Over the years, we've met with many companies that can't focus on creating a great product or service because they get overwhelmed by all the choices and problems to solve. Is your creative process stuck because of information or choice overload? Here are four common reasons why and what to do about it.
Problem: Your product or service is for everyone. When businesses get nervous they won't be able to attract customers, they often try to create something with mass appeal that ends up being unfocused.
Solution: Concentrate on developing great, specific ideas. Cast too wide of a net and you'll end up making a product that serves no one. Pick a specific market problem and grow the product from there.
Problem: You don't have clear ways to validate product ideas. If you can't test ideas or features effectively, then you don't really have metrics worth tracking.
Solution: Create more meaningful features and useful, trackable data will naturally evolve.
Problem: Your business concept isn't clear. Stacks of magazine clippings or lists of similar competitors doesn't automatically validate your business concept.
Solution: Get real customer feedback and data from prototypes and analytics. The market is typically not an effective way to validate your concept or features.
Problem: You can't easily define what you're building. If you can't easily articulate the goals of what you're building, then you're most likely reacting to a market theory and not a customer problem.
Solution: Observe people working with the problem you are solving. Watch them, learn from them— this is where innovation happens. If you're not the customer, figure out a way to empathize with their problems.
Bryan Zmijewski
Leading the charge at ZURB since 1998
Our fearless leader has been driving progressive design at ZURB since 1998. That makes him quite the instigator around the offices, consistently challenging both the team and our customers to strive to always do better and better.
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Follow him at @bryanzmijewski
