There is a really good reason why feedback is so critical in the product development process.
MONEY.
Hmm, interesting. Tell me more.
If you go down a path without prospective customer feedback, you run the risk that you will never be able to gain traction in the marketplace. You WILL feel strongly about your product. This is pretty much a guarantee. It’s hard not to take criticism personally when you’ve poured your heart and soul into your idea but develop a thick skin because not everyone will love it like you do.
Before you spend tons of cash to develop something you love, something you HOPE others will love, test it out. See how you can make it even better, more marketable. Gathering feedback from your target audience is the best way to find out if you have something people will want to fall in love with. After all, they are the ones who need to pony up the money to buy it.
Always aim to enhance your product but don’t go to market with too many variations. When we launched Krina, we went out with seven handbag styles, each available in about eight different colors. We didn’t get feedback until AFTER our prototypes were designed. And we’d already paid handsomely for the samples. The thing is, we just didn’t know which styles would take off so we diversified…a little too much. Bringing many variations to market means you have enough products to appeal to a lot of tastes but then you get stuck making one-offs. Extremely costly, folks.
Be aware that there is risk in trying to satisfy too many masters. Gather insights from a prospective audience, identify synergies among the sound bytes and prioritize the recommendations. You can’t boil the ocean and some recommendations may cost much more than others. Keep things simple to start. If you have a solid first iteration, you can always improve upon it as time goes on. Just make sure you start out with the right product offering to begin with and everything else will fall into place.