A valuable Product

I have always wondered on how to make a valuable product. I read a lot of blogs and articles which talk about making valuable products which people love to use. I have built a few products myself.

This confused me. People have a lot to talk about on how to make valuable products - build features that your customers want, build features that your competitors are building, polish features to make using it a pleasure. I decided to find out on my own on what makes a valuable product.

Recently, on my trip to the US I found a lot of time to look at many products, talk to those companies and listen to their sales pitch. In the end, what struck me most was that only those products which talk about solving one problem were the those I ended up exploring more.

I reached a definite conclusion here. A product which solves just one problem, has a simple value proposition so that it is easy to understand and solves the problem completely is a valuable product. Think about it. A product that solves just one problem is easy to relate to, easy to understand and most importantly easy to buy.

Here is my checklist when thinking on a product.

• What is the single problem that the product is trying to solve? If it’s trying to solve more than one problem, it’s actually solve none.
• Does the product solve the one problem completely? Are there any missing parts?
• Can the value proposition of the product be explicitly explained in one sentence?

Orthogonal features will complicate and eventually kill the product.