Investigate before you invest
Product discovery is like checking whether people actually need a new bridge in their town before choosing its colour and ordering the concrete. The team studies the problem, the people affected, the business context, and the assumptions behind possible solutions.
Anyone on the team may contribute to discovery, depending on the work.
Discovery can include customer interviews, usage data, competitor research, personas, and prototypes. A small proof of concept can test technical feasibility. Teams may group findings on a shared Miro board. The aim is to reduce uncertainty before committing significant time and money. A prototype can show whether people understand an idea, but cannot alone show whether they would use or pay for it.
Discovery asks several different questions
- Value: Does this solve a problem people care about?
- Usability: Can people understand and use it? Usability testing helps answer this.
- Feasibility: Can the team actually build and operate it?
- Viability: Does it make sense for the organisation?
What good discovery produces
The most useful output is shared understanding: a clearly described problem, evidence about who experiences it, a measure of success, and assumptions that still need testing. The team might decide to build something, run another experiment first, or stop entirely based on their findings. Discovery can also continue after product launch, when real users reveal insights the initial research missed.