I've heard this a statement so often it hurts: "Why would you want to build that? There are fifty bajillion of them already"!

If there is one thing I try really hard to ignore when conceptualizing a new product, it is the saturation of the existing market.  If you are capable of providing innovation or clear advantages over existing solutions, with a little luck you can overcome saturation and generate a market leading solution.  This has been proven time and time again as small startups topple their goliath competition because they are able to connect with the right audience.  Among some of the more notable cases of this are names like Google, Dell, and Sony (Playstation).  Each of these companies entered into markets that were heavily saturated or clearly dominated by a leader, and each of them ultimately ended up with the leading market share.  If you are discouraged by the number of people in your space, then get out now and do something else.

The key to product development is knowing your competition intimately.  It is not enough to be aware of their existence or have a vague idea of what they offer.  You have to truly understand what it's like to be a user of their solution.  Furthermore you need to find the lure or hook and how it captures user loyalty.  Pick the top two most successful products in your market space and begin studying.

There are three easy ways to create an advantage over your competition:

1. Simplify existing processes or features. 
2. Add missing or requested features. 
3. Add features that are attractive to a niche. 

With the data you gathered from your competition and an idea of how you will create an advantage over their product you should start creating a feature set that will guide your development cycle.  It is important not to view every feature in your competition's package as a requirement in yours.  First determine if the feature is bloat, useful or somewhere in between and include it accordingly.

Before you get started working on the development process, first test the waters with your feature set.  Blog about it, release a survey to existing customers or even post topics about it in related forums on the web.  You may get feedback like I mentioned in the introduction to this article, but that is not what you are looking for.  You are interested in a critical analysis of your product's feature set which goes in-depth about what features are missing and why they are critical.  You won't think about everything on the first try and it's better to realize this now than at 80% completion.

When you begin development, start with simple prototypes and play with different concepts and paradigms.  It is good to establish an elegant foundation to build the rest of your product on top of.  If you find yourself repeating steps or replicating code, take the time to step back and analyze why.  If your product is successful, you're going to be spending a lot of time maintaining this code, and it is better to spend the time up front to do things right than pay the price later.  If you're already in a saturated segment, time to market really isn't an excuse here, so if you have to cut corners make sure you're honest with yourself about the implications. 

As managers, no matter what level, our days are always filled with activities.  Whether we are on a conference call for half the morning or chugging through the 300 emails that came in overnight, it quickly becomes apparent that we simply can't do everything we would like.  Beyond our management duties, the way we interact with the rest of the company can have long lasting impacts.  The following list contains some of the more negative affects we can have on our company if we are not careful. 

1. Ignoring the concerns of your staff
Look, unless you have your finger firmly on the pulse of your market and customer base you need to admit to yourself that you are out of touch with what is happening on the front lines.  This is fine if you accept it, but if you don't you are liable to make some very bad decisions that could have irreversible effects across multiple departments.  Your staff on the frontline spend all day gathering priceless information about your customers and unless you pay attention you could miss huge opportunities or cause unnecessary turmoil. 

Similar to ignoring your staff is believing that you see the big picture and how everything fits together justifying the dismissal of their concern.  If this is the case, and the concern is truly irrelevant, try selling your staff on why.  Share with your staff the "big picture" because if you take the time to explain how you perceive the concern you will accomplish one of two things.  You will either realize that selling your position isn't so easy and the concern might be valid after all, or you will show your staff that you understand and fully absorb their concerns and that you are not asleep at the wheel.

2. Not allowing mistakes
We're human and we make mistakes.  A lot of them. Not having that expectation as a manager is being ignorant.  Mistakes should be viewed as an opportunity to educate not something to get anxiety over.  Here's the short of the long here; People who feel like they are going to get in trouble for making a mistake will quickly learn to pass the blame off to someone or something else.  Not only will this create an environment of rampant distrust, but it will also absolutely destroy morale.  I have seen time and time again managers jump all over the one employee that is honest with them about their mistakes.  I have to wonder how many mistakes get swept under the rug and how much hidden damage is being done to the company because of it.

The bottom line here is, mistakes, legitimate mistakes should be used as lessons to improve the individuals that make them.  Sometimes however, there is that one employee that just doesn't "get it" or doesn't care to get it.  If it's a lost cause you as a manager need to learn how to recognize the difference.

3. Failure to acknowledge your rock stars
Nothing is more frustrating or demoralizing to an employee than to do something magnificent only to be looked over as if going above and beyond is expected behavior.  Sure, we would all like to see all of our employees get this passionate and motivated to overachieve, but the fact is most of them won't.  They especially won't want to go the extra mile if they see others who sacrifice for the betterment of the company get ignored.  Your rock stars need to be heroes internally, not put so high on a pedestal that others feel hopelessly unable to reach them, but they should establish a bar for your staff to strive for.

Honoring your rock stars really isn't all that difficult either, all it takes is a little recognition, maybe a bonus or in some cases depending on the impact, a raise in salary.  Have an internal newsletter?  Make sure your rock stars are highlighted in it.  Have all staff meetings?  Award your rock star with a prize and make it a point to recognize them in front of their peers.

4. Provide little or no leadership
If you are a leader you must lead.  If you aren't capable of leading effectively then find someone who can.  Failure to lead a department will hurt morale internally and cause tremendous inconsistency with those they interface with.  Being a good leader is crucial to the stability and long term success of a department.  Without leadership a department is just wandering in the dark.

5. Failure to delegate
If you can't delegate, there is no way you are going to be able to evaluate if you’re making one of the previously mentioned mistakes.  You simply won't have the time.  It is difficult and sometimes requires a leap of faith to put extra responsibility onto those who work under you, but it is absolutely necessary.  Every once in a while you will be disappointed, but more often than not your expectations will be at least met if not exceeded.  People have a tendency to live up to expectations set forth by their environment.  If you are consistently babysitting your staff, they will behave accordingly, in contrast if you require much more from them they will live up to those expectations.

I hope you found this article enlightening, inspirational or maybe just agreeable. Regardless, if you recognize any of these behaviors in your own company it has done its job.  There are many other harmful things managers can do and this was certainly not a full list so I welcome any additions that you may have witnessed in your travels.