Product Kit
Hello Indie Hackers,
I wanted to share an idea I've had for some time but haven't fully pursued yet. It is called ProductKit.ai.
The issue:
Product development is essential for a company's success, particularly in the software industry. Unfortunately, many businesses lack a professional approach to develop and manage their products. This often results in misalignment, poor product quality, wasted resources, and even company shutdowns.
There's a plethora of recommendations and templates available, but what's missing is a comprehensive, user-friendly collaboration system that companies can seamlessly adopt.
The concept:
Imagine an end-to-end product development suite in Notion that any company can utilize to manage its products effectively. This system would be based on the best practices of top technology companies and include interconnected templates for each stage of the product development process. Additionally, we'd provide instructions for each stage to ensure ease of use.
My motivation:
In late 2021, I joined the founding team of a gaming startup. We secured funding and started developing our product. With my product management background, I was well-aware of the importance of a robust process, but it was difficult to persuade my team to adopt best practices. We basically had to create a system from scratch. We used Notion, but our team wasn't aligned on the overall development process, causing us to overlook critical steps in product development and ultimately fail to execute our vision. A proper product development system would have definitely helped us streamline the process, align stakeholders and execute better on our roadmap.
Specifically our main challenges were:
-
Alignment on product vision: Different opinions among stakeholders made it difficult to reach a consensus, and the lack of a well-documented roadmap and vision led to constant disagreements. This led to many meetings, discussions and ultimately a lack of clarity of what and how we want to build it.
-
Feature creep: We didn't have a reliable system to determine the most critical features and understand effort and trade-offs, resulting in shifting timelines. We ultimately ran out of money.
Current status:
I am currently testing the interest in this product through pre-selling the product https://productcollective.gumroad.com/l/eyonqn
So, Indie Hackers, what are your thoughts on this idea?
Looking for any input on the usefulness of such a product, business model/how much to charge etc.
Cheers,
Julian
I think the problem exists but not sure if a tool would solve it, it might come down to people being more skilled or focused.
Have you already thought what features you'd need to have to provide this solution? You didn't describe how this product would work. What would a MVP look like? It's easier to think about the end-game and all cool features you could have to solve this problem, but what could you produce in ~2 months that would solve one of these issues?
If you haven't thought about the MVP yet, I'd say start from there. If you already have, would love to understand it better :)
Here is a overview of the MVP https://productcollective.gumroad.com/l/eyonqn
Looking to do some customer interviews as well. If you are a builder and interested to chat here my calendly https://calendly.com/julian-osterwalder/20min
Hi Julian
I think ProductKit.ai is an excellent idea, and I can see how it could solve many of the issues that arise during product development.
Pre-selling ProductKit.ai is a smart move to test the interest.
Best of luck with your venture!
Quite cool idea, but not sure if it's not too complex after all. The easiness and intuitiveness is the key 🚀
Your idea reminds me of: https://www.100tasks.com/
Other great inspiration can be: https://parallelconnect.gumroad.com/l/notion_os
Thanks! Yes, simplicity is key. We will make it much simpler vs 100tasks and I also think more actionable, especially for the process of getting to PMF
This is a good idea - the current product management notion templates definitely fall short. After checking out your Gumroad page, I feel like you will probably need some videos going over the scope of what the product includes. Knowing Gumroad, you will also want some testimonial screenshots - these go a long way and people don't want to necessarily feel like the first buyer XD
Overall I like the concept, but the price is currently high in my opinion. I wonder who your target customer is exactly and what their perceived gains are?
Thanks for the input Adam!
Regarding pricing, the idea is to make this a full on system in Notion so every company can use it for their day to day product management. It is therefore more like a mini SaaS product but I dont want to charge a recurring revenue. Given the sophistication of the system we believe it should be priced slightly below the price of a yearly Saas tool subscription (e.g. Balsa). Main difference is that the customer gets access for life.
In terms of target customer, we would mainly aim for founders and product leaders at small software companies (2-30 people).
Let me know your thoughts.
I wonder if you've thought about making it an actual SaaS? You could do that even if you offered lifetime subscriptions early on.
I would definitely continue to get feedback from those types of customers. Before I invest, I would want to have a better understanding of what I stand to gain in time savings, and sprint improvement e.g. what KPIs will rise for me, what is the switching cost from using this vs. other free platforms like JIRA, Producter, and Trello.
I just think more product specs will be helpful in justifying the price.