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How Scope Creep Kills Product Development · Pitch to Product

• Peter/Dan: And everyone thinks that there's one manufacturer that makes everything I need in one place and they got all the right machinery and they got all the right equipment for every material you could possibly make this. I always say this is about finding the ten thousand ways not to make it. Right. And with the with with the scope of work being approved, we can at least f narrow that down to maybe the ten or twenty ways it can be made. Right. Now we gotta go assess it with cost. Yeah. And now I gotta go convince or talk to factories to say, Hey, can we make a thousand of these? And does it align with your goals and our goals? And here's the here's the approved scope that we're looking for. Like if anybody thinks that's easy, come come here. Show me how to do it better. folks, back at you. Peter and Dan here to talk about fifty two you and our episode five. Episode five. Where we're starting to some gangs here. So yeah, why don't you start us off here, Dan? This is about the truth scope. why a locked in definition of your product is the most important document you'll sign at the early on. I think we said this at the very end of the last episode. It's extremely important that you understand In your CSM understands and product developer, designer, understand exactly what the scope of work is going to be. That way we don't use the word when you start to drift scope creep or scope drift, right? Where we don't want to do that. obviously if we do that, it goes a completely against what we talked about in our last episode, speed to market. we want to get there quickly and by getting there quickly is understanding what we're making and and staying on task, on focus and not drifting. Obviously it's impossible sometimes to not to drift a little bit, but the idea is that you need to know what that scope is. You there there was a funny automotive episode of The Simpsons that Homer was allowed to build a car because his his his long lost brother was a auto manufacturer and he had every feature that Homer Simpson wanted in that car and it was horrible. It failed. Right. So you gotta be careful. Like this is where scope creep, you know, you can't just add one more thing. Right. And and the and keeping on track. Is the hardest thing, especially look at you know, I get it, everyone's been thinking about this idea for a day, a month, a year, or 10 years, whatever that is. But your mind is not reality, it is the visionary part. Now we got to turn it into reality. And when we get off scope, it can be dangerous, right? Things are things will cost more that a consumer's not gonna see value in. Exactly. And that's what we want to talk about today. So that we can and even even to that point, Pete, that's again, that's why. You work with a team like 52 Launch because we've done this so many times that we understand creep. We under not creep in the sense of a creep, but you know, creeping or drifting. We understand all of that and can help you stay on course because you Pete, you're so right. It gets to a point where we're gonna outprice ourselves with this product. And no one's even might it might be the a beautiful product, but if people don't buy it. It's a failure. Well, I would say if something costs a dollar and makes me spend 10, do it. Right. Right. If if it costs a dollar and it doesn't have any intrinsic value or costs me five dollars and it doesn't make doesn't get me five dollars in value, don't do it. Right. Right. That that's the way you gotta look at it. And you know, look at before meeting you, a lot of projects that I saw had failed because they were not focused on the important core values or the successful core of the product idea. Right. They added the one more. Like everyone started using an update myself with the Ginsu knife commercial, right? but wait, there's more. Right? That there's a model for the but wait, there's more. We don't need to do that in today's world. Today's world is show me the thing that makes me happier, do something faster, make my life easier. Like when you get to that thing, you're done. What does that product do for me? Can I vision envision using that product? Yes. How do I see my kids using it? How do I see myself using it? Like that's that's what makes the the the world move. So all right, so we'll open up with Every field product that we've ever seen didn't fail because of the bad factory or bad market. Yeah. It failed because nobody ever actually agreed on what they were building. Today, we're gonna talk about approved scope. And again, that's the one document that prevents almost every downstream disaster. I mean, that is exactly perfectly said. So look at I'm I can hear people out in the internet world going or the AI world going. Well, but Dan, a Does that mean that you guys are gonna tell me the product I'm gonna make? Where where do I get my opinion in here? And well, you their opinion comes you. We we didn't invent the product, we didn't think of the product you did. And certainly we're gonna hone in on that. We're either going to make it better, stronger, faster at our opinion as to what we think the market looks like because we've done this so many times. Where's we're we're here to guide, not decide. Thank you. That is the most important thing. The inventor is the inventor. They're more important than we are. Because without ideas, we we're not in business. Right. So, you know, the inventor has fantastic ideas. The next step is to hone in on those. Let's take the ones that the value props that are the most important. And let's not make a Lamborghini on a Hyundai budget. And let's make the minimal viable product. Let's make a great product that someone says, Wow, I want that. Exactly. All right, that's it. Anything beyond that, you're you're wasting time. Right. So why is that so important? Because this is a teachable moment. It's important because look at at the end of the day, you have to make sure that there's flexibility, right? Like you don't want to have the wrong product. None of us do. What what do we want to have a wrong product out there or a bad product out there? No, absolutely not. So that's where we're very aligned. Do