Mayank Patel
Nov 1, 2023
4 min read
Last updated Nov 9, 2023
The definition of technology has changed in the last few decades. It’s not only about making something new and innovative. It’s more inclined towards solving real-world problems. It might sound abstract but if we look at the technology products around us, we will find it true.
Technology has affected our lives in all possible ways. It won’t be wrong to say that it has drawbacks, but it has opened new doors for everyone. It has provided us with unimaginable means and possibilities.
The endless possibilities have not only made our lives different but also changed the ways we look at real-world problems. Technology is not only for the learned anymore. On the flip side, it is a tool for all. What used to be a luxury for some people has now become a norm for everyone.
There is no sector or industry that has not benefitted from technological advancements. Education, entertainment, healthcare, and agriculture are just to name a few.
At Linearloop, we are always looking to use technology to solve real-world problems. We believe that the answer lies in a clear understanding of the needs and expectations of our partners to provide a solution.
We focus on the right use of technology. Yes, there are lots of them, but we make sure to select and choose the ones that would positively solve the problem.
Here is a brief overview of the post.
This post will showcase using technology as a problem solver and how we leverage it for the right solution.
So let’s begin.
Healthcare is one of the sectors that has been the most difficult to find solutions. Nothing can be more beautiful than saving lives and caregiving.
Empathy is something that makes us more humane and technology has enabled us to achieve the same. A great example to quote from our experience is the healthcare solution that we provided to Innovage.
Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Innovage is a senior healthcare and services provider. We were humbled by the opportunity to help them out through the right use of technology.
They wanted us to improve their online medical services by enabling patients and caregivers to book appointments and providing some kind of all-in-one online solution. This would help to reduce the risk of physical contact during checkups and consultations. It especially helped to mitigate COVID-19-related health issues.
The solution is up and running without any problems and we couldn’t be more happier with it.
Below are some of the pain points that we resolved through technology:
The Challenge
The Solution
The Results
We were pleased to see the results and the impact that our solution made.
Technology is not just a tool for us. It’s a way of thinking and creating. We may be tempted to create products in our favorite ways. But that does not help for the most part. Yes, it does empower us and express in many ways but solving a real-world problem is what we care about.
Here are some ways in which solving real-world problems through technology benefitted us with a broad overview of the subject:
Solutions with Purpose
While we do product development, it gives us a sense of fulfillment. There is no better way for us to seek that other than solving real-world problems. We know that our solutions are not just products. These are improving the quality of life of the users. The case study that we mentioned earlier in the blog exemplifies the same. We are committed to creating a positive impact through our products with a purpose.
Better Understanding of Needs
Building products solving real-world challenges has helped us understand the needs of the users in better ways. We make sure that we approach with a solution that is user-centric and connected to the actual users. There are times when the users are not sure about what they need but that's not a problem at all. That’s what we are here for. We brainstorm and suggest solutions based on our real-world experiences in building software products rather than just following a fixed set of guidelines.
Better Decision Making
Problems can be challenging. The degree of challenges may very well vary depending on the requirements. Working with real-world problems helps in making better decisions and working with the right approaches. Even the smallest decision when made at the right moment can prove monumental for a product. It’s not a surprise for us to see the positive results throughout the development process considering that we made the right decision at the right time.
Motivation For Curiosity
Developing products is not a straight path. Working on real-world solutions helps us question ourselves throughout the process. Mistakes are bound to happen. The only way to make ourselves better at what we do is to keep learning through curiosity. Agile development workflows play a big part in it too. Solving problems can be tedious but the curiosity to keep asking questions has made us experts while we develop products in an iterative way.
Adjusting the Creativity Mode
Working on real-world project problems helps us to see a solution from different angles. There are so many ifs and buts. What we gain from this is that we are able to experiment with the skills we have and enhance them as well. This keeps us excited to be more creative with our solutions. Another piece of the puzzle that it helps us to solve is to decide on creativity. Some solutions are more usable and better with less creativity. The right amount can only be decided when we understand the needs rather than just putting creativity into everything. This can only happen while we work on solving real-world solutions.
What Technology to Use (and What Not to)
The growth of the number of tools to work is almost unending. Deciding on what’s best for a solution is also a challenge. For example, if the solution can be made in a better way with less advanced tools for more maintainability, we have to stick to it. Yes, solutions can be complex, but they can be simple too. What’s most important is to understand it through solving real-world problems and develop a solution that’s most suited.
Being an expert in the field means something more to us than just growing. We believe that whatever we do provides us with a sense of satisfaction. We are passionate about what we do as product developers. We love to see our solutions making positive impacts and adding value to those we work with.
