Defining Product Success

Imagine you launch a product, and then there’s no activity. You don’t know what’s wrong, but nobody is using it. Sadly, this situation happens a lot. 

‍Product success is the combination of actions that indicate the product offers an effective solution. It has nothing to do with money earned or the number of downloads but with the product effectiveness in solving a problem for a target audience.

Although many people focus on money and users to measure the success of a digital product, the reality is that the product needs to offer a solution. It is through the effectiveness of the solution that success is measured. Let’s take a closer look at it.

What Is a Product?

According to our Product Lead, a product is a set of decisions taken to arrive at success. Let’s say you want to create a product to help people find pet-friendly venues. Your product provides a path to follow in order to arrive at the solution.

In this case, every decision made to find a pet-friendly venue using your path creates the product. If none of the users follows your solution, the product might be faulty.

During the ideation and validation of a product, several elements are created in order to define the central moments in which the user takes these measurable decisions.

In many cases, a product could be well built, have a top-notch user experience, and have excelled in all the project’s stages. Yet, if the product cannot solve the problem, there will probably be no users.

It doesn’t mean the development work done was wrong. It just means that the product is not helping the target audience. Without this first step, it is virtually impossible to define the business model, for example.

Once the problem-solving capabilities of the product have been tested, you can decide how to make money from it. Are people willing to pay for your solution? Are you better off using an ad-based model?

The business model will work itself out while you create a product that users want to pay for.

What Is Product Success?

Product success is the process of measuring the effectiveness of a product to solve a problem. If the product can solve a problem for a target audience, it is successful.

In order to define success, a product team uses several elements. Let’s focus on the product funnel and the success metric.

The product funnel

The product funnel are the steps a user takes to arrive at a state of success. It consists of measurable stages that will allow the product team to discover every decision taken to solve a problem. 

You don’t think about your product when you create the product funnel. You think about how that problem is solved today. There are no new products, just new user experiences.

Let’s take Uber as an example. Calling someone to come to pick you up already existed with taxi companies. It is not a new product. Uber analyzed every step taken to arrive at the solution to the problem and improve the user experience.

Innovation was not on the steps taken, but on lowering risks, anxiety, and waiting time. Once the product funnel has been created, the next step is the success metric.

Success metric

As you have learned, success can be measured, and the way to do it is to build a success metric. The success metric will show proof that someone has a problem and also how that problem has been solved.

These are the “in” and the “out” of the success metric. The “in” is the situation that proves that the user has a problem. The “out” is the situation that verifies the user has solved the problem using your solution.

In order to test the success metric, you also need a segment and a time frame for the action to be completed. The segment you choose will impact the time.

For example, if you are trying to measure the ability of a trumpet player to learn a song with your method, a beginner might need two months while a professional only two days.

Once you have defined these elements, you will have a way to measure the success of your product.

Importance of defining success

Once you have defined success for your product, you can start learning how to continue improving it. The more the users are satisfied with your product, the more they will be willing to use, refer, and pay. 

Having the information will allow you to tailor your solution to the real needs and requirements of your target market and help you create a product that will actually be used.

Ignoring the needs of your target market could result in a loss of money and time due to the creation of an app nobody ever asked for. 

With this data, you can continue improving your digital product and reach success in other areas of your business as well.

Why validate your product idea with Bixlabs?

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At Bixlabs, we have a product team ready to take on your project and help you define and reach success. Click here to know more about our product discovery process!