How I approached building a 0-1 product.

What would you do if your entire product market vanished overnight?

This article presents a real-world example of navigating uncertainty, validating ideas, and finding traction in unexpected places when our market shifted unexpectedly.  

This experience shaped my mindset in developing software solutions from scratch.

If you work in product, tech, or delivery, you may relate.

THE CROSSROADS: WHEN THE MARKET SHIFTS

Problem Statement: The market for our current product has been shrinking. What should we do?

At Radman ITD, we created our main products based on the needs of the public sector and government departments. This drove high demand for our products, which helped us grow from a few people in a rental room to a full team with structure and our own office with a view.

Then, unexpectedly, a new government administration took over, and everything changed. Our team no longer felt motivated to continue working with the new administration. 

For a young company, this was a serious threat.

We had several options:

• Adapt and work with the new administration,
• Reposition and find a new market for our current products,
• Build a new solution for a different problem and in a new market, or
• Exit entirely and shut the company down.

We chose the bold path: Build a new product from scratch.

Constraints were simple: We were good at software development, and we didn’t want to work for the public sector anymore!

 
TESTING THE WATERS: START WITH DIVERGE

Pivoting was not easy. We had clients and overheads to manage. After restructuring to cut costs, we adopted a “diverge, then converge” strategy.

Over the next few months, we

• Explored every opportunity that came our way and said yes to every idea.
• Interviewed many users across different markets and observed them in action to spot problems, especially those unable or unwilling to articulate their needs.
• Conducted market research to the best of our ability to evaluate each opportunity.

This human-led process was messy but rewarding. We mapped out problems, evaluated existing solutions, and pinpointed opportunities worth pursuing.

It wasn’t flashy or digital - think whiteboards, endless notes, and countless caffeine-fuelled debates! But it set the foundation for what came next.

While working on discovery, we also developed some small client-funded projects to keep the lights on and worked on other MVPs, hoping they might evolve into sustainable, scalable products.

Some failed fast (e.g., games hit market limits), others, like the Learning Management Solution (LMS), while initially successful, faced pricing challenges. And for some, we set them aside for later.

After a few months of rapid experimentation combined with what we learned from these projects and from our previous products, we discovered our sweet spot: a solution tailored for small to medium-sized enterprises to improve their customer engagement, or Aha moment!
 

CLOSING THE GAP: TIME TO CONVERGE

We synthesised scattered requirements that we gathered during discovery and research. This was informed by personal experience observing how businesses neglected their returning customers and failed to maintain personalised and continuous communication. 

Many were losing customers without understanding why. They had invested heavily in marketing but failed to follow up on leads or re-engage customers effectively.

These findings helped us define the problem statement clearly. We then crafted a product scope and vision, one we later realised had a name: Customer Relationship Management or CRM.

At that time, CRM solutions weren’t that new, and while a few competitors had just started in this sector, they only catered to big clients. They were also relying on foreign-built solutions that weren’t tailored to our market’s needs and SMEs’ real challenges.

We decided to focus on building a new product tailored for our market’s real needs with a clear ambition to take it from concept to launch, and eventually, to scale (0->1->N)!
 

THINK BIG, ACT SMALL, SCALE UP FAST AND SMART!

Focusing on this problem statement, we started by compiling a feature list using inputs from market research, gap analysis and ideas we believed would excite users.

However, we were unable to build everything. The list was long, and our budget and resources were limited. We had to prioritise!

We started with our biggest potential client, our earliest adopter, and asked a simple question:

“If we built this feature, would you pay for it today?”

If the answer was yes, we prioritised it in the backlog. We repeated this with more clients until we reached a break-even point, when we no longer needed to promise new features just to close the deals. Every installation and sale, even the small ones, gave us the validation we needed. We knew we were on the right track. 

From there, we began building the features we had wanted to include from the beginning, including innovations and exciting enhancements.

The final product, refined through continuous improvement and versioning, delivered a modern, user-friendly interface that addressed all initial requirements and more.

That innovative, localised, and fit-for-purpose CRM solution allowed us to successfully pivot, enter a new market with confidence, and lead the way for years to come until it was time for the next challenge.
 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Here are the takeaways that continue to shape how I approach 0-1 product development:

1. Start with clarity. Avoid jumping straight into development. Allocate time to understand the problem, choose the right tools, and align your vision with your team and early clients.
2. Always ask “why”; once that’s clear, the “what” and “how” will follow. If you know why your customer needs the product, you will make smarter choices on what and how to build.
3. Talk to users early. Avoid assuming you know what’s needed. Talk to real users and observe how they work, especially those who recognise there’s a better way and are ready to invest in change.
4. Build just enough, launch a strong MVP. Add value incrementally through iteration, not by loading features all at once. It is impossible to build a perfect product in one go. 
5. Celebrate small wins. Every sale, pilot, or positive outcome is a validation for you and the team, not just financial, but strategic and motivational. Don’t be afraid to go to market even if pricing isn’t perfect yet.

 
HOW THINGS HAVE EVOLVED

These days, rich and well-structured product discovery models, frameworks such as Continuous Discovery, and AI-enabled tools built for product research, surveys, behavioural tracking, and such can speed up this process. But no tool can replace the value of direct observation or authentic human conversations.

Building a product from scratch is never easy, but it’s incredibly rewarding. Our pivot to the new market by building Radman CRM taught me the value of resilience, user-centricity, and strategic iteration. 

Whether you’re navigating a market shift or chasing a bold new idea, these principles can guide you from 0 to 1.

What’s your experience building something from scratch? I’d love to hear your stories and lessons in the comments!

 P.S.

• While I have more recent examples of building new products, I chose this experience because I can share it openly without risking any confidentiality.
• This experience took place before we formally adopted Agile methodologies in our team. At the time, we were following a basic Rational Unified Process (RUP) and an incremental approach, without utilising any specific process or tool in product discovery. 
• Modern CRM solutions have come a long way since then. That’s how software naturally evolves.