Assignment 8

Assignment 8: Product Section (Version 1.0)

Product section evaluation sheet (PDF)

Now that the target customer, value proposition and market opportunity are clear, it is time to focus on the product and your team's competitive advantage. In the product section you get to tell us about your product. You will want to cover things like:

  1. Did the student team specifically and concisely describe their product in the first paragraph?
  2. Did the student team give a visual representation of the product? (the more visual, generally the better—the responsibility is on the student team to make it easy to understand, not on the reader to "get it")
  3. Was it easy to understand?
  4. Was it clear how this product would create value (i.e. linkage to the value proposition done before which should by now be more refined and solid)?
  5. Was this based on primary customer research that was made clear?
  6. Did the student team make up a brochure that presented the product from the customer's perspective with an emphasis on feature—function—(and most of all) benefits?
  7. Were the assumptions clear (and testable) as to what would make the product unique and successful?
  8. Was the version 1 of the product (that is, the Minimum Viable Product—MVP) clear?
  9. Does the MVP align with the important assumptions so they can be tested as soon as possible?
  10. What is the estimated COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) for this offering?
  11. Is there a longer-term product plan to grow the product?
  12. Will it include alternating functional releases and QA (Quality Assurance) releases?
  13. Overall, did the product plan align with the target customer and persona throughout?

This is usually one of the easier sections for MIT people but it is often done without linkages to the target customer so it is therefore well-done but off base. Before the final deliverable, you and your team need to explicitly discuss the development resources you will need to complete design, specification and production for your venture, and how those resources will grow over time (e.g. number of developers needed, resources ($$$, equipment), etc.), but first make sure you are on the right path before you do all the detailed work here. It is generally a lot of work but easy work for MIT students if they are at the right target.

Include a timeline outlining the major phases of development that you will need to complete in order to take your first product to market.