In the age of AI, it is true that the path to production is becoming easier and faster every day. But while nearly anyone can ‘vibe-code’ their way through producing an application – this still doesn’t guarantee a product is actually valuable.
Why product discovery matters
At its core, product discovery is about reducing risk before you invest in delivery, and providing confidence that a team is building the right thing, for the right people, at the right time. And when it’s missing? It shows.
Rather than jumping straight to feature ideas or roadmaps, discovery zooms out to understand which are the problems truly worth solving. It’s about deeply exploring customer needs, behaviours, constraints, and motivations. It’s also about testing assumptions — so you’re not just acting on internal opinions or best guesses.
Skipping discovery is like building a house without checking the ground is stable. Sure, you might be able to make something — but it probably won’t last, and it might not be what anyone needed.
Product discovery helps teams:
- Avoid building the wrong thing
- Find real product–market fit
- Make better, faster decisions
- Align stakeholders around evidence, not opinions
- Reduce risk before investing in development
It also tends to make work more satisfying. Teams feel clearer, customers feel heard, and businesses waste less time and money.
What good product discovery looks like
Good discovery balances the needs of the business, the customer, and the technology. Robust product discovery approach should include:
Qualitative research
Speaking to customers, observing behaviour, identifying pain points, and uncovering what people actually need (which is often different from what they say).
Customer feedback analysis
With the mountains of customer feedback most organisations are getting – how are you synthesising this? Are you getting insights out of it at all, or is it just data? Feedback analysis is something AI is pretty useful for – cutting through the noise to glean valuable insights.
Problem framing
Clearly articulating the problem before jumping to solutions. This can involve mapping journeys, surfacing assumptions, and aligning on outcomes
Ideation
This is where you wanna crank up those vibe coding tools and create ideas and prototypes for evaluation. Exploring multiple solutions to the problem, rather than locking into the first idea. Here we think broad, test quickly, and stay open.
Validation
Experiments, prototypes, and quick feedback loops to test which ideas are worth investing in further. It’s not a one-time phase. Discovery and delivery can — and should — run in parallel, with each informing the other.
How I can help
If your team is jumping straight from idea to backlog, or struggling to align around what to build next, product discovery might be the thing that’s missing.
I help teams structure their product discovery process so it’s repeatable, collaborative, and grounded in real insight. Get in touch to chat about how we might work together.