The HERO Product

Here’s why it makes sense to strategically plan & channelize efforts towards creating The HERO Product…

Take a good look at the way some of the biggest orgs. have grown over the last decade & you’d be able to discern a pattern there. When many may not have held back over building & releasing a line of products, a majority of their revenues seem to come from one product.

Take a look at Apple’s graph here in this visual below & you’d notice how their teams have been busy with strategically planning product releases starting right from versions of iPhone, iPad to the more recent iWatch & AirPods after that first ever iPod launch that managed to take the market by a storm back in the 2000s.

But a major portion of their revenues seem to be coming from the iPhone even as of year 2023, which may be no different even if one were to factor in the Vision Pro, their latest release.

Image Credits: Statista

So, the iPhone here fits the description of THE HERO PRODUCT as far as Apple’s case goes.

Definition:

“A hero product is a flagship product for your business, the one that introduces your business to the world & does it such a unique way that sets you totally apart from the competition”

In essence a HERO product ought to tick all these boxes:

• Solves a problem resonating with a major section of the market

• Offers one of the most unique experiences by choosing to solve the problem differently

• Propels multi-fold growth owing to the value proposition, continually

• Markets begin to recognize the org. via the product

Lets’ run through some of the advantages of having a HERO Product:

But, how does one go about planning & building a HERO product?

It’s pretty simple for one to see the result and declare something as a HERO product. But how does one incorporate it into the strategy and specifically channelize the energies of all teams towards building one such product? Where should one start from?

Look, am sure you’d agree that life is NOTHING like a comic book which is where superheroes are known to be born out of nowhere, stumbling on some rare & other-worldly powers waking up to a super-refined version of their own selves after being hit overnight by a thunderbolt from a different planet bestowing them abundantly with outlandish powers largely unimaginable & out of reach of common man.

Nothing too frightening, as this could merely be a pretty simple exercise running into a few steps. But beware, this is also where 99% of them go terribly wrong. The trouble is how teams seem to put an extraordinary amount of onus on predictions trying to call the market over what they perceive is going to be THE NEXT BIG THING, when in reality one could feed the supposed users of the target market with a basic version & learn from it continually, subjecting it to all-round testing, which contrary to popular belief - is much simpler.

1.  Start out with a VISION

The VISION is the most crucial part of any product, more so when you’re gunning for a HERO Product. If you take a consensus it is more likely that orgs. with a really strong vision would have a greater propensity to build a HERO product, something that could take the market by a storm & at the same time manage to hold their interest in it for a really long period of time, when poor / myopic visions would act as a deterrent in all probability.

When every org. could get into believe that their vision is the strongest, there are a few questions that one could pop and find answers for so as to totally dismantle assumptions:

• Is the problem big enough?

  • Does it resonate with a really large section of the market?

  • How is the TAM looking?

• Is the target market large enough?

  • Can we factor in economies of scale any time sooner?

  • Do we envision this product reaching billions / even trillions?

• What’s the probability of the problem growing & resonating with markets beyond now?

  • Is our vision aligned with the immediate present & also (more importantly) the future?

  • Is this what we envision ourselves doing for really a long term?

  • Are our efforts in-line with our growth trajectory?

  • Do we have it in us to tick off all those projection numbers?

2. Factor-in INNOVATION pretty early

The INNOVATION is the backbone of any product that’s gone on to be the HERO product. Reading between the lines, you ought to know that a HERO product ought to be able to hold the markets captive for a really long period of time. And, that’s certainly not going to be possible with one humble release, the first ever time. One ought to have covered some solid ground in terms of having a deeper understanding of the markets, a elaborate list of underserved needs & targeting each of them at a regular cadence, serving it up with innovation, time & again.

When its easy for someone to think they have something innovative up their sleeve, it is very crucial to run that through the people that matter & take consensus about their behaviors, how they receive it, which could be possible via these questions:

• Is the product innovative enough?

  • How are the users reacting to the manner in which we are trying to solve the problem?

  • What do they like?

  • Are there any improvements suggested?

• How many users are excited & are ready to onboard if the product is made available in its current form starting tomorrow?

  • How many sign-ups would I have if I announced release today?

  • What would get the users / markets excited all the more?

  • What area should we concentrate on & improve further thereof? Is it the UX / Price / a New problem altogether?

3. Make FEEDBACK a culture within your org.

No product in the world has managed to bag the “perfect” tag by focusing on building, releasing just what was a fleeting thought of idea. The reason some ideas have turned into great innovations & have managed to stand strong against the tides of time is testimony to the fact that they paid enough heed to the voice of the users / customers, which is to say incorporating FEEDBACK and giving it the utmost importance so as to segregate what is actionable & ensure that it is followed regularly across all channels, making it a culture org-wide.

Reading through all those verbatim, rummaging thousands of pages of feedback may be a thing of the past given how one could stuff all that bulk info into a GPT and ask it to summarize it. But, getting to discerning whether or not a particular feedback is actionable is primary & ought to happen over these questions:

• What feedback is actionable & how is it factored in?

  • How do we define parameters that help classify / segregate feedback?

  • Do we have an algorithm in place to help prioritize feedback?

  • What metrics are we tracking post implementing the feedback received so as to ensure customer satisfaction?

• Are teams able to go from Feedback / Data to Insight easily?

  • Do all teams share the same understanding when it comes to identifying feedback?

  • Is feedback centrally stored & accessible by all teams at all times?

4. Focus on CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

Think about it. What good would the feedback be if one isn’t factoring it in, learning from it, refining the product over and over again so that it hits something of a threshold level of perfection & then tries to stay on top of it for a long time thereof. And for that to happen, it is important to draft a few rules, formulate a strategy or build a protocol so as to help all the teams in the org. understand the importance of IMPROVEMENT & to make that a CONTINUOUS ongoing process would just be an icing on the cake.

Continuous improvement could largely look an eyewash unless one is molding / drafting it into their processes. And that could be done by defining an ascension point, charting out a growth trajectory & then monitoring KPIs on an ongoing basis, understanding if that needs any mending so as to enable teams to aim higher. And to be able to do that on a regular cadence one would need to find answers to these questions:

• What’s a growth trajectory looking like?

  • Do the metrics indicate consistent improvement being achieved over MoM, QoQ, YoY?

• When do teams look for feedback & how often?

  • At what cadence is the team referencing feedback right now?

  • At what cadence do teams recheck & redraw those KPIs so as to realign?

5. Identify & refine your VALUE PROPOSITION

There are so many instances where the users begin using a product for some purpose tangential to the original one deviating the way it was perceived or how it was meant to be used. And then, the more you stress on what you thought was the value you’re adding could totally fall on deaf ears given how it is different from the user’s perception.

One way out of this is to constantly be in touch with your users, build an MVP & test it thoroughly gauging it for attitudinal & behavioral changes in your users, allow enough room for course-correction, identify what’s working for them & use that information to draft what could be a winning VALUE PROPOSITON. And, to be mature enough to understand that it could slightly vary & get better with every feature release as well, is the best.

• How have the marketing efforts fared over new releases & how do they resonate with the user groups?

  • Do all frontline metrics with regard to the content establish that marketing efforts are yielding incrementally?

  • Is the Retention Rate showing an upward trend across cohorts?

  • Is the C-SAT & NPS hinting at constant (/steady) improvement?

• Tracking a few metrics pointing to users having trouble in understanding the value proposition

  • Ratio of [users watching the full clip / banner ad / content] : CTR

  • Percentage of users dropping off (drop-off-rate) before they run through the whole content

  • Percentage of referrals over a period of time

These 5 steps if followed meticulously could improve the chances of identifying a HERO product much earlier.

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