SUNDAY REWIND: Common Product Development Mistakes and How To Avoid Them All: A Case Study

This week’s Sunday Rewind is a case study from Ashley Fidler in which she lays bare a catalogue of common errors made by her and her team when launching a cybersecurity software product.

The case study relates to Ashley’s time at a Machine Learning (ML) platform company that pivoted to cybersecurity in 2016.

The company had a ML platform that was focused on financial services and differentiated by ease of use for non-technical users, but it had hit a common set of issues facing ML companies. It was service-heavy, targeted at enterprises who expected a lot of customisation, and was burning cash without the repeatability and scale of a SaaS product that would justify this spend.

The company made a number of errors when it pivoted:

Lack of data: It pivoted to a new market quickly, based on many untested assumptions, without adequate data.

Relied on expertise: It relied on expertise, rather than fully validating the customer need and budget before building the product

Wishful thinking: They deluded themselves about technological readiness, build time, and the importance of cybersecurity knowledge

Rushing to market: Once these errors became clear, they rushed to market then recovered slowly.

Ashley says that in the end, the company was acquired and nearly everyone got a position with the parent company.  She says: “We made tons of mistakes, endemic to young teams without adequate experience and support to take on the hard challenges we were facing. It wasn’t a  successful outcome, but we escaped without much lasting damage” Her final take away from this experience is, “honestly, humility. Product is hard. It requires patience, curiosity, good judgement, and a level of openness and emotional maturity that takes time to develop”.

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