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Blog
By James Alt, Product Manager
At VAULT, we help entrepreneurs and decision makers validate their ideas prior to building their product through our 5-step discovery process:
1. Develop User Personas
The key to any successful business is knowing who your customers are. This allows the team that is building your product to be hyper-focused on developing features and designs catered to your end user.
We’ll work with you to understand and develop your initial user personas – from what their occupation is, to what their goals are and which brands they admire. This deep dive has helped some clients shift who they originally thought their target user was.
2. Perform a Competitor Analysis
In business, you always need to know who your competitors are and follow what they’re doing. But this doesn’t mean just doing a quick Google search and making a list of similar companies.
At VAULT, we provide much more insight. Our team goes above and beyond to learn the ins and outs of the competition. We download their apps, sign up for an account, document their features, understand their business model, study their social media – the list goes on and on.
3. Create a Unique Value Proposition
A Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is one of the most overlooked steps of launching your app. When someone asks you, “What does your app do?”, how are you going to respond? You need to be able to get the point across quickly and explain the value you can provide to them.
We help craft our client’s UVP statement and elevator pitch. You can use this statement throughout your messaging and marketing to clearly communicate how your app is different and how it will solve your customer’s problem.
4. Research Industry Trends
How well do you know the industry that you are about to launch your app in? Is it a thriving industry, an up and coming industry, or is it fizzling out?
Our team researches your industry to understand the market size, consumer trends, industry disruptors and more. Through this process, we’ve helped inform our clients on additional product opportunities. The research and data that VAULT gathers is also a strong talking point for pitching your app to potential investors.
5. Identify a Business Model
You probably already have an idea for your business model. You might plan on selling ad space, a recurring membership, or online courses. But have you put the time into thinking through how many customers you’ll need and at what customer acquisition cost in order to be profitable? Did you set a marketing budget and identify your marketing channels? Have you created any projections models over your first 12-24 months in business?
At VAULT, we don’t just help you select a business model. Instead, we help outline our clients business model with a holistic approach – because we want to see you succeed.
Wrapping it up
When you have your next game changer app idea be sure to think through this 5-step discovery process. It’s always better to perform your due diligence upfront and validate your idea instead of spending your precious time and money.
Need help with your product discovery or looking for an expert's insight? Start your project now.
