How To Build A Product

If you're looking to launch a new product, need product development process tips, or want to give employees product training when you're about to build a product, you've come to the right place.

In this how to build a product guide, we're going to break it down so you can learn from our Founder, Jude Novak. He'll share some of the best advice he's ever received, tips for how to build a successful product, and things you need to avoid so you can stay ahead of the game.

To give you a little bit of background, our Founder, Jude, co-founded a company focused on developing learning apps for kids on the Apple App store called INKids Education. He's learned a lot over the years after working with household names such as Samsung and Apple.

Now as the Founder of Coassemble, he's sharing some of his learnings about how to build a successful product. You can read more about how Jude Founded Coassemble in the article 7 Questions With Our Founder Jude.

Tips for how to build a product

1. Become a problem solver

One of the most crucial elements for building a minimum viable product is understanding the 'why' behind why you are designing the product. For Jude this was easy, as Coassemble was designed to solve a problem for himself. He was the sole customer and knew exactly what he wanted.

It wasn’t until Coassemble was launched and available as an offering for other companies that Jude learnt how to use customer insights to build a better product.

One of the key learnings he shared with us was that much of the feedback he received from customers was in the form of feature requests, and that you should never take feature requests at face value. Often the request does not solve the problem the customers are experiencing, and that there is often a better way of solving a problem with good UX than investing time in developing a new feature.

You'll find more fundamental problems when launching a new product as you gain more customers. If you're a startup, you might not be creating a product for thousands of customers, so there will always be problems that you'll need to overcome in the long term.

Need help with how to talk to customers and gain quality customer feedback? Check out our 9 Effective Live Chat Support Tips We Use To Engage Customers, as told by our Customer Success Manager Bridie.

2. Build a good team around you

It will be hard to move forward without having a passionate team to help you reach your goals, so try building a good team around you. Find the right investors to help make that goal become a reality.

As a Founder, Jude told us how it's crucial to balance out the personality of the CEO being business-led and as the Founder in Jude's case, being product-led to lead the foundations of building the team around you to launch a successful product to your target market.

Read our guide for 17 Best Employee Onboarding Process Steps to help you get your employees off to the right start when building the foundations of your team.

3. Learn from your customers

When looking to build a product for potential customers or existing customers, make sure you're either tackling the pain points or looking for opportunities to expand existing customers.

Learning from your customers is vital as you'll get a lot of insights from them while you create prototypes to see if they are successful before rolling out a new product. You'll want to make sure your customers are getting value from you to continue building out winning product ideas.

If you're looking for tips on finding the right team, check our Best Start Up Interview Questions We Would Personally Ask Candidates, as told by our Head of Ops, Dimity.

4. Prioritize what you're working on

Keep notes and insights you can learn from your customers to see what your customers need clearly. You might like to use a platform like Product Board to keep the valuable information. This will help you see what customer feedback comes up the most and whether it will provide value for the business, target audience, and customers.

As time progresses, you'll be able to notice how your customers provide feedback that can help unblock other problems to evolve your product idea.

5. Do a lot of research

It might sound like common sense, but make sure you do a lot of research before considering product development. You'll need to find a balance between pushing out new updates quickly while spending enough time testing them out first. It can be tricky because you'll know you'll be against the clock to keep ahead of your competitors while releasing quality product updates.

The key is to test concepts as early as possible to avoid wasting time in the long run, no matter how much your competitors will be trying to catch up with you.

6. Think big and start small

If you're looking to know how to save time while building a new product, it's best to think big and start small, which is the motto we go by at Coassemble.

The last thing you want to do is design, develop, and release a major product feature that doesn’t get used by your customers. It’s important to release a minimum viable version of the feature so that you can test the idea on real customers. This way you can gather insights to build the best version of the feature that best suits your customers needs.

You might like to check out our Everything You Need To Know About SaaS Product Training guide to help you drive business growth.

7. The best advice you could receive

Need some inspiration on starting a product line, building or updating a product for potential customers or your target audience? There's one piece of advice that has always stuck with our Founder, Jude:

Jude has always stuck by the goal of having fun building Coassemble to where it is today. Keeping your passion going strong can only lead you to build a team of passionate individuals around you, all striving for the same goal to help change the way people learn.

Product training templates to help grow your team

Looking for product training templates to train your team? Sharing knowledge is the first step to building the perfect product your customers will love. Our online training course templates are customizable, so you can drop your content in and keep each process in one place.

You can also track who engaged with your online training, giving you insights into improving it over time.

Having processes and online training for employees is an integral part of joining any company. Our course templates are ready, so you can dive in and drop your content into them without taking up too much of your time.

Use one of our free product training templates below to get started or build your own template from scratch today!

Product Roadmap

Get started and learn how to put together an exceptional Product Roadmap so you can keep employees up to date with where the product development process is heading, solutions to achieve goals, KPIs, and more resources to keep the information in one place.

Preview Product Roadmap Course Template

New Product Introduction Training

Launching a new product? A solid product introduction training program ensures that your employees have a deep understanding of your product's features, benefits, and value proposition. This knowledge equips them to address customer inquiries, overcome objections, and showcase the product's unique selling points confidently.

Preview New Product Introduction Training Template

Product Catalog

Need to showcase your brand's products to customers or clients? Feature your standout products, describe inclusions, and list pricing so your customers or clients can see the value. You can also add an inquiry form or feedback form to gain valuable feedback.

Preview Product Catalog Template