Solving problems helps us to learn continuously and in a practical way. Yes, it’s challenging at times but that is what compels us to push for betterment. We’re committed to making a positive difference wisely and ethically. This helps us to explore new technologies and provides opportunities to grow.
One of the things that we constantly strive for is to use the right technologies for the problem. It’s not necessary that the latest technology would be the greatest too. We weigh the pros and the cons while we implement any solution.
If we can fix something by hand, why use a hammer for it?
We believe in providing the right solutions and that can only happen when we solve real-world problems.
Solving real-world problems is a continuous process of learning. It’s not something that can be understood theoretically. Different problems have to be solved in different ways with the right use of technology.
Additionally, it helps us to interact with the real users. Feedback is important and it is very instrumental in solving real-world problems. Our vision is to create solutions and products that contribute to betterment.
We hope that you enjoyed our post and we would love to hear back from you about it. We’re here to create a difference and your feedback would help us in making sure that we keep providing the right software product development solutions to the best of our abilities.
Thank you for taking out time to read our post.
We promise to keep bringing you such incredible stuff.
A Founder's Perspective: What it Takes to Build a Great Product
Software product is usually seen as a solution to some real-world problem. If we think of it generally, it’s the code logic present in a product that helps do something that benefits the end-user. This is not a wrong definition of software but the real question to be answered is “Is the code logic written and presented in the form of a product that solves a problem in a great way?”
If we see a solution from the perspective of an end-user having a great experience using it, this is what makes a solution great. Another trait of a great product it must solve a problem in the best possible way.
A better version of an existing product may not be enough to make a product great. The product should indeed present the solution reflecting to understand the needs of the end user in a much deeper manner.
To be more precise, the people who build the product must understand the problem much better than the users themselves. It’s only after the product has been launched that the users see that their needs are being taken care of in ways that could not have even imagined.
How can this be achieved? The short answer to this mostly relies on the person or people who are leading the projects or the founders. It might sound a bit off the track but apart from a great team that develops the product, it’s their vision that leads the team to success.
A software product development company is like an ecosystem. There must be a balance of everything while a product is being developed to make it great. Some things might even be more important than others and that needs to be identified to work upon.
Let us see the process and thinking that helps to make a product great. Linearloop has been developing products for more than a decade now and worked on products across various domains and industries.
Working across different domains has helped us shape our thinking to understand the intricacies involved in making great software products.
Additionally, the process that goes into making great software can only be understood by working on real-world solutions that are great in all aspects. As company founders, there is no better way to know this than by putting ourselves in the shoes of product owners.
This post reflects on the challenges, pain points, and things to consider while developing software to provide great software solutions.
Here is an overview of the post to help to understand its structure at a glance:
Let’s get started.
Products need to be made in such a way that not only lives up to the expectations of the product owners and the end users but also creates opportunities that may not be obvious at first.
Research is undeniably the most important part of developing great products. However, the ways to use research data can be a deciding factor in determining the fate of a product. Relying solely on other’s marketing research can undoubtedly provide insights but this may create a false sense of belief about users’ expectations.
The problem with just using others’ research is that it might not represent the pain points or needs of the group of people that your product might be targeted to. Although the problem may seem very general it’s actually not.
Another important thing to note is that the past or existing data only shows the trends that are available and forecasts that are made as per them. The real value is in getting hold is what is to come or will be required before others and better than others. This helps in addressing and taking care of the needs of the present as well as the future.
Let’s consider music streaming services in the context of software products. Most of them are made in more or less the same way and offer similar services.
John Nash's game theory is a great analogy to this situation. He was an American mathematician and his theory applies to many areas of economics, logic, computer science, and systems science. It states the concept of equilibrium for non-cooperative games or the concept of equilibrium among rational agents for making strategic decisions.
For our purposes, if there are two businesses or two music streaming companies (in our example) competing in the same field and providing similar content then there is no reward in that for either of them.
If one chooses an alternate strategy, the other copies it. Thus there is no clear reward for either, hence, they are at equilibrium and they continue running their business with almost the same number of users with similar outcomes.
On the other hand, if a music streaming company decides to take a different angle while developing a streaming app that may differentiate it from others by offering something fresh, this can become a game-changer.
If we take the example of the largest democracy and the most populated country in the world, i.e., Bharat or India, there are so many languages spoken and heard across the country. If the streaming company decides to launch regional music on its application based on the geographical diversity of audiences, this might make it the market leader.
Although there were other players in the market with many years under their built offering similar services, this one company shined with a solution that created opportunity in a saturated space by offering a specific and different solution. It also reflects that their better understanding of the problem at hand based on geographical diversity helped them make a great product.
