Creating a 0-to-1 product is an exhilarating and high-stakes endeavor that demands relentless innovation, resilience, and a deep understanding of customer needs. This was the approach I used at my former company, Fable. It enabled my team to build a product from the ground up that genuinely makes a difference. I'll walk you through each step, using an example from my work at Fable—an application designed to bridge the gap between grandparents and their distant grandchildren (ages 3 to 6) through personalized audiobook narration, allowing kids to enjoy these stories anytime, anywhere.
1️⃣ Identify a Real Problem
Begin with a deep understanding of a specific problem, not just a cool idea. Focus on pain points that are frequent and significant for your target users. Ensure this problem affects many people, not just you. In other words, find a big problem in a large market. If you're in a startup, you might start with a niche market and later expand to additional verticals or solve more problems for the same niche clients.
Example: At Fable, I aimed to address the needs of grandparents who don't live close to their grandkids and lack opportunities to build a connection with them. This was a problem I experienced personally—my grandma lived in Ukraine while I was in Germany. She recorded tapes with audiobooks for me, which I listened to repeatedly. It brought joy to both of us, helped me become an avid reader, and now holds sentimental value since she's no longer alive. Upon researching, I found that in the U.S. alone, over 70% of grandparents live 200 miles or more from their grandkids.
2️⃣ Define Your Unique Value Proposition
Ask yourself: How are people currently solving this problem, and what isn't working for them? What makes your solution better and uniquely addresses the issue? Your UVP should communicate why users need your product and how it's different from existing solutions.
Example: I examined solutions that grandparents used, such as FaceTime, WhatsApp, and Skype. The problem was that young kids didn't have the attention span for long conversations, and there were challenges with time differences, schedules, and moods. With recordings, kids could listen as much as they wanted and connect at a time that suited them.
3️⃣ Map Out Your Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
Focus on the core features that solve the main problem. Build something that allows you to test if your value proposition effectively addresses the issue.
Example: Our MVP enabled grandparents to record and send the recording of a book, and allowed kids to listen to it whenever they wanted.
4️⃣ Test Early and Gather Feedback
Create a basic clickable prototype or product simulation and test it with real users as early as possible. Honest feedback can reshape your approach and reveal critical insights.
Example: I created a clickable prototype in a few hours without writing any code to test if grandparents could use and enjoy it. Observing them helped me enhance the product before building it. Since grandparents aren't native mobile users, testing usability risks upfront was valuable. For kids, I made a simulation—a video with audio recorded by their grandparents and images from a book without copyright restrictions. Watching them play the video repeatedly indicated they liked it.
5️⃣ Find Your First Customers to Test Your Product
You don't need hundreds of thousands of customers for initial testing. Finding 100 users is enough to decide whether to move forward.
Example: I reached out to friends and friends of friends to gather the first 100 customers on the waiting list. If you work for a company with existing users, select those who are often early adopters of new features and test with them.
6️⃣ Build, Measure, and Analyze
Once you have a working beta—a fully functioning, minimal lovable product—start inviting your selected users. Use quantitative data to understand "what is happening" and qualitative data to understand "why it's happening." Interviews and observation sessions can reveal what excites users and what doesn't work.
Example: We released the application and were thrilled with the initial adoption rate. However, kids didn't listen to books as often as they did with the simulation and rarely finished them. The aha moment came when I observed their usage and noticed significant background noise in the recordings, unlike our perfect simulation audio. Observing grandparents using the app revealed they weren't using external microphones and didn't hold their phones close to their mouths. As a result, recordings were filled with background noises like barking dogs and squeaking doors.
7️⃣ Improve the Product
Enhancing your product is essential before attracting more customers. You don't want to scale up until it truly satisfies your early evangelists. Happy early users will not only continue using your product but also spread the word.
Example: We faced two options: educate grandparents about using microphones or develop noise-filtering technology. We chose the latter because, let's face it, changing user behavior is notoriously difficult and often unnecessary. By implementing an AI model that reduced background noise while keeping the voice sounding natural, we experienced exponential growth in usage and repeat engagement—a clear indication we'd achieved product-market fit.
The key is to pay attention to what's working and what's not. If users don't return even after improvements, explore all hypotheses—including whether you're solving the right problem. Be ready to keep experimenting or pivot as needed. Focus on understanding your customers and their problems to create a solution that truly works.
8️⃣ Go to Market
Now that you have product-market fit, develop your go-to-market strategy. Find channels where your customers are.
Example: Online and social media groups that include parents played a significant role in customer acquisition for our product. Building the product well helped us gain additional users through word of mouth, without a marketing budget. If you're targeting this product to existing customers within a company, now is the time to gradually include customers in areas that are less risky to minimize brand risk.
9️⃣ Plan for Scaling
As your product gains traction, prepare for scaling. Invest in your infrastructure, team, and processes to accommodate growth.
Example: After improving the product and gaining organic referrals, we prepared to scale. We used a cloud-based infrastructure with a microservices architecture to manage resources efficiently as our user base grew. We implemented mobile-optimized audio processing and integrated a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for quick and smooth access to recordings worldwide. To maintain security, we built robust user authentication and role-based access controls, allowing family members to share recordings securely. We conducted thorough load testing and integrated real-time performance monitoring tools to adapt proactively to user growth while delivering a seamless experience.
🔟 Grow a Community
Foster relationships with early adopters. Engage them with updates and involve them in the journey; they'll become your product's advocates.
Example: We established a forum for parents and grandparents, leading to real-life connections among people worldwide facing similar situations. This community provided valuable insights into other unresolved issues we could address. For instance, we discovered that grandparents wanted feedback from their grandkids. Since kids love to make noises and use stickers, we developed animated stickers featuring sounds made by the children themselves. This delighted grandparents and built an even closer connection with their little ones. It also helped them trust that our team was always listening, understanding, and supportive of their needs.
Embrace the Journey
Building a 0 to 1 product is more than just developing an app or service; it's about understanding and connecting with your users on a deeper level. It's a journey filled with lessons, pivots, and growth—not just for your product but for you as a product expert.