A startup recently launched its product and got some positive feedback from its users. “I started using their product even though they have recently launched. Their features saved me a lot of time in juggling between different tools”. Do you hear this often about your newly launched product?
How often does the word ‘innovation’ cross your mind while working on a new feature or a new product?
Every business requires extensive hard work and commitment for it to succeed. But, are they enough to achieve your goals? No. The major role in the success of any business is the new innovative ideas that provide better services to the customers. Introducing new innovative ideas in any business, either big or small, at regular intervals helps in achieving the goals in the competitive market.
When startups invest in innovation for the evolution of the product, the benefits are seen across the entire organization — impacting everyone from executives to development and marketing to sales to customer service.
Innovation goes hand-in-hand with product development for startups as the input is less and the output is expected to be large. They need to accept the periodic change with innovation to be in the market.
Let’s take a look at the reasons why innovation is a crucial part of startups.
As technology is changing day by day and moving at a fast pace, it has minimized manual processes freeing up important time for employees. Adapting these new technologies increases efficiency as they produce faster and more accurate results for faster product development.
As increasing productivity starts with reevaluating the product. It helps in determining which product features have more room for improvement and validating the right innovative technology for product development which increases the productivity of startups.
Numerous companies want to acquire the market through new technology. But eventually, some companies are unable to do it becomes difficult for them to hold the new technology to their advantage and can not persevere at its pace. Hence, innovations are the key to success for startups over competitors. It helps them lead and sustain in the market.
In this hugely competitive market, the requirements of the customers are consistently evolving. The product that has a great response today from the target customers may not have the same the next day. The customers might need a different product or the same with a different feature. Business innovation can anticipate market needs and provide the best solution according to the requirements.
Employees in today’s world always have meaningful and creative ways of working, enabling them to network and share and learn more knowledge and skills. This helps startups to stay ahead of their competitors with a significant lead, ensuring consistent growth of the business from the future point of view.
Despite knowing the importance of innovation, a substantial number of startups fail within a couple of years of their existence. One of the major reasons is that they fail to innovate or were unable to execute their plans. This leads to the situation where you need an innovation strategy.
A recent study revealed that more than 80% of executives of startups believe that innovation is important for their growth. However, less than 10% of them knew what exactly the problem is with their product and how they are going to solve them. Building the product innovation strategy gives clarity and ensures the momentum of product development.
Innovation Strategy is precisely the detailed plan of the product that is built to provide value to the customers. Innovation is a complicated process that requires the involvement of the entire team at different levels. Creating a strong product innovation strategy helps you plan and build the upcoming steps for your product’s evolution.
Take a look at some key points to keep in mind while drafting your innovation strategy.
The company goals help you establish how your team is going to approach product innovation. You should be clear with the product goals, and especially the “why” behind them. This will help you create the bridge between where you are now and where you aim to be.
The target market includes your customers as well as your competitors. Product innovation becomes an important part of your team or the entire organization when you want to provide value to your current and potential customers. When keeping an eye on your competitors, gives you insights into what is trending in the market and how you can innovate your product to provide more value to your customers.
The key objective of a product innovation strategy is to make certain that you always have a competitive advantage. When you build a unique value proposition, it helps in focussing on what differentiates your product in the market and sets you apart from competing products so you can design, iterate, and grow while keeping the particular points in mind to your advantage.
After mapping out the product innovation strategy with enough resources such as time, budget, and human resources, it is important to have different processes of researching, developing, testing, launching, and measuring in order. It’s also necessary to make sure that your existing customers can transition seamlessly into using any new products or features to avoid user downtime and loss in revenue from canceled subscriptions.
Once your business is set, you may deviate a little from your goal for some time and appreciate the outcomes of your hard work in the present. You may think that your product strategy is working now and will work in the future as well. However, the circumstances may not work forever for your business due to frequent changes in technology. For this, you will have to keep your mind open to new ideas and be prepared to innovate from time to time. It is important to undertake innovation periodically so that you can appreciate the rewards that it brings in future success.
ㅤ