So, the Nash Equilibrium might very well not apply here since the strategy is not an alternate one, but it’s actually very different from the usual ones. This logic can be applied to all products and will incur the same results for the most part.
A definite advantage is to understand user behaviors and audience and come up with a solution that you understand is needed. It's very much possible that even the users are not sure what to expect that would wow them until you come up with a great product that blows their minds.
Building great products requires a lot of brainstorming and out-of-the-box thinking for the most part. User behavior and feedback are very crucial components of it. This not only helps to get a better understanding of the problem but also helps to devise methodologies that can help engineer the right product.
The first step in building a great software product is to define the problem that you are trying to solve and the solution that you are offering. The product vision should answer the following questions:
Doing one’s research certainly to answer these questions before engineering a product is a great task but the rewards are even greater. There are some battle-tested approaches for it which are mostly based on the user’s perspective and provide a great guide to creating the correct approach while developing a product. These come under the umbrella of user research.
But there’s a catch.
These approaches work well in most situations, but modifying them a bit can be a differentiating factor.
The Usual Approach
The Better Approach
The next step to building great products after deciding on the approach is to go use best practices and methods. Some well-known best practices that contribute to a product include great UI/UX flows, user interface, usability, using feedback for continuous improvement, and easy product support.
The list here is not exhaustive but the fact that they are known to most development teams makes them very obvious to keep on track.
But some others may be usually ignored. They are equally important and must be kept in check. Let’s look at them together.
Deciding on What Technologies to Use
This is one of the biggest dilemmas while developing software. With endless technologies to choose from it's difficult to select the ones that best suit the purpose. Comparing the pros and cons is also very difficult since it is almost impossible to predict the challenges that could come up at later stages. This decision has to be made wisely.
The Latest Tech May Not Be The Best (and vice versa)
Using the latest technology available may not always be the best decision. Yes, it’s tempting and there are obvious advantages to it but the expectations must be kept in check for the same based on experience and a good understanding of advantages and drawbacks. For example, if a technology is great to use but lacks clear documentation or community support, it may become an issue to use it with complete confidence. This is a well-known drawback of the new technologies being launched at cut-throat speeds.
Writing Readable Code
The product needs to be developed with code that can be easily read and understood. Since the development usually includes many team members with different skills and ways to develop a product. This can make the code readable to some but might be unreadable to others. Following standard practices helps in bridging the gaps. It also helps to keep the product code maintainable if new team members join a project.
Separation of Concerns
Product code must be modular. The software has to be built in a scalable way that can also be maintained with minimal complexities. This can be achieved by developing the product in a framework-like structure. For example, if there are modules or smaller and independent units of code for different features in an application, this helps to keep the logic separate for different features.
Writing Reusable Code
Modern applications are getting out of hand in terms of code lines. Thanks to pre-built and battle-tested frameworks available to use that can help develop applications similar to creating a complex product using Lego bricks type architecture. This pushes us to write reusable code. For example, a calculation might be used at multiple places in a product. This logic can be written as separate modules and can be used again and again when required in various places hence keeping the code DRY (do not repeat yourself).
The Abstraction Layer
A great product must find ways to provide functionalities that can be easily used. This is achieved by hiding the complexities from the users to present the solution elegantly so that there is no confusion at all. This is an important ingredient in providing a great user experience.
Proper Testing
Testing is one of the key ways to make sure that your product has minimal issues while being used in the real world. With agile workflows being one of the standard ways used in development, testing can be included since the early stages of development itself. The rising complexities in modern products make them prone to so many errors. You do not want your product to be unreliable.
Clear Documentation
A product needs to have a true source of information. This can be addressed by creating clear documentation for the same. It helps in describing the purpose, functionalities, and capabilities of a product. This also helps the users to understand the things that a product can and cannot do.
The world is full of challenges that need creative solutions. We believe that the best way to learn how to solve them is by doing, not just reading. That’s why we use technology for software product development that matters and share our insights with you.
We believe in creating great software products that make a difference and leave a positive impact, period.
But we don’t want to do it alone. We want to hear from you, our valued readers. Your feedback is essential for us to improve our work and make a positive impact. Our vision is to create products and solutions that make a difference for the better.
We hope you enjoyed reading our post and we would appreciate your thoughts on it. We are here to make a change and your feedback will help us achieve that goal.
We look forward to bringing you more amazing content.
Mayank Patel
Nov 1, 20235 min read
Understanding Your Target Audience: A Key to Product Success
"Know your audience; that's the trick. To make a product that will stick. Their needs and wants, you must pick, With this insight, your success will be quick."
