Keeping it Real:how our new product designed itself

Hello there. We are ThinkSprint and we're sharing regular insights from our adventure, that may possibly help in yours.

Something we'd read a while back suddenly became very true for us;

"In a great market — a market with lots of real potential customers — the market pulls product out of the startup"

Mark Andreessen was responding to the question 'What causes success'? When he wrote this back in 2007. In his view, 'the market' trumps either the quality of the team or the level of innovation in the product because, if a startup has got a value proposition which the market really wants, then they're on the right path.

We recently had the experience of a product being pulled out of us by the market (and, like the title says, it's not as painful as it sounds!). One of our Clients who has been involved from the start pointed out a real need in his organisation based on our outputs. He was keen to ensure that what was created was actually implemented to impact the business, and didn't just gather dust.

We had a lightbulb moment

As we were discussing output for another Client, we started looking at each other with ever widening eyes. The advice that we'd received the week before was fizzing and solidifying in our mind, yanking a product out of us based on a market need. We quickly and excitedly jotted a blueprint for what it could look like, spoke to more people about it, and now it has become the end-game solution in what we're trying to achieve. By falling in love with the problem (and not rushing to build a solution) the missing piece of a jigsaw presented itself.

What did we learn from this?

Firstly, Speak to the people who you want to buy your stuff, before you've built your stuff. It's such common sense yet so many insist on working in a vacuum. 

Secondly, Embrace ambiguity. Anything new and different is fuzzy. If you've got it all worked out and completely clear before you've got a paying customer, you've probably got it wrong (which will come to bear), or you're superhuman.

Thirdly, Know that you don't know. It's not about 'could' we do this, because most things can be made, it's about 'should' we do this. Which requires starting from a position of doubt. The job is to turn the doubt quickly into confidence.

Until next time

p.s. We are speaking at the Festival of Marketing at Tobacco Docks in London on October 6th. If you're there and fancy meeting up, drop us a line.