4. Business Resistance to Discovery - Addressing a Common Challenge in Product Development

Introduction

A frequent challenge in product development within traditional companies is resistance to the discovery process. Discovery, which involves understanding customer needs and testing solutions, can sometimes be met with skepticism from business teams who feel they already know what the customer needs. The sentiment is often: “I know what our customer wants—discovery is unnecessary.”

This session will discuss strategies for overcoming this resistance to discovery and highlight ways to integrate discovery without explicitly labeling it as such. Additionally, I’ll share examples of minimum viable discovery (MVD) methods that allow teams to test ideas quickly, gaining insights while building business confidence in the discovery process.

Why Business Teams Resist Discovery

In traditional companies, resistance to discovery can come from a sense of confidence in their existing knowledge. Sales, partner relations, and front-line business teams often believe they have a direct understanding of customer needs, and discovery is seen as a time-consuming step that delays implementation.

At companies like Gympass and Lopes, where I experienced similar scenarios, discovery was often viewed as redundant by teams with years of business experience.

Strategies for Introducing Discovery in a Resistant Environment

1. Remove the Word “Discovery” from Your Lexicon

In some cases, the word “discovery” itself may have developed a negative connotation. Temporarily avoiding the term can be helpful. Instead, refer to discovery as a “problem-solving process” or a “learning phase.” By reframing it, you can reduce initial resistance while continuing to gather insights as part of the product development process.

2. Ask “Why?” to Uncover Root Problems

When business stakeholders suggest solutions, ask “Why?” to understand the underlying problem. This question helps shift the focus from implementing a specific solution to addressing the root issue. By involving business teams in problem-solving, you essentially conduct discovery without formally labeling it as such. This collaborative approach makes discovery feel like a natural part of solution design.

3. Build Business Knowledge Through Engagement

It’s essential to recognize and respect the business knowledge that teams have built over years or even decades. Product and digital teams can learn from this wealth of experience by engaging in continuous conversations with customers, business teams, founders, and executives. At Lopes, for example, I facilitated “business drops” to share knowledge and foster collaboration, enabling the digital team to better understand the company’s needs.

4. Use Minimum Viable Discovery (MVD)

Long discovery phases can increase anxiety within the business, especially if they span weeks or months. To mitigate this, adopt an MVD approach—identify the minimum insights needed to form hypotheses and start testing solutions. By focusing on a few key questions, you keep the discovery phase short and actionable. This approach helps materialize the product and gives business teams confidence in the progress being made.

Practical Discovery Techniques for Quick Validation

For faster and cost-effective validation, low-code tools, prototypes, and other forms of minimum viable product (MVP) testing allow you to conduct discovery while producing visible outputs. Here are a few popular tools and techniques that allow rapid feedback from customers without heavy development investment:

  1. Fake Door Testing: Add a non-functional button or link in your product to gauge user interest in a feature. This technique lets you validate interest before investing resources in development.

  2. Wizard of Oz: Simulate functionality by handling tasks manually behind the scenes. For example, Easy Taxi’s early days involved founders manually coordinating rides from form entries rather than building an app, allowing them to test demand quickly.

  3. Google Slides and Google Forms: Create simple presentations or forms to explain and test new product concepts. For example, we used Google Slides at Gympass to pitch the concept of Gympass Wellness to app partners, and Google Forms to gauge user interest, saving time and resources.

  4. Low-Code Tools: Platforms like ConvertFlow, Bubble, and AppSheet enable you to create simple apps, workflows, and landing pages without extensive engineering. These tools allow you to experiment with new ideas and customer flows in a short time frame.

  5. Levity: This no-code AI tool lets you upload data and generate insights without deep technical knowledge, making it easy to test data-driven hypotheses quickly.

These tools allow you to validate product ideas efficiently, delivering valuable feedback without needing full-scale development.

Case Study: Gympass Wellness – A Fast, Discovery-Driven Product Test

At Gympass, we wanted to explore the idea of offering a marketplace for wellness apps, which we called Gympass Wellness. We needed to validate two critical assumptions before developing this product:

  1. Supply Side: Would app providers be interested in joining a marketplace with a pay-per-use economic model?
  2. Demand Side: Would users be willing to pay a premium subscription for access to these apps?

Testing the Supply Side

Instead of developing a product, we created a simple Google Slides presentation to pitch Gympass Wellness to potential partners. We outlined the opportunity, technical model, and economic model. By presenting our concept directly, we quickly engaged eight wellness apps, of which six expressed interest, and four agreed to participate.

Testing the Demand Side

To validate customer interest, we emailed Gympass users from five companies in Brazil and five in the U.S., offering a subscription to access wellness apps. We directed them to a landing page that explained the service and collected credit card information to simulate a real purchase.

This lightweight approach allowed us to validate demand without building a full product. Within a month, we gathered enough feedback to determine whether to proceed with the initiative.

Conclusion

When product teams encounter resistance to discovery, reframing the approach and using rapid testing techniques can bridge the gap. By minimizing time spent in traditional discovery and focusing on quick validation, you can keep business stakeholders engaged and confident in the process.

Discovery doesn’t have to be a lengthy phase; it can be an ongoing, iterative part of product delivery. This approach not only aligns with agile principles but also ensures that we’re continuously learning from customers while delivering meaningful results.