Creating a successful product is like baking a delicious cake. To make that cake, you need the right ingredients and a good recipe. In the same way, to create a product that people love, you need to know who your audience is and what they want. This is the secret ingredient to product success.
Think about it like this: If you were making a cake, would you just throw random things into the mix and hope for the best? Probably not. You'd want to know who you're baking for and what flavors they like. It's the same with products. You need to know who your audience is and what they need, so you can create something that they'll enjoy.
Here's why understanding your target audience is so important for product success:
1. Relevance: When you understand your audience, you can tailor your products and marketing strategies to meet their specific needs and preferences. This makes your offerings more relevant to them, increasing their chances of success.
2. Effective Communication: Knowing your target audience allows you to speak their language, use their terminology, and address their pain points directly. This makes your marketing and messaging more effective at capturing their attention and resonating with them.
3. Resource Efficiency: By focusing your efforts on a well-defined audience, you can use your resources more efficiently. You won't waste time and money trying to reach people who are unlikely to be interested in your product.
Now that you know why it's important, let's talk about how to understand your target audience:
1. Market Research: Conduct comprehensive market research to gather data on the demographics, preferences, and behaviors of your potential customers. This data can be obtained through surveys, questionnaires, and the analysis of existing market data.
2. Customer Surveys and Feedback: Collect feedback from your current customers through surveys, reviews, and direct communication. Understand their pain points, their needs, and what they like about your product or service.
3. Competitor Analysis: Study your competitors and their customer base. What types of customers do they attract, and how are they engaging with them? This can provide insights into potential target audiences.
4. Create Buyer Personas: Develop detailed buyer personas that represent different segments of your target audience. Include information such as age, gender, location, interests, and challenges. For example, you might create personas like "Tech-Savvy Millennial Mark" or "Busy Working Mom Sarah."
5. Social Media Listening: Monitor social media conversations related to your industry or product. Tools like social media listening software can help you understand what your audience is talking about and how they feel about various topics.
6. Data Analytics Tools: Utilize analytics tools, such as heatmaps, to understand how users are interacting with your website or product. This can help you identify areas for improvement.
Now, let's dive into our new section for some inspiring stories that will spark your creativity after learning about your target audiences.
The remarkable success stories of tech giants like Facebook, Tesla, and Amazon provide more than just inspiration; they offer a roadmap for anyone looking to turn their great ideas into reality and connect with their target audiences. At the heart of these stories lies a profound understanding of what people want and need. By following their lead, you can harness this understanding to bring your dreams to life. And with Linearloop, a leading IT company specializing in product development, frontend and backend development, and DevOps, you have the perfect partner to turn your vision into a reality.
These visionaries not only identified the needs of their audiences but also turned their ideas into thriving businesses. Here's how their journeys can serve as your inspiration:
1. Connecting with Your Audience:
Mark Zuckerberg understood the need for people to connect and share their lives online. To translate your dreams into reality, you should deeply understand the desires and challenges of your potential users and design solutions that resonate with them. Linearloop is dedicated to turning your vision into a user-friendly, functional product that captures the hearts of your audience.
2. Innovation and Adaptation:
Elon Musk's ventures, including Tesla and SpaceX, are a testament to continuous innovation and adaptation. He constantly improved his products and services to stay ahead. In your journey, embrace change and prioritize continuous improvement with Linearloop's frontend and backend development services.
3. Offering Convenience and Quality:
Jeff Bezos transformed Amazon into a one-stop shop, emphasizing convenience and variety. As you work on your dream project, prioritize customer satisfaction and convenience. Make your offerings top-notch with Linearloop's DevOps solutions, ensuring quality and reliability.
At Linearloop, we're your partners in turning your ideas into reality. Whether it's a groundbreaking product, a responsive website, or a streamlined backend system, here's why we stand out:
Commitment: We're deeply committed to your project's success. Your vision matters, and we'll work tirelessly to bring it to life.
Quality: Quality is at our core. We ensure your project meets the highest standards, from development to deployment.
Transparent Process: We believe in open and honest communication. You'll always know what's happening during the development process.
Specialization: With our expertise in IT services, we can make your unique ideas a reality.
Flexibility: We adapt to your needs and timelines because every project is different. We provide tailored solutions.
Continuous Improvement: We're always looking for ways to enhance our services and make your project better.
The stories of Zuckerberg, Musk, and Bezos show how understanding people's needs can lead to greatness. You can do it too! And with Linearloop, a top IT company offering product development, frontend and backend solutions, and DevOps, your dream can be real. We're here to bring your vision to life.
Mayank Patel
Oct 31, 20234 min read
