Laser Focused on User Adoption
January 19, 2022 by Kim Loomis, Product Owner @ Fathym
In this article, we examine Fathym’s evolution from a software development team to a product team. Activities are changing from research, planning, testing, analysis and programming to the responsibilities of product management, product marketing, user experience and product analytics.
“Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress.”
Seth Godin, Entrepreneur, Best-selling author and Speaker
“I’m done developing this product.”
When you’re creating a product, you should get to a point when you can say that sentence. (For now. You won’t ever say that your product does not need to be improved or that there aren’t additional useful features you should build.) But right now, you’ve reached some previously identified milestone where you can definitively say the product has met your definition of done for this iteration.
That definition of done can be stated something like the following:
- The product has a set of features that work successfully.
- The product solves a real-world problem in its current state.
- The product adds value for the user.
- The product is professionally presented.
- The product instills confidence and trust in an end user.
- Customers would refer others to us because of this product.
- We would use our own product!
Once you’ve reached this stage, you move from a development focus to a product focus. You want to validate your assumptions about the product. You want to know how users react to your product. Now you’ve got to get that product out in front of users’ eyeballs, get them interested and get them using it. On that last step, that’s when you’re getting that super valuable product feedback:
- What do they like?
- What do they not like?
- What feature gets used most? Least?
- Do they use it repeatedly?
- Does the usage drop off at some point? If so, why?
That feedback allows you to know what to change, what to scrap (yes, you can build cool shiny stuff that no one else thinks is so awesome) and what to build next that the market is asking for — go meet the demand!
Fathym has reached that point — we’re a true product team, no longing solely focusing on development. Our products are ready and we’re aggressively pursuing our target users. We want to get our valuable tools in users’ hands and make their lives better. We want their feedback.
We want them to be Fathym tech users.
