What benefits of your persistence or what are the benefits of the discovery phase for small businesses?

You are here to create, right?

Idea - check ✔️
Draft design - check ✔️
Skills for development - check ✔️
Missed something? I bet you did.

Don't forget about the discovery process. If you don't know what it is or what it means. Here are just a few words about it:

The discovery phase is a phase that occurs before the start of the solution implementation and helps identify the project's key goals, gather all the vital requirements, and ensure successful product delivery. Simple association to remember - the discovery phase is like a compass, guiding your project in the right direction.

Good. What should you discover? Probably not the new America, but:

• market research
• business analysis
• creating a detailed project plan
• target audience analysis
• determining potential risks
• providing detailed time and cost estimation
• documenting functional and non-functional requirements

That's a lot of work, and it is time-consuming. You can even ask me why you need to spend so much time building just some requirements for my startup. Let's go through the major benefits that you can get from not skipping it.

• Reduce risks of product failure
  There are always risks when creating a new product.How often have I caught myself on the wrong calculation of time and budget, which may seem to be a loss? Even CB Insights statistics, says that your product will never come out.

• Gain clarity
  By conducting a discovery stage, you can obtain a clear vision of your product. A roadmap with a complete project timeline, including intermediate goals and deadlines, data gathered from the market, competitive, and TA research, documented requirements, and other valuable data, can significantly reduce the degree of the vagueness of the product that is about to be developed and simplify the development process.

• Assess your vendor before the development starts
  Personally, I am very careful about this, as at this phase it is easier to analyze the company and team you will be working with, determine whether the company's methods are appropriate for you, and decide whether it is worthwhile to continue the collaboration. Also, such consultations can assist the development team in better understanding your needs and selecting the most appropriate technology solutions. As a result, you may prevent many future risks related to the fact that the company is not suitable, your points of view do not match, the partnership is ineffective, and so on.

• Increase chances of attracting investors
  Conducting the discovery phase is essential for startups because of one important reason — receiving funding. Imagine what would happen if you turn to an investor for the necessary funding for your project, and all you have is your idea and some unclear documentation? The result can be disappointing. However, you can present the results of the discovery phase, which will be much more convincing. For the investor, such an approach will be more credible, showing how and with what return the resources will be allocated.

Of course, it is just some primary benefits that, and their full potential, could open in the future project stages. This article helped me a lot to figure out what's what. Anyway, share your opinion on the discovery stage, or tell your story about it.