Product Discovery Framework

By Akinola Fakeye | Senior Product Manager

1. Customer Discovery Phase

Understanding customer needs, pain points, and desired outcomes through structured research.

Activities:

Conduct customer interviews (5-10 per segment)
Create customer needs discovery/tracking tool
Map customer journeys and identify friction points
Gather quantitative data through surveys and analytics
Analyze support tickets and feedback channels

Key Questions to Ask:

What problem are you trying to solve?
How are you solving this today?
What would success look like?
What's preventing you from achieving that?

2. Concept Testing & Validation

Testing product concepts with customers before significant development investment.

Validation Methods:

Create screen capture videos demonstrating concepts
Develop clickable prototypes (low-fidelity → high-fidelity)
Conduct video prototype sessions with target users
Build 3D printouts or mockups where applicable
Run A/B tests on landing pages to gauge interest

Success Criteria:

Customer willingness to pay (pricing validation)
Engagement metrics on prototypes
Clear articulation of value by customers
Preference over existing solutions

3. Analytics & Measurement

Using product analytics to track how customers use products and guide decisions.

Implementation:

Design product dashboards for product team visibility
Create sales team dashboards showing customer usage vs revenue
Track key metrics: activation, engagement, retention, revenue
Visualize and chart customer behavior patterns
Run product experiments with clear hypothesis and metrics

Key Metrics to Track:

Time to first value (activation)
Feature adoption rates
User engagement frequency
Retention cohorts
Usage vs. revenue correlation

4. Continuous Insight Sharing

Ensuring discovery insights reach the extended team to inform decisions.

Best Practices:

Create regular "Voice of Customer" presentations
Maintain shared repository of research findings
Invite stakeholders to customer interviews
Share video clips of customer feedback
Conduct collaborative analysis workshops

5. Innovation Lab Series

Building an innovation engine through structured cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Workshop Format:

Monthly innovation lab workshops
Bring together product, engineering, design, business
Use design thinking frameworks (empathy, ideation, prototyping)
Crowdsource ideas from broader organization
Create clear evaluation criteria for initiatives