Key Takeaways
- Quick Validation & Competitive Edge: A reduced time to market helps businesses quickly validate their concepts and market fit, providing a competitive advantage.
- Strategic Processes: Accelerate time to market with a sound strategy, well-organized processes, automation, and the use of BaaS solutions.
- Minimum Viable Product (MVP): Launch an MVP to quickly release a product with essential features, gather user feedback, and make necessary improvements.
If you aim to launch a new product, a faster time to market will critically impact your success. But what exactly is time to market? It begins with the idea's inception and ends when your product reaches the audience. Luckily, you can expedite this process and stay ahead of competitors.
We will share nine actionable tips to reduce time to market and ensure you lead the race. This insight is based on Levisoft’s expertise in optimizing workflows for the best product outcomes.
With over 20 years of experience in bespoke software development for various industries, Levisoft has helped multiple startups grow into unicorns and has several clients on the Fortune 500 list. Today, we share our insights along with experiences from a rapidly developing shipping service platform, a location-based social network app, and an accounting software solution.
What Is Speed to Market, and Why Does It Matter?
According to Accenture, companies effectively utilizing technology have significantly reduced their time to market. From 2016 to 2021, technological adoption led to a 30-81% increase in efficiency, reducing time-to-market timelines by notable margins.
Effective time management during development stages enhances your marketing strategy and can be the defining factor in your product's success.
Furthermore, a well-organized and efficient process will help improve team performance, discard redundancies, and focus on key objectives, ultimately increasing margins and minimizing the risk of delays.
Types of Product Development Time to Market
Different strategies can help accelerate product development:
- Full-Speed Development: Passing all stages quickly, often through MVP development to get user feedback and iterate faster.
- Agility Boost: Enables flexibility in development, incorporating feedback and necessary changes without delaying the release.
- Certain Scheduling: Ideal for products with specific launch dates, helping avoid rush-induced errors by following a clear schedule.
- Resource-Centered Approaches: Employing skilled specialists or teams to ensure each part of the workflow is completed efficiently.
9 Tips to Improve Speed to Market
- Build Your Initial Strategy Create a robust plan, reconsider your idea, discuss it with the team, and set key dates and milestones. Aim for quick results with a viable product rather than perfection at this stage.
- Set Revenue Goals Accelerating time-to-market impacts revenue positively but can increase costs. Set clear budget limits, prioritize core development aspects, and use prototyping and rapid iterations to manage costs and time effectively.
- Organize Your Workflow Implement relevant project management tools and adopt Agile methodologies like Scrum and Kanban to organize tasks, enable quick feedback, and facilitate constant improvements.
- Use Automation and Integration Automate repetitive tasks to save time and reduce human error. Integrate data in a centralized repository to avoid confusion and ensure up-to-date information is readily available.
- Try BaaS Solutions Utilize Backend-as-a-Service to focus on development and creativity, streamlining processes for faster delivery.
- Consider Software Development Outsource to skilled professionals to save time, often benefiting from time zone differences to keep work progressing around the clock.
- Verify Product’s Viability with MVP Launch an MVP to gather quick feedback and make necessary improvements before the full-scale product release.
- Improve Data Availability Ensure data is accessible for real-time decision-making. Maintain a centralized data repository and encourage its use among the team.
- Track Your Results Monitor key product performance indicators to evaluate success, identify bottlenecks, and adapt your workflow accordingly.
Levisoft’s Experience
Wondering how to cut your time to market by up to 50% and reduce SaaS development costs? Levisoft provides backend as a service (BaaS) and consulting to help you focus on other processes. Here are a few of our project implementations:
Shipping Service Solution: A web platform optimization and mobile app development for a shipping service provider. In 3 months, we optimized the platform, developed an MVP, and significantly increased security and session speed.
Location-Based Social Network App: Developed an MVP within three months using Google Firebase, focusing on business logic and rapid execution.
Accounting Software Solution: Created a SaaS solution for accounting automation with customizable reports and multi-tenant access, achieving a 30% conversion from a free demo to a paid plan within five months.
Final Words
Time to market is crucial in product development. It involves generating ideas, building strategies, organizing workflows, and managing projects efficiently.
To ensure you’re on time and achieve your desired results, consider your development strategy, automate workflows, use Agile methodologies, leverage BaaS solutions, and possibly outsource. Set revenue goals, improve data accessibility, and track your progress thoroughly. Verifying your product’s viability through an MVP can also significantly enhance your process.
Ready to bring your idea to life and launch your tech product successfully? Levisoft has the expertise to guide you through almost two hundred projects across various industries. Contact us for a deeper consultation on speeding up your product development.
Sources of Information
- Turbocharge Speed to Market in the Industrial Industry | Accenture
- https://www.accenture.com/content/dam/accenture/final/industry/industrial/document/Accenture-Industrial-Speed-to-Market.pdf
.png)
