How to Build a Product People Want to Buy

“Eureka!” you shout, as you finally discover the perfect business idea. Or is it? Are you sure you’re building a product customers want to buy? Thankfully, there’s an array of tools at your disposal to find out: fake door tests, surveys, building a no-code prototype… Product-market-fit is no mirage — it’s closer than you think!

Swisspreneur

Key Takeaways on How to Build a Successful Product

Product people need to be 3 things at once: psychologists, project managers, and expert coders. Just kidding on that last one — that’s what no code/low code is here for! But you do need a firm grasp on what people actually want to buy, and you should be a good enough strategist to plan out the roadmap that will get that product built.
  • “Build something people want”: the YC motto has served startups well across the globe. How do you know if you haven’t just built a product that you and your friends love, but which seems irrelevant to everyone else?
  • Fake door tests: put up advertisements of your product (even if it’s not built yet) and see if people click on them. Better yet, set up a website and see if people buy it.
  • Run surveys/interviews:
    -
    Do NOT ask “Would you be interested in buying this?”
    - DO ask “When was the last time you experienced this problem?”
    People are inherently bad at predicting their future behavior. Therefore it’s much more useful to ask them about their past problems, and what they think might have solved them.
  • Reflect on Marty Cagan’s 4 product-building risks:
    Desirability:
    do people want to buy your product?
    Feasibility: do you have/could you get everything you need to build it?
    Usability: is your product easy/pleasant to use?
    Viability: can you make money by selling it? Do the unit economics work out? Is it hard enough to copy that you’ll maintain a sustainable advantage?
  • Build a prototype through no-code/low-code platforms: building an MVP this way allows you to get your product in the customer’s hands as soon as possible without having to hire external engineers.

    If all goes well, you’re going to take the feedback received to iterate your product beyond recognition. If you used no-code/low-code for your prototype, then you won’t have accrued technical debt and you won’t have to throw away a bunch of precious, precious code!

The best Swisspreneur podcast episodes on product-building

You can think of Swisspreneur as the library of Alexandria for entrepreneurs. For any startup topic that crosses your mind, we’ve got several episodes with experts breaking it down. This, of course, includes product: Herbert Bay, Laurent Decrue and Reto Lämmler are champions in this field, and not opposed to sharing their secrets!
Product Pricing Tips And Tricks (EP #83)

Should your product be sold through a one-time fee or a subscription? How many discounts are too many discounts? Are different pricing plans confusing or beneficial? And, first and foremost… how does your buyer persona influence pricing? Testing Time’s Reto Lämmler is the man for you, if these questions keep you up at night.

Listen to the full episode

Mastering Product Development (EP #188)

Why does serial entrepreneur Laurent Decrue use a business canvas for his product ideation? What’s the difference between a value hypothesis and a growth hypothesis? And who shall win the ultimate product building duel: Scrum… or Kanban? Check out our chat with podcast regular Laurent to learn the answer to these and many more questions.

Listen to the full episode

Product Building from Start to Finish (EP #348)

Serial entrepreneur Herbert Bay talks to us about which naysayers you should ignore and which you should pay attention to, 3 product ideation stage traps, why he uses Sean Ellis’ “product-market fit score”, and why he REALLY doesn’t recommend user testing.

Listen to the full episode