After a SpaceX rocket blew up, Elon Musk said, ”Given the options, I prefer to learn from success.” Space is hard. SaaS products are less hard. So, how do we innovate and learn from success? Do proactive derisking.  

1. Anticipate and force-rank risks

Think through SVPG’s four buckets of risk: value risk, usability risk, feasibility risk, and business viability risk. 

In evaluating value risk, it’s crucial to understand what buyers want too. In evaluating business viability risk, invest time in evaluating strategic risks, operational risks, and tactical risks. To uncover detailed risks across these buckets, do premortems.

Here’s my template for premortems. 

Then, force-rank these risks based on how badly they can impact the timely success of the product initiative. 

2. Address the highest risk first and fast

Consider advice from Astro Teller, Google X’s CEO, to tackle the monkey first if you want to have a monkey recite poems while on a pedestal. If you build the pedestal first, you have wasted time, effort, and money. So derisk the highest risk first-—and if you can’t, then kill the initiative—before tackling the lower risks. 

To derisk the highest risk fast, consider : 

1. Research to understand state-of-the-art human knowledge, and then reasoning from first principles. This can be like a literature review, interviews of experts, or Googling. 
2. Natural experiments, instead of randomized controlled experiments, for example by thoughtful analysis of available data. Work on natural experiments won the 2021 Nobel Prize in economic sciences.
3. Smart experiments, including proof-of-concepts (POC), that are small, cheap, fast, and instructive. 

PS: Check out more articles on building products. I write to pay it forward and to clarify my thinking.