we want to have a product that costs too much that you can't afford to launch with? No. No. So where's the balance? Right? It's the Goldilocks theory. What's too little? And first of all, I'll tell it's not even the Goldilocks. I don't want anything that's gonna be at a low, I have to sell high volume and there's no intrinsic value proposition. That's not our client. What we're looking for is that medium to like somewhere between over like a very unique value proposition or a very unique brand. And in those two categories, we have to keep the budget in mind. And that is what scope creep like helps us do, or setting the the aligned scope, that is what it helps us do. But every decision in those in that in those boundaries are yours to make. Right. So and again, the word of the day, you've said it three or four times. Now I've said it once, scope creep. you know, it it a lot of people think, well, making one change, you know, you know, that's scope creep. Us scope creep. It's not one change. It's making the 50 changes that it's a tapestry. It absolutely extends out the speed to market. You you make one change and it affects everything in the past and everything in the future. They they say that, you know, if you fifteen degrees if you're sailing fifteen degrees off course can get you to the north pole pole or the south pole if you stay on stay on off of on a that course long enough. Right. Right. So we want to make sure that we are always course correcting. Right. To stay on course. There could be some little deviation. And what's the only way to make sure that you stay on course? A defined map roadmap to where you're going. A defined scoop of scope there we go there. We talk about building a house. You have plans, you stick to those plans, and you've got a beautiful house. If you keep changing this, this, this, this, this, and this, all of a sudden you're six months over and now you've got to go rent a house because your house is not done and your rental expired. So stay focused on an approved scope, have that document signed, and let's really focus on that. Well, this is a core principle. Thousand pieces, twenty five hundred pieces. Just gonna bring that up. We're gonna be back at it again and we can change the it's the core principle of like in the last episode we talked about the fact that you have to like get fast, right? Because you want to get to revenue quickly. If you are allowing the scope to constantly change, add one more thing. It's not the money. Like, yeah, you can you can spend the money if you want to invest more to get that done. I'm happy to help you with do that. But I am gonna be irritated that we can't launch faster. Right. Right. And and again, that's the whole goal. If you can launch with something to be on on on point and then go and iterate on the next round with revenue coming in, it's way better than having to invest. Absolutely. Way better. Three important days at 52 launch. The day you sign the contract means it's the day your journey starts. We get to that bridge meeting. That's an exciting day. Means now we're gonna go make your product. And that launch day is an amazing launch day is the day that we go sell your product. That's like having a baby that day, right? Yeah. And the faster we can get to that. And by the way, when I say the fastest we can get, all of you want us to get there quickly. You no one wants to wait. No, no. Right. The challenge is is it comes down to those two things we always talk about. Fear of finance, right? Fear of finance. You're you're afraid and that's making you nervous and you know, you've got agita, or it's I don't have the money to continue on this. And then if that's the case, we have other things that we can help with. So yeah. Very important. Driping is not a good thing. We're gonna do this in another episode, but I'm writing it down here. So I think I think people there's a there's a scope creep for your product, but I think there's also a focus creep that could that are sometimes people need to adjust themselves a little bit too. It's so I mean you and I think alike. I'm glad you wrote that down because it is important and it's really important for our CSMs, our customer success managers, who are your advocate during this entire process. They should also be keeping you busy through this entire process. They should be feeding you episodes or or other podcasts that we Pete and I both follow Gary V pretty, you know, religious Savannah Banana. From Jesse, yeah, Jesse Cole from Savannah Banana. you know, they inspire us, right? And and we we hopefully are inspiring you guys as well. But our team should also keep you in the loop and and keep you focused on what's at hand and and Helping you have a great time throughout the journey. Cause that really at the end of the day is supposed to be what happens. You're supposed to have fun through this entire journey. Well, look at Steve, I'm just wrote this down. So at the end of this episode, you should probably get the list of mentors that Den and I follow on a regular basis. So that I think it's important that you guys follow because again, I'm I'm I'm the expert at executing what the experts are telling me needs to happen. You know, following them in how this works. It's it's easier. I'm not the smartest guy in the room. Yeah. I'm the smartest person that surrounds myself with smarter people. Just be careful. Yeah. Because I got four hours of sleep last night. I know. I was I was I I I had to see the bags under my eyes. I am so bad now at using my phone. I am just so bad. My I mean thank God my kids are older now and I don't have to worry about them. But man, if I had young kids today, I don't know, I don't know how I would keep the phone out of their hands because I am learning so much that my head feels like it's ready to load. And look at this is where I I told I told the content creative team yesterday that, you know, we're the dinosaurs, but our knowledge in how things worked is there. Their ability to do what needs to be done right now, I can't. They they can go so fast. Like they they were born with this knowledge. You just nailed it. Well, you and I are learning it and we can learn it. They instinctively just do it. Yeah. These guys because they grew up This way. They