How do you make an amazing product?

What is a product?

something that is made or grown to be sold or used
a/the result of something:
The key part of a product is that it is created to be used.

But what makes an amazing product? It might be different things for different people. In order to make an amazing product it is important that everyone is aligned to the same vision about what makes it amazing. What qualities does it have that makes it amazing?

I’m going to walk you through my thinking and then introduce the Simple Formula.

We can learn from other great products

I think it’s also a good idea to reverse engineer what the great products I like are, and work backwards – why do I like them?

What great products do you like? My favourite are:
– Wechat – I love using wechat and I use it everyday. It’s very useful and easy to use.
– JD.com – I can quickly use it online to order things I need.
– Apple – I love using their different products like the macbook, apple watch, airpods, iphone (although I think the software can be improved)
– Amazon is pretty good, clear and simple.

But great products don’t have to be new technology. There are many everyday items that are pretty amazing that we may take for granted that we can get inspiration and maybe ideas from.
– Cups – the cup is an everyday product but its pretty amazing. It wouldn’t have any idea how to drink without cups.
– Curtains – they perform a function that solves my problem.

What products do I not like?

– Netflix – I find it hard to find movies. And i think they should improve their movie results.
– Instagram – it’s purpose is to make it addictive to sell ads and keep me using the platform, instead of being useful for me (unlike wechat) therefore I feel like it is toxic.

Amazing Products Share the Following:

– Sometimes the best products are simple. They do what they need to do and they do it well – like a cup.
– They solve a real problem. They help you do something.
– They make life better for the user
– They are easy / effortless / intuitive
– They are fun to use in some way. You get some kind of intrinsic reward for using that product.
– I don’t really care about the product. I only care about what it can do for me.
– I don’t need to talk to someone to use the product. A great product is not a service, it is something that just works by itself. (Although Apple does have good customer service that I can use if I need something in store.
– Good value – I also think a great product is something that costs less than the value it provides.

Bad products share the following:

We can also learn from what makes a product bad

– They don’t solve my problem completely,
– They are not aligned with my incentives (eg., instagram)

The following from MindtheProduct is also something that is interesting. That each great product shares the following 5 characteristics.

Is scalability and habit generation important?

However I don’t fully agree with the above 5. I think you can make a great product that is scarce, and only used once. A product that saves a life that is used once could still be an amazing product.

Something that is constantly used I don’t think necessarily makes an amazing product, but in most of the great products they are habit forming because those are the main problems people have. If something is used more then there is a bigger demand.

But if you had two equal products. One was used by one person, and the same was used by 100 million people, then the one that was more widely used must be a better product.

Is emotion important in creating a great product?

I don’t think it’s necessary to make a great product emotional. A cup, curtains and bed is not emotional but it is still great. It can be a bonus to try to build an emotional connection into the product. What is much more important is what is the alternative? What would they be doing without your product?

So here is my thoughts about what makes a great product:

The amazing product formula

– The factors that influence how good a product is, are:
1) – How big of a problem it is
– The alternatives
2) – How well it solves the problem
– The simplicity of the solution
– The ease of use
3) – The scale of the market

So the formula for how good a problem is would be something like this:

Quality of Product = (ScaleofProblem X Solution) X ScaleofMarket

First you need to make the following definitions which are important: In the case of a cup, is it a new cup that was made in the stone age? Then it would be better if you just made another cup when we already have so many cups.

Scale of Problem

Definition: “The cup is a solution to drinking water”
Alternatives: Without the product – “The alternatives are to use a spoon or use a bowl”

Define the solution. What is the solution?

What is the scale of the market?

– How many people use it?

– How frequently do they use it?

However I think its pretty hard to make a maths formula based on this because its subjective and so the formula is not really useful if you are trying to measure it. It is just the same as comparing oranges or apples, but I think that the formula may have some kind of value as a concept.

So here is a simple formula to evaluate how good a product it is: