One Key Thing to Launching a Successful Product: Involve All Stakeholders Fully, and Early On

Launching a successful product is about more than just achieving product-market fit or developing the right technology. While these are crucial elements, one key aspect that often gets overlooked—especially in larger  businesses—is the importance of involving all relevant stakeholders fully and early in the process. Without this alignment, even the best ideas can fail to reach the development stage, much less the customer.

Bringing the Company Along

In startups or smaller teams, it’s often easier to maintain direction. But in larger, more established companies, getting everyone on the same page becomes a significant challenge. Often, there is someone with a fantastic idea or vision, but that vision struggles to gain traction internally because they fail to bring everyone along for the journey. It’s not enough to have meetings or workshops after the fact. If stakeholders from different departments—whether it’s product, engineering, marketing, or leadership—aren’t engaged early on, the project risks stalling. Even if you succeed in developing a prototype or testing a use case, it may never reach full implementation.

Like It or Not, Humans Are “Political Beasts”

In any organization, humans have an inherent need to feel included. If stakeholders are left out or disengaged, it’s highly likely they won’t endorse the project. Without this buy-in, even the most well-designed product will struggle to gain traction. Building consensus is not just about getting approval; it’s about making sure everyone feels like they’re part of the journey from the start. This involves presenting ideas and plans regularly, asking for feedback, discussing openly, and adjusting and pivoting when and as necessary.

Rapid Prototyping: Making the Invisible Visible

Another critical aspect of engaging stakeholders is using techniques like rapid prototyping. People often think they’re aligned until they see an idea in a tangible form, like a user journey, figma screens or a prototype. Only then do the gaps in understanding become apparent. Prototyping helps get ideas out of people’s heads and into a form where others can interact with them. It forces teams to articulate their thoughts more clearly, and this process of turning ideas into something visual or written helps everyone understand what the actual product might look like.

The Power of Teamwork

The idea that one creative genius can single-handedly lead a project to success is a myth. In reality, successful product development is always a team effort. As projects grow, they require input from more and more people. The challenge is in making sure that those people are not just involved but engaged from the beginning. The ability to facilitate discussions, listen to others’ ideas, have everyone speak up, and bring in different perspectives is a vital skill in today’s complex product development landscape.

MVP: Testing Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability

Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) are a common way to test early-stage ideas. However, many teams get caught in the trap of either building too much or too little. An MVP should focus on mitigating the most significant risks early on, whether that’s desirability – does the customer want this?, feasibility – can we build this?, or viability – can this be sustained? Before adding a long list of features to an MVP, that eventually gets to be too expensive to build, make sure the core risks are addressed, and then plan to scale. It is a safer way to succeed if you work in rather small increments and have everyone on board along the way.

Conclusion: It’s All About People

Ultimately, the key to launching a successful product isn’t just the product itself—it’s about the people behind it. Aligning stakeholders, keeping communication open, and ensuring everyone feels involved are just as crucial as the technology or market fit. By involving all stakeholders fully and early on, you increase your chances of building not just a product that sustains the business, but a solution that the entire company can get behind.