Product Definition –startup vs. large company

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Startups follow the start-fire-aim approach to product definition as against the traditional start-aim-fire. Basically startups do not have the luxury of time and resources to conduct focus group, gather requirements by interviewing users and then build a product based on the sum of needs. Obviously, they have some idea about the market needs and problems they are solving, but they have not yet validated those assumptions with customers, apart from few visionaries. There is of course the risk of ending up building a product which only appeals to visionaries.

Startups first build a product (start-fire) and then look for customers (aim) who are in need for solutions that this product attempts to solve. Well, what they are building is a minimal viable product (MVP) and hence they are very nimble both in terms of product strategy and technical implementation. They can quickly iterate over the market feedback and adapt. I will talk more about MVP later, but for now, it is sufficient to understand that MVP should include only minimal set of features needed to demonstrate the product solution to few customers (few being the operative word here).

Different dynamics are at play in large firms, as they are either adding new features to existing products where the customers and needs are well understood, or they are working on developing new products for existing market and hence they have good understanding of their customers. They could be looking to expand the existing products in new markets and hence they just need to add few features to meet the needs of other market segments. In either case, they have the luxury of time/resources and opportunity to follow the voice of customer (start-aim-fire).