Your first application without pitfalls: how to do it right

Before you start

Before you choose a supplier and calculate the budget, answer a few key questions: what real user problem are you solving, who will actually want to pay for it, and how will you validate it without writing code. With this knowledge, you will avoid costly mistakes and build the product properly from the very first version.

The foundation is product discovery. It is a set of tools and methods that allow you to confirm hypotheses before you start development. The right time to build comes when you have hard data, a clear scope for the first version, access to interested users and, ideally, signals of willingness to pay.

Mistake 1: You start building too quickly

A common scenario: you have a vision of the product in your head and want to launch an MVP as quickly as possible to see the market reaction. That is not the only path. In product discovery, you can test key assumptions without costly development and, as a result, move into implementation only when the probability of success is high.

Mistake 2: More features = a better product? Not necessarily

The tempting assumption that the more features you have, the greater the chance that someone will like something usually does not hold true. At the start, be a sniper, not a "carpet bomber". Every additional feature means higher development, testing, sales and marketing costs, as well as a diluted message. Instead of trying to satisfy everyone, define the market and target group precisely, for whom your value proposition will be obvious.

Mistake 3: You are targeting the masses instead of early adopters

Even breakthrough solutions need time to reach the mainstream. In "Crossing the Chasm", Geoffrey A. Moore shows that at the beginning you must focus on early adopters — audiences who will gain the most even from an imperfect first version. They should form a coherent beachhead market.

What a beachhead market is

- All customers buy similar products. - They go through a similar purchasing cycle and expect comparable value. - There is word-of-mouth communication between customers (references, shared organisations, the same region), which makes it easier to acquire more users.

Mistake 4: You do not know users' real problems

It happens that a product solves a problem that does not exist or one that can already be solved more cheaply, more simply or better today. Verify whether the problem really exists in the selected group, what the current alternatives are and how users are coping now.

Example: a client creating an application for the beauty industry had two distinct groups. Experienced service providers (5+ years) needed appointment booking automation, because every missed appointment meant a measurable loss. People just starting out (up to around 1.5-2 years in the market) had a different priority: acquiring new bookings through the platform. Importantly, there were significantly more of these beginners — so the logical choice was to focus on them first.

Mistake 5: You do not understand users' processes

Especially in B2B, you need a precise understanding of the user's marketing and sales processes, service delivery and upselling. Your product will change processes, tools and the way people work. Understand them first, and then fit the solution in a way that maximises value. If you force major process changes, the risk of failure increases — people resist change.

Customer journey mapping and describing processes in BPMN are helpful. It is worth learning about them and applying them before development starts.

Is your solution really what they need

This is the area of solution discovery. Users are happy to talk about their problems, but they rarely identify the right solution accurately. As Steve Jobs said: "People don't know what they want until you show them." Separate conversations about problems from presentations of solutions, and test the solutions themselves before they go into development.

Well-known testing techniques:

- Product mock-ups - High-quality interface mock-ups (high-fidelity designs) - Prototypes that simulate working software

Summary: build it right from the start

Before you write the first line of code: narrow down the beachhead market, talk to real users, describe their processes, validate hypotheses in product discovery and test the solution in solution discovery. Keep the scope of the first version small and precise, and direct it at early adopters. Only then invest in development and scaling.