NASSCOM Product Conclave

Are you tearing yourself in figuring out whether to launch a feature, product or a company? What should you be doing for validating that your idea actually has legs - should you splurge on a 10K launch budget and months of efforts doing user research, customer discovery, market surveys, focus groups? Will this methodical approach give you the answers you seek, and lay the foundation for building a great product bottoms up.

Or, should you just walk down the street to the ATM at the corner, draw out 100$ with your credit card, geek out, build it and see if they come? You'll only know when the rubber hits the road, so no point in precision zooming to the correct answer, when you can get to something that just works by experimenting on the cheap. The Microsofts, Facebooks, Googles of the world were built this way, so why not you? Product life cycles are short, failure rates are ever so high, so why spend precious cycles on something that may just not work. Also who knows if your big idea is really one, it might just be a small, frivolous feature that your competitors give out for free with their next release. 

If this is you, and before you plunk down lots of money, time investment, or quit your day job, you should check out some tips, techniques, tools and best practices to vet your ideas. Take a quick look at what others in the same boat as you have done and learn from their experiences (read failures). 

Key takeaways for attendees: 

- Tips and best practices for product idea validation 

- Learn about tools and techniques: dipstick surveys, panels, focus groups, product demos, A/B tests, on-site experiments (or simulations) 

- Minimum Viable Product (MVP):  is this the Holy Grail of product development?

- When does a 10K launch budget become inevitable?

- Validation: Should you trust your gut instincts, or look at hard metrics?

- Dissecting the product idea at its core: will it fly?