Finding the right product and solution is a complex process. Brainstorming and market research are only the first steps, planning and development also need full concentration. Owning the process from the beginning up to the point our product hits the marketplace ensures that our professionalism is reflected at the end of the day.

Process flow above everything

When developing a full product from scratch, it is of utmost importance to highlight that it is our team that determines all the details. Our ideal process flow is the following – idea, market research, planning, development, testing, sales. While this sounds fairly simple, for most of the cases the picture is more complex – let us show you the above in detail.

While we consider our team a creative squad, it is not easy to find a new and promising idea these days, given the competitive nature of the market. Sometimes a series of brainstorming is needed to come up with a new thought, but even if we find something that seems to be a promising idea, the next step in the process flow can easily cancel it.

It happens surprisingly often that we have a great product idea but it turns out that the market does not need it. This does not necessarily mean that the idea is the result of poor decision making, it might be that the market is not in a shape to accept is right now – in this case we put it into our thought box and might consider picking it out later. However, if our market research shows that the idea has the potential of being a hit, we move onwards to the next phase.

We cannot emphasize enough the importance of planning in the development process. We often saw that many companies – partly because of time constraints or a pressure coming from their investors and clients fail to understand the necessity of professional planning. They have a good idea, there is a need for the product on the market and due to planning inaccuracies the end result does not satisfy the potential buyers. Measure twice and cut once – this proverb fully describes our philosophy – rushing at this stage might cause irreparable errors. We give our graphic designers enough time to plan the UX/UI designs, we give ourselves enough time to plan the system as a whole, while of course we understand that the ever-changing nature of the marker makes time a crucial factor too.

Execution after the plans

Once the planning phase is over, we start the development process. For determining where to begin, we create our Kanban-tables in Trello. Once we have our to do list, we have another session via Slack to discuss the responsibility of the team members. Another tool that we prefer is GitHub, this has always proven to be the right development platform for us. As our company philosophy puts a big emphasis on open-source products developed earlier, we often use these alongside with the new idea that is being developed. A good example here is our Lana Pet WordPress theme that has a couple of plugins in it – for example Post Types or Widgets. Good development actively uses these „tools” that are at hand when needed, ensuring our customer base only pays for the new products and ideas.

The next step in the process flow is testing. Automated or manual testing, User acceptance, compatibility, efficiency and security tests – this list could go on forever and ever. Good planning ensures that all the necessary testing steps are added to the plan and executed at this stage. Cross-checks ensure that no logical or structural mistakes are left in the code.

Once testing finishes with satisfactory results, sales of the new product can begin. We determine the price of the developed item and we make sure that its purpose is well understood by our potential customers too. Of course, if we see that a slight modification would elevate the product further, our agility ensures that we change it even at this stage.

Only by using the above process flow can we ensure that our customers get a product that is needed by them, on a professional level they imagine it, for a budget-friendly cost. While special circumstances can of course modify the time we spend with each of the phases, our main goal is to deliver a product that we can proudly present to the public.