know it. We're learning it and they know it. That's the big difference. Yep. All right. So back on track. Why why a locked document beats a good relationship? Well, that's that's great. I mean, look at we all we all want our clients to have great relationships with everybody on the team, especially your CSMs, but the document means everything. That's what we follow. Yeah. Well, we we go one step further. Everything is recorded. It is so it's not just a document. It's it can you can go go You can go back and watch it. You can go like get it for context. You know, it's nothing like a transcript that doesn't have inflection. Go back and read the inflection, right? There's intent, there's relationship, both exist, but the s the scope of work, we actually have a scope of work call. And then the CSMs and the and the first kickoff call, they define that scope of work. The only, you know, thing that that would they add is they have a conversation with the client to say, look at do you want this to be a tier one, tier two, or tier three type product? Yeah, we have definitions for the complexity. Right. Right. Keep it simple. We can make it a little bit more complicated, but every time we get into the deeper tiers, it costs it's it doesn't cost more money per se. You're making a more complex product which has more cost to it. I mean when you get to a tier three product, there's a little bit more money involved because it's usually a lot of the return engineering and stuff like that, or mechanical engineering involved. Which we, you know, we either are outsourcing that to some of our partners or, you know, we have you know, obviously mechanical and and electrical engineer make more money than a design. product designer. the one thing I want to take away from, you know, the the you know, this core teaching segment here is and this kind of sums it up. every small tweak becomes a debate was did we originally meet that? No, we didn't meet it because there was a small tweak. And we didn't meet it because the timelines get greater when you make a small tweak. People feel like man, like you promised it was going to be done here at this date, and now we're here. Well, you're forgetting that you made these tweaks. You thought they were tweaks. They're not tweaks. Anytime you make a change, a change is a change. There's no such thing as a tweak versus a a larger tweak. I mean, they're a tweak. There are some take a little bit longer, but even a simplest tweak changes everything. Everything. Everything and I think and if you go watch the the the segment on Chronicle, yeah, where they where our designers talked about one teeny millimeter off changes everything. I I was gonna say you have to go back and rework the entire Watch the podcast that we launched yesterday. It was the live stream I think that Steve you hosted with Paige and Jada. What a fantastic Q and A that you did with them, right? 'Cause they they talked everything about why this is so important. So in addition to this lesson plan podcast. When did you do it yesterday? Yeah, I just launched, I think it was this morning or last night, right? So good. look at the w the amount of information that we are pumping out here, is unprecedented. And and again, it is free. I want you to learn this because I'd rather you watch it, believe it. It makes you it it makes you smart smarter, faster. takes ignorance completely out of the play now. What now we you everybody understands say you know i i ignorance or misunderstanding yeah ignorance is not a bad word. No no no exact ignorant at it's what you you don't know what you don't know. Yeah. But if you if you misunderstand something, that's where it can become a little bit like emotional. I said it earlier ignorance is just laziness because everything's at your beck and call today. You can learn anything you once you know how something's done, you should never be able to go back to the old way it was done. That that's the hardest part, right? You cannot You cannot go back and be more ignorant. You can only learn to go get be smarter. So all right, good. so we got the small tweak conversation. Please add that link to the podcast that that the ladies did yesterday. That was fantastic. they just came back from China. So again, you know, talk about scope creep and scope you know, what what we need to do is not just for us, we gotta go talk to all of our partner factories. And everyone thinks that there's one manufacturer that makes everything I need in one place and they got all the right machinery and they got all the right equipment for every material you could possibly make this. I always say this is about finding the ten thousand ways not to make it. Right. And with the with with the scope of work being approved, we can at least f narrow that down to maybe the ten or twenty ways it can be made. Right. Now we gotta go assess it with cost. Yeah. And now I gotta go convince or talk to factories to say, Hey, can we make a thousand of these? And does it align with your goals and our goals? And here's the here's the approved scope that we're looking for. Like if anybody thinks that's easy, come come here. Show me how to do it better. you don't even know this yet, but I just met with neither the Steve I just met with Sander this morning and and committed and and reworked our budget to make sure that we have two people go to China every month now. It was gonna be every other month. Now we we're gonna do it every every month. So for two weeks, I just committed to the budget and it it costs us about twelve thousand dollars to send two people to China every month. So you do the math there. it's an investment. It's an investment to to everybody out there that we have we already have two full-time employees that live and work in China for us. we are now gonna have two of our product developers, one product developer, one designer, every month in China for two weeks. again, building those strong relationships, checking on production orders, checking on samples. There's always something to Again, if you watch the podcast from yesterday, there's always something going on there. You'll see all the reasons why that's so important. Right. And look at could we have done that ten years ago when we started and there was three of