Through this project of creating a pitch deck to propose a new product for an existing company, I gained both valuable insights in the product development process as well as collaborating within a team. First, while my team and I were originally unfamiliar with the real estate market, I really enjoyed the initial brainstorming activity we did in section where we individually thought of as many ideas as we could and then narrowed them down together. Through this process, I was pleasantly surprised by all the various ideas we came up with for a new product for our company and learned the value of the specific brainstorming method.
Furthermore, I learned many different steps in refining the product, such as conducting user interviews, analyzing the market potential, and narrowing down our solution based on user-fit and feasibility. I was introduced to many new steps in the product development process on the execution side such as go-to-market strategy, financial projections, and implementation timeline. This allowed me to further step into the role of a product manager and understand the importance of matching feasibility with our ideas. Moreover, it was very helpful to receive feedback from our mentor because he provided an outside perspective. Because we had been working closely with this problem for several weeks, many things made sense to our team while we weren’t effectively communicating it through our presentation. Therefore, his feedback led to many changes in the way we presented our product, leading to more overall clarity
Finally, I thoroughly enjoyed working with my team and hearing different perspectives on how we should approach the problem. It was very valuable talking through different ideas and opinions on the content of our presentation. Additionally, I learned the importance of having concrete deliverables for meetings. Initially, our team meetings were unproductive because we did not have an objective on what we wanted to accomplish. However, once we recognized this pattern and started creating deliverables for the end of each meeting, our teamwork became much more productive and effective.
