How to launch a product - Empathise
If your not up to speed read this how the journey started first. This is step 1 in my process of creating a MVP with the only objective to test the market, and get some genuine user data.
This step is about basing most of my decisions on assumptions and research. Empathise with the users, defining and iterating then I can then get an MVP out to test.
At this stage I can’t do any usability testing, or any testing on users. I will revisit this research phase once I have a MVP. I want to empathise with my users at this stage and cover as much initial research as possible.
Stake holder interviews
This would be the time to hold workshops and create a engagement with the product owners and people working on the product once live. I have held several of these at early stages of projects and they are always highly beneficial. For this one I guess I am the only stakeholder on this project.
Project vision
Q: What is your vision for this offering?
A: To create a safe secure place for people to sell products, with little or no fees. Create a safe community of sellers and buyers. Sell a small amount of high end items. The large sites often sell fakes and people don’t have faith in them. I am going to start out selling limited edition sneakers.
Q: What defines success for this project?
A: Getting users and creating a trusted community.
Q: What are the potential pitfalls (i.e. what keeps you up at night about this project)?
A: No one uses it and payment security.
Finding so far from interviews: USP
- Only sell genuine products.
- No or very little fees to buy and sell.
- Rare and limited edition products only. ( Starting with sneakers )
Competitive Analysis
I picked some direct and indirect competitors to document and study. View the document
Interviewing users
I have a clothing store close to my house that has a wide selection of trainers and limited edition releases. They have large queues when a new release is due and people camping out. This is a audience that can’t escape and they are potential users who buy and sell rare trainers, either for themselves or to sell on. I wanted to discover as much about their world as possible what makes them tick and motivates them.
Story telling
Storytelling helps to focus on exactly why, how and what. Some I can get into the heads of my users. Here is the over arching story of this project so far.
I will be revisiting this stage when I have a prototype to test.
Follow the journey
How not to launch a product
Step 1: How to launch a product - Empathise
Step 2: How to launch a product - Define
Step 3: How to launch a product - Iterate
Step 4: Build a MVP / prototype and design
Step 5: Test on the MVP / prototype
Promote on facebook, instragram and twitter. Gather shed loads of user data. Google analytics, surveys, hotjar, usability testing etc. Get it into the hands of users.
Step 6: Analysis the data
Analysis data and create usability maps of real data.
Step 7: Iterate and improve
Revisit UX design and adjust.