Okay, so you got your idea. Now what? I think that you start with two lists, “Minimum Requirements” and “Features”. Minimum Requirements are exactly those things that your product will need at minimum to compete at all. If you can’t develop these, you should not be trying to develop this product at all. I have seen many people who see a good idea, and try to jump on a trend with a product that just falls short. The world is littered with them. Am I going to say that it is not that much harder to have built a good product? Hell no, it’s a hell of a lot harder.

If you are able to fulfill the Minimum Requirements, congratulations, you are on your way towards building an also-ran. Be prepared to spend a ton of money trying to out-market the competition. In fact, be prepared to spend far more money than you would have spent to actually come up with a better angle. Which brings me to the core of whether this, or any idea, will succeed. The Features List. Features are what differentiate products and in the process defines your market. The competing products in the “Automated Webinar” space were not without features, but their features were geared towards a particular market: “Internet Marketers”. We were aiming at a different market: “Traditional Business”. Therefore we needed a different set of features.

In our case, we planned to build a better mousetrap, at least for our target market. In order to build a better mousetrap, you have to first experience all of the other mousetraps. This will be the first of many times you will need to bust out your wallet. We signed up for every service and bought every script that was attempting to service the market we envisioned. Expensive? Yes. Necessary? I hope so. I saved myself a lot of time on one of my prior ideas, when I realized someone else had come up with a better solution than what I had imagined. Now could I have gone ahead with my inferior implementation in the hopes that I could out-market them? Sure, happens all the time, but your shortcomings will most likely trip you up eventually. I think, if you can’t beat ‘em… do something else.

Fortunately, in this case, every new script I investigated or service I tried, reinforced my opinion that everybody else was missing the mark, or at least the mark I saw. The other benefit of peeking into all the competition, is that you can cherry-pick the good ideas you find. I had several thoughts that I did not see implemented by anybody, but I also saw several things that I had not thought about. Some of these ideas were good, and well executed, of course they go on the minimum requirements list. But often, the good ideas were poorly executed, and these got added to the features list, along with my other ideas nobody was doing. Often, if you go into the support forums, users will indirectly tell you what is missing. I am amazed at how many product developers ignore their users’ suggestions, usually dismissing them as either unnecessary or not possible. Sure, you will see your unique use cases, but often, if you read closely, you will find a recurring feature request that the product developer is not addressing. Laziness, ego, time, money, lack of better option for clients are all reasons to ignore these requests, and thereby create an opportunity for someone like me.

Where else can you discover potential desirable features? I have had great success in LinkedIn groups. There are a lot of groups on LinkedIn, most likely there is a group related to what you are thinking. Often, your established competitors will have created one. By joining, and just reading what people are saying, you can come up with all sorts of possibilities. LinkedIn Questions and Answers is another treasure trove. Personally, I prefer to lurk and listen. I understand that the rules of marketing have changed, and many people feel that it is perfectly acceptable to go into a competitor’s group and pimp your product. It’s happened to me, I don’t like it, and I won’t do it. I think it diminishes you. When I see someone doing this, I don’t think “Wow, I need to check this out” I think, “What a desperate Jerk”. If they are that desperate, their product is probably not very good. Similarly, a lot of people feel that it is perfectly acceptable to pimp their product or service in other people’s blog comments. They will start out with what appears to be a reasonable comment, that eventually mentions their product or service… class-less, and obvious. There is a tactful, and appropriate way to accomplish this goal, and I will get into that in a future post.

Next post: Minimum Product Requirements