Step 1: Research and ideate

The first stage of any product is communication. Initiate discussions with your clients to ideate — to stimulate the brain thinking and define what product you're going to implement. Take all information provided by stakeholders, including marketing research and their business goals. If it's not enough or you have time and resources, conduct your own user research. Data collected during user interviews, surveys, competitive overview, etc., will help you gain insights and organize the information into a diagram or map of a solution.