“I am an entrepreneur. And every end is a new beginning for me”
Having heard to so many startups pitch and so many buddy startups grow there is a bottom line conclusion I have come to about the startups. Being from a design aligned startup I usually try to understand when the term user experience strikes the mind of an entrepreneur. Prior to understanding when this so very important creeps in, let’s walk through the complete maturity cycle of a startup.
While every startup has it’s own very inspiration story of growth, each startup essentially grows through the same stages of maturity. And the start-up maturity cycle begins-
#1. Formation
Every PRO, was once an AMATEUR
Every EXPERT, was once a BEGINNER
Just as, STEVE JOBS was once an entrepreneur!
This is where every startup began - Formation. At the very beginning, the startup has a few visionaries - the founders. In a software startup, one or more founders being the founders in no rare sight. The main focus at this stage is to create a masterpiece of the idea in mind. The business goal is to attract initial users who would appreciate the idea. Even when startups are well funded from the beginning, they tend to hire a good development talent who would work to create a good product with great features.
Nearly no one thinks about user experience at this stage of the startup.
#2. Launch
Now that the product is in a pretty good stage, the founders are all excited to launch their baby. In case of most of the startups, they have a brilliant idea, amazing features and a good market as well. Also by this time, startups usually have other people added to the team - perhaps including a sales or BD manager and a marketing expert.
Once the product is launched, the main focus is to get the core set of initial users. And the team brainstorms new enhancement features to be added to the product interface.
This is when the product is being used by real users and the feedback starts coming across. It is a super busy time for all entrepreneurs at this to maintain a fine balance between fixing some highly demanded iterations on the app and working on new features.
In terms of user experience, the glaring and highly visible usability issues are tackled.
#3. Growth and Expansion
Post launch, the startups begins to grow and attract more and more users. More importantly, they are learning about customer behavior, industry language, and trying to gauge their next big marketing strategy to give them a boom in the market. The company’s main objectives now are to continue making enhancements and satisfy customers’ growing demands.
Most of the times, this is the time startups start understanding the significance of user experience and start talking to well wishers about it. This is when the number of UX initiatives expands within the company and in team discussions. The startup realizes that with the expansion of their customer base, user experience is something they cannot go beyond with. So, this is often when an early-stage startup seeks UX expertise.
It’s time when your UX designer steps on the floor and starts making product iterations locally. The complete team is busy planning for the next launch of product with amazing user experience features.
#Version 2.0 and Beyond
It’s time to release the revamped version of the product. If the user testing was efficient, the product is a blast in the market. The existing users love it and new visitors immediately convert into happy customers.
…………….
This was an ideal startup cycle where the user experience creeps in somewhere along the growth and expansion phase.
The two rarest resources for any startup is time and money. Having said it, it is a necessity for startups to adopt to user experience as soon as possible. Users are not always ready to give a second chance.
The goal for any startup while working for user experience are these two -
- Spot out the parts of your product that users don’t understand (so that you can make appropriate adjustments/iterations)
- Identifying functions that aren’t being used (so that you can eliminate them)
#Does a usability test cost money and time???
Not more than a bad UX can cost you! I am sure you would have heard this many a times - “Every $1 spent on UX can save upto $10 - $100. A complete win-win scenario. Isn’t it?
And the good news is, it doesn’t require a huge investment of time or money to carry this out successfully. Nielsen Norman Group discovered that a study with five participants will uncover 85% of the usability problems.
(Image source)
As you can see from the curve, it only takes 15 users to discover nearly all of the usability problems in your design. That’s exactly why I support user testing at the initial stages itself. The earlier the better. To build better and loved products, having happy users with good experience is a must. Earlier user testing helps save lots of effort and development time.
#Wrapping up
If you invest in improving the experience on your product, you’ll have a much higher conversion rate, which is super obvious as you are eliminating the friction points that users encounter. You would stand out from the competition. Your users will be happier and you’ll avoid wasting valuable time and money developing features that users don’t want.
You don’t need to wait until your product is finished to start testing. The sooner you can get feedback on the user experience — even if it’s just a prototype or a minimum viable product — the better.
Featured image credit- Shutterstock
Hope the article helped. Do let us know about your views on the same.