3 basic assumptions every founder/team should test before building the product and why it is important.

In 2016, I and my colleagues founded a software development company, and from then we tried to build different products, yes we were young and ambitious so we tried different things, however despite our technical level which was not bad, we have failed some software products. And I always asked myself how we can fail a software product with the technical knowledge we had. It was at that time that I realized there are more to building software products than just being good at coding.

So many startup founders that I have talked to, have the same way of thinking, they believe as they are capable of building the idea they have in mind, then they have everything they need to succeed, which is one of the major reasons why only 10% of the startups succeed, 90% that fail are not necessarily technically weak. 

If we are to start experiencing more wins in startups, I believe before spending our time and money building a product, we need to have a certain level of assurance that the product we are building is going to succeed. To hit that minimum level of certainty we have to start by testing some basic assumptions that every founder has before we dive deep into the “build” stage.

I did some research on different assumptions for me to know which ones that I can share with you, however I referred to the book Continuous discovery habits written by Teresa Torres to share with you 3 basic assumptions, However if you read the book you will find 5 assumptions but I prefer to discuss the 4th and the 5th in my next articles.

As a founder, here are the 3 basic assumptions you should test before building your product:

1. Desirability Assumptions

This is one of the major assumptions that we make. We assume that the product we are going to build is needed by people. But we should ask ourselves, does anyone want it? Will our targeted people get value from it? Does anyone care about the problem we are solving? Every founder tends to fall in the trap of believing that people will use her product without having even tangible evidence.

This is even the trap that we have fallen into most of the times on the failed products that I have worked on, we assumed people want it because we thought our product was cool, but we didn’t test how desirable our product was, how people are willing to use, at which extent do people want the problem solved, etc.

One of the harsh truths that I have learned through my journey is that people sometimes may be facing some problems but they don’t care whether those problems are solved or not, in other words they are okay with them. So we need to make sure the desirability is tested upfront to make sure we are working on something that people are looking forward to having and using.  

2. Viability Assumptions

If you are a product manager, you know this is mostly the first question that your bosses ask when you are presenting a new idea to them, how will we make money from it? Is it profitable? This is not because they are money oriented or they don’t put customers first. In business, if we want to serve our customers for a long time, then our solution needs to be viable, hence self sustainable. 

Our solution being viable means it will generate more money than it will cost us in building it. So this is a very important point and also I have realized that most people fall in this trap, they find that their solution is wanted and then go straight into building it without asking themselves how they will make money from it. If the solution can’t sustain itself then it is short-term.

Another huge lesson that I have learned is that people may have a problem, willing to use your solution but not ready to pay for it. This also falls in the truth that I mentioned in desirability assumption, it means yes, people have problems but they don’t care about it much to the point they can pay for it. So Viability for the sake of sustaining our businesses needs to be tested upfront too.

3. Feasibility Assumptions

In all cases that I have experienced, this is the most rare one, however sometimes you can come up with a desirable solution idea, which can even make money for your company but find it hard to build it. This is why asking yourself  “is it technically possible?” kind of question makes sense.  

I have seen so many products especially in my country Rwanda, that are desirable and viable however are not technically built well, which frustrates customers, because if I go to your platform and I can’t do anything because so many people are on the platform, next time if I have another choice I will use that one. 

A solution which is poorly built technically will hurt your engagement and the retention of your product, which means to succeed we also need to make sure technically we are good to face any challenge that would come both in the beginning and through the way.

The 3 mentioned assumptions should be tested before building the product and none of them should be ignored or left behind. However, testing doesn’t stop when you start building, the more your product grows the more you keep testing if you are still capable of handling the technical work,  if the customers you are serving are still getting value from it and if you are still making money from it. We will go deep in each and every assumption to see how teams can test them and we will also talk about other types of assumptions like usability, when and how they are tested.