For our final instalment of the Weekly Innovation Challenge we learnt the process of developing products. Firstly, where do you start? What features are critical at developing first and how do you know if you have a product- market fit?

Our guest expert Phil Williamson Co-founder and Chief Innovator at Intelledox talks us through product upgrades, team innovation days and putting your minimum viable product (MVP) out to market.

Be a visionary – lead your product, care about its long-term future, build something you’re passionate about and that you deeply believe will make a difference.

Listen to customers carefully – balance your vision with meeting customer needs. Listen to customers and understand their needs then offer them what they really need not necessarily what they asked for.

Upgrade your product frequently – and manage your clients desire for continuity. Communicate changes early and help customers see the benefits. Security and reliability are essential and require updates.

Developing features – these ideas come from an internal thinktank, the founders and teams should be ahead of the curve and understand the product-market fit.

There are three key areas that Intelledox look at when discussing and planning features:

1. Marketing: will we be able to market these products and features; how will it position us?
2. Competition: what are our competitors doing and how do we make sure we stay ahead?
3. Customer analysts: how is our product development tracking, what systems should your prospective customers have that you develop?

Finding the right people – look for talent over experience, find people who are creative and ambitious.

Creative outlet – once a month, create an internal innovation day, this will empower the team to develop or build things they normally wouldn’t get the chance to do so.

Clear process – make sure there is a structure around product development; test, refine, repeat and release.

MVP – keep it simple, progress over perfection. Get feedback on products early.

There are also a lot of common product challenges that founders, and product managers can relate to:

• Finding the right fit to your customer needs
• Finding the right developers
• Customers don’t love it when they see it
• Making enough progress
• Getting stuck for new ideas
• Too many new ideas
• Customer feedback
• Money
• Hardware
• Regulatory compliance and engineering documentation

How to you solves these? Find a mentor, connect with the innovation community, and talk to customers, you may be surprised how much support is out there!

Thank you to everyone for tuning in to the Weekly Innovation Challenges, there are still lots of events coming up with lots of interesting people, keep up to date on what’s on through the Canberra Innovation Network’s events page or subscribe to our mailing list.