Product Discovery Services

This initial development phase involves analysing the client's ideas and business vision, determining the basic commercial requirements, listing the necessary technical stack, determining the budget, and planning the development process step-by-step to significantly reduce risks.

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Aspects

This phase includes several aspects:

Competitor Analysis

This stage is crucial because it allows you to objectively assess your competitors and analyze their activities to understand the value of their products and shortcomings. This allows you to avoid certain mistakes in the development of your project and create a competitive product.

Target audience research

Target audience analysis is essential because you can clearly define the purpose of the future product, which should solve the main pains of users. To assess the viability of a digital solution and its market potential, it is possible to create and test an MVP.

Define the business purpose

It is vital to conduct a thorough analysis and clearly define the purpose of the business to be followed to prevent project failure and budget overruns. Besides, a well-defined business purpose contributes to effective marketing and flourishing partnerships.

Cost analysis

Improper budget planning or a severe shortage of funds are some of the main reasons why companies fail. Consequently, it is important to plan every stage of development to consider all risks and prevent budget overruns.

Why Do You Need the Agile Discovery Phase? 3 Reasons to Consider

This phase allows you to take a consistent approach to the development process to build a startup on time and within budget.

Creation of detailed project documentation

Project documentation is a roadmap for your future digital product. It allows you to structure your team and plan all the stages of development. Thus, you get a document that regulates all the necessary resources at different stages (design, development, testing, and project management). This roadmap allows you to control the process and keep it in a consistent state.

Design of UX Prototypes

A prototype file is a monochrome, low-fidelity version of an application design based on requirements documents. This file provides the program's basic functionality and does not display visual components. Prototypes are needed to verify that the design can be built according to requirements, and also allows you to focus on enhancing the user experience.

Test the Сompliance of Your Expectations and Developers’ Deliveries

At this stage, it is crucial to have bilateral talks between the customer and the development team about the project. Our team makes sure to discuss everything: from the concept of the future product to potential problems during development and after launch. Besides, during this phase, we provide an estimate of the project cost.

Benefits of the Discovery Phase

If you conduct the agile discovery phase of the project properly, you will achieve significant success in the business and gain certain advantages.

Cost Reduction

According to small business failure statistics, 18% of companies fail because of pricing issues. Proper documentation, team selection, and development approach will help reduce the cost of the development process and create a competitive product.

Risk management

Remember that creating something new is always a risk. You should analyze all possible risks at the initial stage to avoid delays in bringing the product to the market and increasing the budget. With the agile discovery stage, you will be able to save money and meet the deadline for the project.

Idea validation

The discovery phase of a software project will help you understand whether the target audience really needs the digital solution you are offering.

Team formation

Some people assume that a lack of alignment within a team can negatively affect the work of the team, as well as the success of the entire project. During the discovery phase, we assemble a team according to the client’s needs and project requirements and make up a well-agreed plan.

Set business goals

During the product discovery phase, you will get a clear vision of the final product and the tasks it should solve. This will help you optimize the entire process.

How Much Will a Product Discovery Phase Cost?

The cost of the discovery phase of a project is between $5000 and $15,000.Traditionally, the cost of the discovery stage is 10% of the development budget.  After the exploratory discussion of all the necessary details, developers already have an idea  of the functionality of the final product and its development process. Therefore, the cost  of this stage can inform you in advance about the price of an MVP or a digital solution.

10%

out of

a development budget

Discovery team

Here are the most important professionals who can easily handle the entire discovery phase of your software project.

Project manager

Business analyst or solution architect

Chief technology officer

UX/UI designer

Backend, frontend, or mobile developer

Marketing manager

Web development solutions

Interview with the Founder

This phase involves an interview with the founder (business or product owner) to understand the overall concept of the product, as well as what makes it different from the competition. After obtaining all the necessary information, the discovery phase begins.

Discovery Workshops

At this stage, specialists conduct an in-depth analysis of all the information received, as well as determine the main goals, requirements, and business objectives.
The initial technical requirements (workflow and technologies) are developed based on the business requirements. After a comprehensive analysis of the potential and prospects of the future product, developers make the final choice.

Customer Analysis

During this stage, a general analysis  of the client is carried out. It will be necessary to understand how much the future product will be needed by customers. To do this, a whole group of aspects should be checked:

Customer Profile, Demographics, The buying process, Problems and pain points

Particular attention should be paid to customers’ pain points because the product should offer a solution to their problems.

Competitor Analysis

This is the final phase of the analysis, which involves a comprehensive assessment  of competitors. The following factors  are analyzed:

Competitor’s location, Business model, Monetization model, The pricing offered  by the competitor, Main features and aspects of their product.

These factors will help you understand where you can outperform your competitors.

Creation of SRS

Software requirements specifications (SRS) are descriptions of the future software in the form of user stories. This documentation includes the application workflow, user paths, key functions, roles, and necessary technologies for the back-end, front-end, and marketing. During the project discovery phase, the necessary documentation is developed and used by the team to visualize the functionality of the future platform and create the user experience.

Prototyping and Wireframes

Wireframes help the team understand and interpret stakeholder expectations.  They visualize the workflow and make it  easier for devs to understand it and modify  it if necessary. UX wireframes also improve platform workflow and user experience.

Project Blueprint

The final stage of the discovery phase is the creation of project blueprints, which are a collection of the deliverables of the previous phases. They help to make sure that all processes are completed within the stipulated time frame. Usually, blueprints contain the technical requirements for the project and other aspects:
- Project scope and timeline
- Technical details and project requirements
- Cost estimation 
- Milestones
- Deadlines