Product Demand Matrix -- For Filtering Out Bad Product Ideas

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#1

Hi there, fellow bootstrappers!

While listening to Chris Ducker’s excellent New Business podcast, I learned about this tool called The Product Demand Matrix. This is easily the clearest way I have found to articulate why certain startup or products are worth pursuing while others have to be avoided. As I point out in my blog post, it has shortcomings, but as a first pass “back of the envelop” sort of way, it worked well for me. Let me know what you think. :slight_smile:

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#2

Thanks for the pointer, especially to the podcast, which I didn’t know about. Still listening to it now. Ramit Sethi is a monster. The man knows deeply how to create lots of value and extract major cash for it.

#3

Good one - also @kulmala idea evaluation checklist helps when it comes to other factors like:

  • can you afford to build the product?
  • are you willing to commit to work on the product long-term?
  • does the idea fit your lifestyle goals?
  • etc

http://www.happybootstrapper.com/saas-idea-evaluation-checklist/

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#4

Thats excellent!

IHMO Jannas checklist should be on the required reading list for anyone in here or the old Joel BoS forums and despite the title its much wider than SaaS.

#5

Yeah, he’s high energy, that’s for sure. He gives a lot of useful tips in that episode. The Product Demand Matrix was just the most immediately actionable for me.

#6

Thanks! I’ll check it out. Never heard of it. Anything that can save me time & get me faster to winning product… :smile:

#7

@anon3850446 there’s a model that I think closely resembles his matrix, but points at how you build a business/product that ends up in one of his boxes. I’d like to do a big blog post on it, but essentially it’s referred to as the generic strategies, written by a guy called Porter. Useful pic on here:

It can very quickly get into the business equivalent of “architecture astronaut”, but there’s some awesome subtlety in there. And benefit, when you set the direction for yourself or company. Like with any model, the map is not the territory, but always useful to have in your mental toolbox.

#8

Thanks for the link. I had to re-read several times to understand this idea of Generic Strategies. The infographic needs text to clarify each box – it cannot stand on its own just looking at it. Furthermore, I think the Blue Ocean Strategy is a more clearly defined analysis of the competitive space & differentiation. That’s the beauty of all this: we can all use different paradigms based on personal preferences. Actually applying these ideas to our businesses is sometime challenging too.