How do you experiment with new ideas to create value?

In my experience starting with learning plans focused on 3 areas: desirability, feasibility and viability works best. Desirability: Discover a product/solution that customers want or need or both. Feasibility: Test whether the product/solution be built with current or emerging technologies and capabilities Viability: Validate whether the product/solution would be profitable and financially scalable. The learning orientation vs goal orientation opens blinders and helps product leaders home in on an exciting product/solution, and capture commercial value.

Goal Defining for an experiment to be successful or not is must otherwise how will you know whether you should get all your time and resources invested on it or not. The best way to do that is to 1.Identify the target segment for which you are solving and check if you can take a small test group of it 2.Showcase them a video/figma of what you are solving and how you solving without building- get their reactions and understand how they are solving it currently. 3. If reactions are good, create a prototype but if they have already solved it and don't see value add then stop. 4. Launch the prototype and check usage. 5. Enrich the feature with UI/UX enhancement. This is one practical way to do it, there can be other tried and tested ways too.

In my experience, leaning more on interviews and observations (day in the life of customers) in the earlier stages of product discovery leads to richer insights. Then use surveys based on those initial insights to validate whether those learning and insights remain valid when extrapolated across a larger customer population. Once the learning is validated use, low fidelity prototypes to test product concept/solution and keep improving fidelity to medium and then to MVP. This mindset and approach will significantly improve time to achieving product-market fit.

Planning a value-adding experiment for a SaaS product involves a clear hypothesis, selecting a test group, and defining variables. Always start with a hypothesis for what you expect to learn. Choose a relevant test group and decide the experiment duration. Clearly define the variables and controls. Ensure compliance with regulations by thoroughly reviewing policies and seeking legal advice if needed. A well-planned experiment minimizes risks and maximizes value.

As a Product lead working at an early stage startup in B2B Data Science and Realtime Analytics software, I learnt that it's important to experiment with new ideas to create value as stated in this article. In B2B space one can follow the following method to experiment new ideas: (1) By partnering with other companies, (2) Attending industry events, (3) Reading industry publications (4) Conducting webinars (5) Conducting user-research with existing customers or users in similar industry facing challenges the product is solving. It's also important to focus on the target audience, use the right tools, be flexible, be patient! It is journey of iterations and most importantly have fun!