From An Idea to a Product

9 May 2008

From An Idea to a Product

The steps to follow to develop your idea into a functional product.

This is a short description of the steps you should follow to develop your idea into a functional product. The list is originally published at EuropeanStartups Snagsta Lists (http://www.europeanstartups.com/).

1. Define your idea!
Your idea must be defined in one precise sentence - it should not raise any questions of what you want to achieve!

2. Define target audience!
Make sure you can define target audience for your product. If you are uncertain of who may your target audience be or if your target audience is too broad, revise your idea!

3. Define marketing strategy!
The previous step is very important in order to ease your marketing strategy. What you need to be able to do is to have means of mass marketing. Learn from the example of Wamba (Wambastic!) Follow the URL and play the video!

4. Design functional flow chart!
You have to know every possible path you user may take when using your product. The best person profile to help you with this is a Test Engineer, who will be able to help you out in creating complete Test Cases/Scenarios. This is also very useful for later stage when you come to the phase when you test your product. However, it is very important at the very beginning because you need to know where you will lead your user. You are the one defining what your user can do throughout your product! You have to know each step user can take and make the best of it!

5. Iterate steps 1-4!
Now that you have defined your product, let it rest for a couple of days... don't even think about it! Then, read it all over again - I am sure you'll want to make many changes! Reiterate steps 1-4 until you are sure that's what your idea is! You don't want to come back to these steps when you begin development!

6. Design technical specification!
Now when you have defined your idea and you are sure that's what you want to develop, you can start with technical specification. This is not a place to tell you how to do that.

7. Begin with development!
Very straight forward - you have both functional and technical specification - development can begin!

8. .idea { start:small; grow:big; important! }
As startups in most cases have limited resources (if any...) you have to start small with one precise idea. Learn daily from your users actions and feedback, and build up your product from there!

9. ... to be continued ...