What are the two key pillars of a product? If you have the right TAM and a capable and motivated Team, everything else falls in place.
There are just too many parameters for a product's success. Can we just narrow it down to a small list? If you want to check the viability of your product idea, just evaluate these two aspects:
- TAM - Total Addressable Market, which your product can get in terms of monetary size. See if this number is high enough and also if you have the reach to address this market
- Team - Do you have the right team? Business, Product, Tech, Marketing, Sales, and others. In early startups, most of these functions are initially the founders themselves and that is fine. You can expand as you go
We keep hearing some related questions while working with early-stage founders.
My market size is potentially small, but the idea solves a need for this market. Can we pursue this? The answer is yes, but in this case, you should probably look for a bootstrapped (not try to raise a large fund) business. Venture funds look for a large upside from an exit, as only a handful of startups make it to the finishing line.
What about other parameters like what product, customer interviews, user experience, etc? Yes, there are many of them, but if you have the above main two points right, you will figure out to get everything else in place