The checklist for successful products has three broad categories of challenges a new product must address: it has to be feasible, it has to be desirable and it has to be profitable.
Checklist for Successful Products
Feasible
- Can your product be built?
- What kind of skills are required to build it?
- How much will it cost?
- How can you build a prototype using existing products?
- What are the product development risks?
- How much time will it take to develop the product?
- Where are the schedule, cost & feature tradeoffs?
- What are the key feasibility risks?
Desirable
- How have customers solved the problem today?
- What are you replacing?
- What do people like about the current solutions?
- What do they not like about the current solutions?
- How much money will they spend?
- How often will they use it?
- What do people say about your prototype?
- Will people pay to learn more about the problem?
- How many have to adopt it?
- What are the key questions that you have to answer to determine how desirable the product is for your target customer?
Profitable
- How much will it cost to develop it?
- How much will it cost to market it?
- How much will customers spend?
- Do you understand your cost drivers?
- Is it a one time purchase or recurring expense?
- What is the smallest “getting started” price?
- Is there a small market that will accept a higher price point that you can use to debug your product?
- What are the key profitability risks?
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