Saturday, April 05, 2008

Why new software products fail?

We have seen several new software products fail & in my opinion below are some of the major reasons for failure -

1. Failure to perform a reality check - Every entrepreneur who comes up with a product feels that his idea is the next big thing to happen & dreams of all possible cash flow / financial projections & is so excited - does not look down to see the earth... jumps into going ahead building the product. Limited opinions are taken from other people in the industry or who are currently in the market space, such entrepreneurs are so passionate & secretive about their product idea - they do not disclose the details for guidance or mentoring from veterans.
2. Market is not ready for the product - this is a case of product is & is trying to solve a real problem in the industry / market space, but the product is little early for the market & consumers are not ready for this kind of a product. Some of the products in this category could be changed for current needs by simplifying few things in the product or limiting the number of features in the product.
3. Market Space is crowded - this is "me too" category, entrepreneurs forget to analyze the current players, they also underestimate existing players features / ability & thinks version of the product (solving a problem) is better, efficient & unique. Products in this category are like mushrooms keeps growing & the single big motivation for a entrepreneur in building these products is the sight of his company being acquired some day by a big player in that market space.
4. Idea is great, but product is not usable - Quite a few of the new products fall into this category, products in this section manage to innovate & avoid above 3 categories - but when they build the product they seem to take lot of serveral shortcuts, compromise on the usability / UI of the product, tend to concentrate too much on the product launch date or internal core algorithm of the product - but fail to realise the end usage of the product is the usability / ease of use for the product

Are our entrepreneurs being devils advocate to see above possible issues that may come-up & be ready to build great products?

Thanks
Bhaskara

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