“The MVP is like a newborn baby. Love and nurture your product like you do with a baby till they grow up.” – Suhas Mehta

Suhas is a Product Manager at Falkonry Inc. as well as a Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Hourmony Inc. He is alumnus from Stanford University, Santa Clara University, University of Southern California and Mumbai University. He is an award winning Product Strategist and a prolific technology inventor with 16 patents and has a passion to solve the product problems with innovation that help bring new solutions to life. Suhas is also an early stage angel investor and an entrepreneur too. In his free-time he loves spending time doing carpentry and gardening with his two sons.

Here are the key takeaways from the Webinar –

Why are you building the product?

You are building a product for the market, to satisfy an end-user’s need. In the process you are achieving business goals and attaining the organization’s vision. Only if all 4 points match is there sense in building the product.

Who are you building the product for?

Your primary stakeholders (end users and customers) come first and then secondary (employees, investor). You also need to make sure that you are in accordance with the tertiary level (community, government and environment)

How do you build the Product?

Through many iterations. Build it brick by brick by incorporating user feedback and revising the product for your next release. Repeat the process.

• Bottoms-up approach: When it comes to engineers, start with why you are building the product and who is it for.
• Top-down approach: Your executive team wants to know how the product aligns with the organization’s vision.

When do you release?

Follow Agile methodologies to release as frequently as possible. The idea is to build many Minimum Viable Product released weekly or monthly instead of a single release after 3 years. This helps you collect feedback and improve the product through iterations.

Pitching your Strategy to Executives

Divide it up in 3 levels –

• Short term – this includes features that bring immediate customer value
• Medium term – how do you plan to differentiate from the competition in market?
• Long term – what’s your plan to bring in new customers?

Some other pointers –

Engineering Team – Get a commitment to build, as they are vital to the timely release of your product. It’s important to influence them and remain in their good books.

Technology – Make sure you research what’s running in the market and only build what’s not available.

Estimates – Get these from your engineering team, so that you know how much will get delivered in what time and to know if things are on track as per the roadmap.w