If you’re looking to build your product or service or improve on an existing one, here’s what you need to know.
You’ve got a great business plan, a killer idea for an app, and a market that’s ready and waiting. So now what? Trying to keep things in-house can be expensive and fraught with unforeseen obstacles (particularly if you’re in the early stages of a startup with only a small team to rely on).
If you’re looking to build your product or service or improve on an existing one, here’s how working with a product studio can help.
Let’s get one of your biggest challenges out of the way first.
Building an app (or launching any kind of online service) is rarely simple.
Through ideation, product design, development and delivery, the process to market rarely runs in a perfectly straight line. Some businesses wanting to launch an app might aim to enlist a software developer after having done some of the leg work themselves, but this can result in some costly back-and-forth as the project develops.
A product studio on the other hand, is an end-to-end solution rather than a one-off service. It looks at the whole product lifecycle, guiding you through each stage, to design and build the products or features that best suit your goals.
Creating a successful digital product often requires experimentation.
‘Build and fail’ is an essential part of the process, it helps you pinpoint what works (and what doesn’t).
But experimentation without experience leads to disaster. One without the other might mean going down a rabbit hole that adds greater expense and eats up precious time in the design process.
However, working with a product studio means you benefit from the experience of specialists who can help you get things right earlier.
This includes expert UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) engineers, QA (quality assurance) specialists, mobile app developers, and experts in taking a product to market. Buying in this kind of experience, particularly trying to recruit them full time, is usually well beyond the reach of most businesses who are in the initial stages of launching a product.
At Lumi, while you’re outsourcing your design and development, you’re also working with a competent and trusted partner. We’re engineers, designers, and technical specialists, all under one roof. And we collaborate with you as an extension of your senior team.
You might have an idea of what you want your product to look like. At the very least, you’ll know what the end result will be – a working app or service that makes your customers’ lives easier.
A product studio has the know-how and innovators to get you there.
It starts with the discovery stage: in-depth customer interviews, drawing up product roadmaps, and experimentation that fills in the gaps and brings your app or product to life. Our designers focus on the look and feel of the product to come up with a prototype that’s ready to test in the real world.
The development stage is the moment an app can be transformed from merely a good idea into a great one. Using no-code prototypes (a basic experiment that allows you to test your app with your audience cheaply and efficiently), MVPs (a ‘beta’ version containing just enough features for your early customers to provide feedback), and finally versions that are fully functioning, the studio is able to learn from your customers and iterate.
Benefiting from this positive feedback loop during development enables a product studio to adapt quickly and make changes, making it easier for you to keep improving and making the final product even better.
If you were working with a software design company to create your product or service, the stages we have described so far might be where the partnership ends.
But really, the point when your final product goes live - that’s just the beginning.
Getting an app to take off requires several factors including a successful go-to-market strategy, a stunning landing page with strong conversion rates; and content marketing plans that raise your profile among your customer base.
We’d argue that the best product studios need to handle this side for you too.
But what happens next? Sometimes, after a successful initial launch, even a good app can find that growth slows down. Often what’s needed is a strategic pivot.
This pivot might involve altering the app’s features, expanding into new markets, or even reimagining the product’s core functionality to better meet the needs of its target audience.
That’s where we come in too.
A prime example was our work with Orbiit, a virtual networking platform that activates community members through interconnections.
Orbiit were well established, and had a number of initial clients, but they were looking for opportunities to expand to a different market. We identified an opportunity to make their product work for go-to-market teams as well as direct to clients. We helped them redefine their audience through customer reviews and research and take their product to this new audience.
After a few months, the results of all our work showed a 4x increase in contract size with new customers: one client saw a 900% increase in customer retention when using the app, while doubled engagement.
Maybe you’ve got the idea and sales, but your tech team can’t support the levels of growth you’re looking for? Maybe you’re getting ready to launch, but feel your product lacks the prominence to get your customers truly excited? An end-to-end product studio could be the answer.
We’ve worked with founders of startups across the world to create apps and services loved by millions, including Software as a Service (SaaS), web apps or mobile apps, helping them grow their user bases, saving time and money to design and develop great-looking products with a great user experience.
Find out more about what we do here. To get going on your next project, simply book a call, we’d love to chat!
