest to investigate.