Build, test, learn, repeat.

If you’re serious about your product (whatever form it takes), then carrying out product development is crucial.

How will you manufacture it? Do people like it? Why wouldn’t they buy it?

Here’s how to get your product development right from day one.

Validate the market before you build

Where is the gap in the market? Does your product fill it? Would your potential customers buy it?

There’s only one way to find out and that’s by carrying out market research. Before you fall in love with your idea, find out if it’s solving a real problem. The best product in the world will flop if no one wants it.

Run lean market research by:

• Checking Google Trends, Statista, and ONS data for demand signals

• Using Perplexity AI or ChatGPT to explore industry insights and customer pain points

• Running surveys, focus groups, interviews, or polls on social media

• Observing customer behaviour (yes, even in real life!)

Go through this process early on in your product development process to be sure that you are exploring the right avenue with your idea.

Top Tip:

Check out the British Library's BIPC for free access to industry databases and market research tools.

Get strategic with competitor analysis 

When you’re starting out, discover as much as you can about the industry you want to enter so there are no nasty surprises later on. Understanding what’s already out there will help you find your competitive edge.

Look for:

• Who your direct and indirect competitors are

• How your product compares on quality, price, delivery, and service

• What your competitors’ customers love — and complain about

• Gaps in their offering that your product can fill

Think beyond the product — what’s their brand tone? Packaging? Loyalty program? It all matters.

Create a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to sharpen your strategic thinking.

Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

All products, from software to the physical, should start out as a minimum viable product (MVP). Your MVP is the first and most simplistic version of your product with the minimum features required, that will be used for testing and solves the core problem.

It’s not about perfection — it’s about speed, learning, and iteration. The feedback you receive about this initial iteration will inform how it’s developed and improved upon.

Keep it simple:

• What’s the one thing your product must do to be valuable?

• Strip everything else away

• Launch your MVP to a small, target audience

Collect feedback fast, so instead of pouring all of your resources into creating a whole range of products, create your MVP, test and improve (again, and again, if necessary) until you’ve nailed it.

Create feedback loops that actually work

Gaining as much feedback and as many reviews as you can about your MVP is crucial for making it the best it can be, so make sure that you’ve got multiple reliable feedback channels in place. Don’t just hope for feedback — build systems to capture it at every touchpoint.

Set up:

• Review requests via email and SMS

• Customer interactions via chatbots or surveys

• Public reviews on Google, Trustpilot, or niche sites

• Polls and comment prompts on social media

• Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys for satisfaction insights

And don’t forget to act on what you hear. Your next version should be sharper, smarter, and more aligned with what your customers actually want.

Top Tip:

Use AI tools to analyse feedback for recurring themes — it saves hours and helps you prioritise updates.

Product development isn’t a one-off project. It’s a mindset: build, test, learn, repeat. When you approach development like a curious, customer-obsessed founder, you’ll end up with something not just functional — but unforgettable.