us in a little office in the basement? No, no. Well we didn't we had one person go. Wait, well, you you and I accounted us for each one, but you know, we sent an intern to China, which is a whole other podcast episode. But yeah, it it's so important. And it's not just China. It's it's anywhere that we go, right? Anytime you you are gonna manufacture something, it's it's good to have presence there. And Paige said it best. When they know you're coming, you get priority treatment. Right. So let's let's let's doing more is where we're finally are it's exciting that we can do this now. Exactly. So again, you know, from the floor, we talk about this at every episode. It's important that we have that approved scope signed. and it's not because we want to pull it out and say, hey, hey, I told you so. This is what you signed off on. And you know, it's not our fault. That's never going to be the case. It's where the conversation shifts from who's right to let's price and schedule the additional work properly. and when I say additional work, it's It's just important that we're transparent with that because we do have the day you sign on, we literally have a schedule that we want to follow. The design team has their schedule. Well, marketing has their schedule, design team has their schedule. our CSMs now understand exactly how to keep everybody on track. And then once we have the bridge meeting, production gets involved, and then marketing gets back involved again. It's all mapped out for our clients. And we You know, we we're a one fee, you know, we charge a a flat fee for our process. So it behooves us all to go faster and and stay on track. And and that's our differentiator. That we're a one flat fee service. So you're not getting surprised, you're not in your pocket all the time taking out money to pay us. We'd rather have you just pay that one fee. Let's get through the process. But when we make a promise to deliver, you know, everything on time. Right. We we can't be we gotta stay on scope. Well we got to stay on scope. And and again, we're okay if we don't stay on scope, but just understand that it just delays things. Here here's the the like the part. We do scan stay on scope. I think again, the I d I cannot see the imaginary scope you have in your head. Right. So having that come out and then put it I'll I'll give you like a real world world example. Shrinking things costs a lot of money. And You can do that. That's engineering time that's shrinking down. So using like a refrigerant or using something that is that is that I can buy off the shelf that's got some size to it, I can design around that to still make it look good. But if you want it shrunk down, and I think there's a there was a clip in one of the Steve Job movies where he drops the the iPod into a fish tank and sees bubbles, he goes, Okay, you can make it smaller because if there's air in there, we can we can tighten it up. You know what money that costs? And and for We're not Apple. We're not like a big brand company. We not that not us. We're we're pretty sizable brand, but I would never recommend that you spend that kind of money to shrink something down. Get your first product launched. We can design around it so that it looks amazing so that people can use it. Right. If people can use it, that is your launch point. That's the that's the approved scope of work that you need to get to. So maybe in your mind you need to open some flexibility or get it out into AI until you get it perfect and show us what you're looking for. Because again, I'm seeing it right now. I love when I get that explode to do when people show me all the things that they're expecting us to do. And I could say, There's no way you want to spend nine tools and have this little micro refrigerant come in here and do this right here and shrink it down to the size of something that like and have it weigh under three ounces. Like the people, there's still some rules to to You must be talking about something that's No, no, it it's look at I it's an example, it's a generalization. I've I I talked about four or five different products in there that are all in that same line. But it's, you know, we can never imagine, I can never draw out your imagination. Right. All right, let's recap this. The the take home three questions. exciting, very easy. Alignment lives in a document, not in a memory or in a good relationship. We talked about that. Relationships are great. But let's have things in the document so we can all follow along. Every every client moving forward's gonna have a a client portal, or as Pete would call it, a port hole, a port portal. Yeah. And you'll be able to see that document and as well as you know, staying on on task. Scope creep is really that's we talked about it, one big decision that's many small, reasonably sounding ones, but They still add time. Cause and effect. You have to have your cause and effect conversation here. For every, you know, Einstein's right. For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. If you're gonna make a change, what is the opposite of that change? What does it affect? And if you don't know that, you end up with like, yeah, you got what you want, but now you got some reverse thing that you weren't expecting. It's amazing how Steve has this all set up so it just flows beautifully down to the next question. The locked scope is what lets the team move fast without losing control of cost or timeline, which we just talked about, right? Like if we can stay on course, we can get there faster, which then goes back to yesterday's podcast when we talked about speed to market. On number three man, Steve, you do a good job making sure this flows all along. Yeah, fantastic job. And look at on number three, Dan. Tell me how many times in this conversation and on that specific topic do you have to make compromises? Right. If you're if you're uncompromising, you are going to take forever. It is going to be difficult. You're going to be disappointed. Life does not come without compromise. Making a product does not come without compromise. And again, it's not a compromise that you and I are going to force or say this is it. It's a consumer. It's a cost. If your compromise comes at a cost, a consumer might not take that on.