Product development is a labor of love, passion, and grit. Then being able to take that product to market is a dream come true for every entrepreneur. There are so many fantastic ideas that deserve to hit the market, and I want to encourage all of you to follow your dreams and see them into reality. Read on to learn about taking your product to market in a few easy steps.
Entrepreneurs: How to Take Your Product to Market in 5 Simple Steps
1. Don’t Try to Be Everything to Everyone.
Nail your target audience and the key purpose of your company at launch. You can always expand your business later, but keeping things laser-focused at the beginning is essential to success.
2. Focus on the One Thing.
Whatever the singular focus of your product or service is that you are going to launch, put all of your time, energy, and marketing behind it. Make sure it’s simple, it’s something that your target audience can easily understand, and something that solves a problem for them. You need to give your audience a reason to support your business, and everyone wants to have fewer issues with which to deal. So, give the people what they want.
3. Launch at 85%.
Your version of “good enough” is most people’s version of “perfect.” Launch when you feel like you are 85% of the way there. More often than not, the remaining 15% of the effort required isn’t worth waiting on to nail down the final details. Get your product to market to start testing and optimizing.
4. Be Receptive to Feedback.
Listen to feedback from users of your product. Be sure to account for both negative and positive feedback, and optimize your product accordingly, depending on the type of feedback. To cultivate a lasting brand, being receptive to feedback is essential and implementing changes based on user input is critical.
5. Stay Focused.
During the lead-up to your product launch, your team will likely start trying to pitch ideas on how to make enhancements. Stay focused and reiterate that you appreciate their ideas but that the time for enhancements is after the launch. The primary goal is to get the product to market, learn as much as you can about your service or product from customers and enhance it based on their feedback. Once you have solidified your key product offering in the marketplace, then you can start adding enhancements into the mix.
Who is feeling inspired to launch their latest business idea? Tweet me @lorenridinger.
