Five Steps to Create
Your Software Product
with Outsourcing
By
Steve Mezak
By
Steve Mezak Many
executives and investors
are skeptical that
software products can be
developed using
outsourcing. Even more
skepticism is expressed
at the idea of
outsourcing version 1.0
of a product. Yet
Accelerance clients are
using outsourcing to
create their products
right now. What is the
secret to using
outsourcing to
successfully develop a
software product?
Many people believe
outsourcing is useless
when you are in the
Fuzzy Front End - that
fuzzy zone between when
a market opportunity is
known and when serious
software development can
begin. They think you
need to slog through the
Fuzzy Front End by
coding a prototype of
your product. If so, you
need the development
team here, not several
oceans away.
Another false assumption
is that you need to
write a comprehensive
specification for your
software during the
Fuzzy Front End. Many
companies use a very
formal product
definition process,
optimized to remove as
much "fuzz" as possible.
How long should it take
to design a software
product before
development can begin?
Obviously time is of the
essence when developing
a new product, but
before the development
process can begin you
must have some idea of
what your software will
do. It is best to find
this out from your
prospective customers.
But how can you involve
your customers early and
often in a collaborative
process, when both of
you are not sure of what
they need or want? And
what does that have to
do with outsourcing?
According to Steve
Blank, founder of
several software
startups and now
lecturer at the Haas
School of Business at
Berkeley, you don't need
a product development
process. You need a
customer development
process. You need a
process to discover what
ornery problem your
potential customers have
that will cause them to
part with their
hard-earned money to
solve that problem by
buying your software.
The first step of
Blank's customer
development process is
Customer Discovery. Here
are his steps of
customer discovery:
Create a product (or
product demo)
Meet with customers and
answer these four
questions of customer
discovery:
