Building 0->1 Products
A small playbook for innovating with brand-new products.
Introduction
Building innovative products sounds simple enough, right? Just look at companies like Figma, Nexthink, or Atlassian. They run hackathons and innovathons to channel ideas, prototype, and figure out if something new is worth adding to their main products.
But here’s the thing: tying innovation to a specific time of the year isn’t ideal. Ideas are unpredictable—they pop up when you least expect them. Something that feels groundbreaking today might be irrelevant in three months. Waiting for an annual hackathon to act on an idea could mean you’re already too late.
That said, I do find these events super useful for testing technical feasibility or digging into problems we know need fixing. However, innovation doesn’t have to wait for a scheduled event. You can jump in anytime if you follow a simple playbook. At Nexthink, we used this approach (through Amplify) to create zero-to-one products.
Disclaimer: This post is heavily influenced by Bob Moesta’s book Learning to Build—a must-read, by the way.
Uncovering Demand
Flashback to 2022: my tech lead and I looked at each other and said, “Something’s off with our ServiceNow integration.” We’d been hearing stuff like:
Convinced there was an opportunity, we pitched the idea to our CPO. The response? Brutal, but fair:
“What you are showing me has no evidence. Why should we dedicate resources to this?”
Ouch. That stung. But if you read between the lines, what our CPO was really saying was: “Go do your homework and figure out if there’s something real here.”
So, we went back to the drawing board. Instead of rushing to build something, we zoomed out. My team and I used a technique called eigenquestions to make sure we were solving the right problem. Here’s one that stood out:
Do we want to be specialist or generalist?
This was a game-changing moment. After debating and aligning with our overall product strategy, we realized being a generalist—offering broader solutions—would give us a competitive edge. This sparked even more questions, like:
¿What are Level 1 Service Desks agents struggling with?
¿Can we tackle it generically?
¿Is it worth the effort?
The aha-moment
With those guiding questions in mind, I reminded the team of two principles I live by:
“Questions create spaces in the brain, for solutions to fall into” - Clay Christensen.
Always start by understanding the questions users are asking themselves. This creates the space for your product to become the answer.
Bitching ain’t switching - Bob Moesta.
Customers complain all the time, but complaints alone don’t mean they’re ready to switch. Your job is to unpack the real motivation behind their frustration.
Armed with these principles, we ran Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) interviews to dig deeper. Our goal? Understand why users and buyers were choosing—or abandoning—our product.
The main idea of these interviews was to understand the motivation for our target users and buyers of hiring certain products to handle their work. Some of them were using our solution, others had switched to others.
We discover the following jobs for each of them:
Here’s the funny thing: the jobs we uncovered in these interviews inspired the marketing video we now use to explain what our product does. That’s how spot-on those insights were.
Once we uncovered the demand, we took two key steps:
1. Market Sizing: We worked with our SalesOps team to estimate the number of potential customers who’d benefit from this solution:
2. Competitor Analysis: We analyzed whether we—or our competitors—were helping users make real progress with their jobs:
To our surprise neither us nor our competitors were addressing that demand properly.
The result? A huge gap. Neither we nor our competitors were addressing the demand properly. With this clarity, we crafted a business hypothesis:
• A clear struggling moment to solve.
• A desired business outcome.
• A high-level solution idea.
Empathetic Perspective
As product folks, it’s easy to get stuck in our own bubble. But reality check: if your company has reached PMF (Product-Market Fit), you’re operating in a larger ecosystem. You’ve got stakeholders to align with, strategies to navigate, and constraints to consider.
We built a stakeholder map to ensure we had everyone’s buy-in, from execs to frontline teams:
Then, we validated how this idea aligned with the company’s broader priorities. Did it fit with the strategy? Would it drive meaningful impact?:
The answer was a resounding yes. So, we presented our findings using the Product-Market-Channel Model Fit, which ties the product, audience, and go-to-market strategy into one cohesive framework:
Our CPO’s response after the presentation?
Great, you have 6 weeks to create a working prototype!!!
Challenge accepted.
Prototyping to Learn and Making Tradeoffs
Now, I’d love to dive into how we approached prototyping and made the tough trade-offs, but this article is already running long. I’ll save that for another piece.
Let me just say this: if you’ve done your homework—validated the demand, mapped out the opportunity, and aligned with stakeholders—you’re in the best position to build something meaningful. Prototyping isn’t just about building; it’s about learning fast and making smarter decisions.
Takeaways
Creating zero-to-one products isn’t something you can plan for. As Bob Moesta says, “The struggling moment is the seed of innovation.” The moment you spot one of these signs, dig deeper. Find out if there’s real demand and whether you’re the right team to address it.
Here’s a quick playbook to guide you:
1. Identify the struggling moment: What’s the real problem users are facing?
2. Prototype to learn: Test your ideas quickly and iterate.
3. Solve today’s challenges: Focus on problems that are relevant now but may grow bigger later.
4. Leverage company innovation spaces: Use hackathons or other initiatives to validate and present your ideas.
I didn’t know but Mihika Kapoor - Founder PM of Figma Slides, has a Maven course that focuses on Product Storytelling: Pitch & Build 0-1 Products at Your Company
Happy 2025 full of innovation.