You are familiar with the quote by Jeff Bezos (aka the guy who wanted to sell books). But, do you really grasp its essence?
Around the world, failed startups are abundant. The primary culprit behind 42% of these failures? Lack of market fit.
The startups that do survive find the right market fit, often after a few strategic pivots, addressing customer pain points or fulfilling needs/wants.
As these startups expand, recruits join the team. However, decision-makers lose touch with the original vision and product understanding. The development of new features is based on the gut feeling of these decision-makers. The constantly evolving market and customer needs fade into obscurity. Welcome to Day 2.
Day 2 marks the stagnation of a company. Progress stalls, and engineers lose touch with customers and their pain points. In such scenarios, the only satisfaction engineers find lies in delving deep into coding, detached from business realities. The developed product might be a hit, or more often, a miss, and wasted time.
Here’s what Engineering and Product leadership can do to break free from this trap:
- Empower teams: Define problems and let teams handle the nitty-gritty. Lead with context to boost satisfaction.
- Embrace experimentation: Continuous denial kills motivation.
- Allocate time for refactoring: Neglecting tech debt halts development.
- Be agile: Deliver value frequently, validating product fit and altering course with new evidence.
Escape this trap, and your company will continuously evolve, serve customers, and thrive in the harsh business world.
Stay tuned for more insights on these topics.
Fun fact: Market research often panders to confirmation bias, cherry-picking supporting evidence and discarding contradicting data.