Driving Product Growth
Let’s explore an effective framework for product growth, focusing on four (plus one) core principles that have the potential to accelerate any product's journey. These principles are:
1. Customer Centricity and User-Centric Approach
2. Data-Driven Decisions
3. The Why Principle
4. Prioritising Biggest Problems and Opportunities
5. Leveraging Machine Learning (Bonus Principle)
1.Customer Centricity and User-Centric Approach
A product's journey towards growth begins and ends with the user. A customer-centric approach ensures that your product is built not just for, but with your users.
- Regular customer feedback
- User testing
- Market Research
form the backbone of this approach. The objective is to build a product that meets users' needs and solves their problems. Remember, if your product fails to resonate with its users, its chances of achieving sustainable growth are slim.
2. Data-Driven Decisions
In the age of Big Data, successful product growth can be directly linked to data-driven decisions. Use of analytical tools to gather user data helps in understanding user behaviour, preferences, and pain points. Metrics like user engagement, retention rates, conversion rates, and others serve as a compass, guiding the product towards growth. They enable the identification of trends, prediction of future behaviours, and creation of data-backed strategies.
3.The Why, Why, Why Principle
Understanding "why" you are doing what you're doing is fundamental to your product's growth. Every decision, every action, should be tied back to the why.
Here’s an example set of “Whys”
1st why: Why are you building this feature?
2nd why: Why is this specific design preferred?
3rd why: Why is a certain segment targeted?
The "Why Principle" helps align your product growth strategy with your business vision and mission, ensuring consistency and focus.
4. Prioritising Biggest Problems and Opportunities
Not all problems are created equal, and not all opportunities bear the same fruit. It is crucial to identify and prioritize the most significant issues and opportunities first. A good way to do this is to use a framework like the RICE score (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Ease), which can help to quantify and rank potential tasks. This strategy allows for maximum impact with minimum effort, ensuring resources are utilised effectively.
In early stage start-ups where no benchmarks are sets, frameworks like RICE allow teams to estimate and prioritise effectively.
Remember, you can’t solve all problems at the same time.
5. Leveraging Machine Learning (Bonus Principle)
Machine learning brings a powerful advantage to the product growth framework, especially when connected with data-driven decisions. Machine learning algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data, recognize patterns, and provide insights that might be missed by human analysis. These insights can drive personalised user experiences, predict future behaviours, and automate processes, thereby facilitating product growth.
In conclusion, a product growth framework grounded in these principles can drive your product towards sustainable growth. Be customer-centric, be data-driven, understand your why, prioritize effectively, and don't shy away from the power of machine learning. Remember, growth is a journey, and these principles are your guiding stars.