Product Nurturing

I use the word “nurturing” here so you can understand better what I am about to talk about when it comes to building products.

Every product has a roadmap and milestones. I believe building anything meaningful requires a process and an order.

God is an example of a builder. He worked according to a process. He created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh day. There was an order to what He was building.

I think the same way about products.

There is a phase in building where the product needs to be nurtured before it is ready to scale.

Think about growing beans or corn.

When you plant a seed, you don't dig it up every morning to check whether it has grown. You create the right environment for it to grow. You prepare the soil, make sure it is fertile, plant the seed, water it, observe it and give it what it needs as it grows.

You don't just plant and immediately expect a harvest.

Building products is similar.

You first have to create the right environment for the product to grow. Then you begin to observe what is happening and make adjustments based on what you learn.

This is what I call product nurturing.

Product nurturing is the process of helping a product grow into something that is useful, sustainable and ready for scale.

A lot of people think about building and scaling as if they are the same process:

Build → Scale

But I think there is an important phase in between:

Build → Nurture → Scale

The nurturing phase is where you learn whether what you built is actually working.

You are trying to understand the users, the market, the business, the regulations, the economics and the environment around the product.

You are asking questions like:

Who is using this product?

Why are they using it?

What problem are they actually trying to solve?

What makes them come back?

Where are they struggling?

What should we add?

What should we remove?

What should we change?

What should we leave alone?

What signs are telling us that the product is growing in a healthy way?

And perhaps most importantly, is the product actually ready for more users?

I think this is where a lot of products get it wrong.

They build something, get some users and immediately start thinking about scaling.

But having users does not necessarily mean the product is ready to scale.

You can pour more water on a plant, but if the soil is bad, you are not solving the real problem.

The same thing happens with Tech products.

You can spend more money on marketing. You can bring in more users. You can hire more people. You can increase distribution.

But if the product has not been properly nurtured, scaling can simply make the existing problems bigger.

This is why I think founders need to pay attention to the environment around the product.

The environment includes the business itself, the users, the market, the competition, laws and regulations, technology, distribution and the economics of the product.

All of these things affect how the product grows.

You also have to understand that nurturing does not mean constantly changing the product.

Sometimes nurturing means adding something.

Sometimes it means removing something.

Sometimes it means fixing something.

Sometimes it means doing nothing and allowing users to continue using what already works.

The difficult part is knowing what to do and when to do it.

That requires observation.

You have to watch the product closely enough to understand the signals.

Are users returning?

Are they getting value?

Are they recommending it to other people?

Are they using the product in the way you expected?

Are they finding new ways to use it?

Are they dropping off at a particular point?

Are they willing to pay?

Are the economics improving?

These are some of the signs that help you understand whether the product is healthy.

This is why I don't think growth is simply about getting more people.

Growth should also be about making the product stronger.

A product that grows without becoming stronger can eventually break under its own growth.

The goal of product nurturing is therefore not just to make the product bigger.

It is to make the product better prepared for becoming bigger.

You prepare the soil before you expect the harvest.

You understand the environment before you increase the scale.

You observe the users before you make major decisions.

You learn what works before you put more resources behind it.

You strengthen the product before you expose it to more demand.

And when the signals show that the product is ready, then you scale.

I believe this is one of the most important phases of building products that people don't talk about enough.

Build it. Nurture it. Understand it. Strengthen it. Then scale it.