MBA1081 Why You Need Product Documentation

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A lot of people skip this step when creating a business and creating new products or offerings and it's a big mistake. I used to skip this step. Thankfully I do not do this anymore and it's really helped us produce better products and services. Now I know you're thinking, ugh, this is going to be boring and tedious and time consuming. No, it doesn't have to be. You're going to invest some time, but not too much. And product documentation doesn't have to be too long. In fact, if it's concise, you'll use it as a reference more often. Product documentation is not the tutorials or the manual for the product and it's the documentation that you're going to use to build the product to build the offering. Whether it's a course, a software, a physical product, or even a service you're going to be offering. It's a detailed plan so you know if you're on track and you're fulfilling the goal of the product, every successful product you ever bought has gone through this procedure. This is best practices and you need to start doing it if you're not already. So in today's lesson, I'll explain exactly what product documentation is, what it looks like, why it's so important, and how to Start building documentation for yourself, step by step. What are the parts that you're going to include in your document? I'm also going to reference some examples of our own documentation for our software company, Webinar Ninja, and show you how it has helped us build better features, better options and a better product overall. Lots to cover. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So why is product documentation so important? Well, it's basically the blueprint to what you're going to be offering your customers. And the reason why you have blueprints is so that when you're working on it, you have a reference to get you back on track. As entrepreneurs, we are filled with ideas and sometimes our ideas will derail us. We don't want to do that, want to stay focused. Remember, we want to get this thing out there so we can start offering solutions to our customers. In addition, by having a blueprint, by having documentation, no matter how many people are working on the business, working on this product, they, they know what the goal is, they know what they're trying to actually achieve, they know what the outcome should be. This is so much more powerful than just running some sort of meeting and telling people what you think and then, hey, you just remember what I said forever, right? No, the documentation is like the rule book. It's like, hey, this is what we're trying to achieve. Everybody stay on the same, you know, page. Figuratively and practically. This cuts out the need for too many meetings. I'll give you a perfect example. At Webinar Ninja, our webinar software company, we're rolling out a whole new feature on customizing your registration and thank you pages, new templates and a new way to customize and create your own templates and save them. As it's so exciting, we can't wait to release it. But in that process of developing it, there's a lot of people working on it. So we have developers, we have designers, we have front end developers, backend developers, all that kind of stuff, right? But it starts with documentation. We had to write a document explaining exactly what this feature is going to do, how users are going to use it, what it looks like, how are they going to save, how are they going to change things, upload images, all that kind of stuff, right? And that documentation is just written in paragraphs, in sections. So then when that documentation is written, that can just get handed over to the designer, Our designer arena takes a look at the documentation, reads it through so she understands exactly what she's designing in terms of the user experience, the ui. So she doesn't leave out any features, she doesn't leave out any contingencies because she's following a guide, it's written in black and white. And then when she hands over designs to the front end developer and the back end developer, those people are following the document as well. So they understand how she came to these designs and what these designs are supposed to do when you actually put them into the real world and into action. So you get the point. The document is like the manual to creating the product. Now, I'm going to tell you, creating this documentation may take some time, but it's time well spent. I always say you're either going to pay now or you're going to pay later. And paying now is going to be better value. You're going to spend a bit of time writing documentation. Depending on the size of the product or the service or the scope, it could take anywhere between a couple days to a couple of weeks to write proper documentation. If this is the first version of your product, it shouldn't take too long because again, minimal viable product. But after you write this documentation, it becomes the saving grace. It helps everybody in the process, including you, the leader of the company. Less questions are asked, less time is spent trying to revise and improve things because there is no lack of communication, there is just a guide to follow. So what do you include in this documentation? How do you write one? Well, it's pretty simple. I like to just start documentation with the name of the document and the project we're working on, whether it's your product, your actual service or a feature within your product. So in my example with Webinar Ninja, it's a Webinar Ninja new registration and thank you page process. And we put a date on it so we know exactly when this documentation was written. And then we have a date under that that says revised. When's the last time it's been revised or updated? Next we have a paragraph, four or five sentences, that's called intro and goal. This is just an introduction to what this thing is, what we're building and what's the goal? What's the purpose of this? What are we trying to achieve? What are we trying to give our customers? What are we trying to solve? This should be super clear and should be right at the top of the page so everybody understands. Why are we building this thing? This should be front of mind. The next is the title. Who is it for? Now, you can't just answer this with like users, right? No, but what kind of users? What kind of customers? People that want to personalize a registration page or have a personal brand. That is for our example with webinar Ninja. For you, it could be if you're creating a new type of clothing or a new T shirt for people that love new trends. The people that love Star wars. If you have a Star. Star wars themed T shirt. Right. And the answer to this question can be more than one type of person. The next title is why build it? Why are you building this thing? There might be some other solutions out there. How is yours going to be different or better? If there's no solutions out there, how are you going to be able to convince others that this is the solution for them? This is actually going to solve the problem. Because if you're the first person attempting to solve it, they may not be convinced you can solve it because they haven't seen it done yet. And scratching your own itch can be an answer. I have this problem. I want to solve it for myself. The next title is what is it? You gotta be able to define with some quick bullet points. What is this thing you're building? Clearly you gotta be able to describe it very easily and concisely so you'll be able to then tell your customers what it is when you market it. What is this thing? Then you want to highlight the criteria, what you need to actually get done in this product. What's the functionality? What's the usability, the reliability, the performance? And. And how will it be supported? Do you have a support plan? Do you have a support team to help your customers out as they're trying this product? And that's basically it. That's a general understanding. Of course you can add more detail, but you can keep your documentation pretty tight with those titles, with those areas, those actual sections.

Okay. Does this happen to anybody else? You sit down with a juicy QPC, some McNuggets and those golden fries from McDonald's. Then you take a long sip of your Sprite because you can still hear your mama saying, don't fill up on that drink before you eat your food. But you're grown now, so you do what you want.

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Could this vintage store be any cuter?

Right?

And the best part, the. Except discover. Except discover. In a little place like this. I don't think so.

Jennifer.

Oh yeah.

Huh.

Discover is accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby, get with the times.

Right?

So we shouldn't get the parachute pants. These are making a comeback, I think.

Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide, based on the February 2025 Nielsen report. So once your product or service is created, you don't just forget about the documentation. You pull it back up. And when you test your product, when you're actually seeing if the product is working properly, before you release it to customers, you got a reference and look back at the documentation. Have you met the goal that's at the top of the actual documentation? Have you actually accomplished what you set out to do? Or did you get derailed? Do you need to adjust and course correct? Another huge use for documentation is when you start marketing your product. Your documentation is going to be using plain language language that you can use to sell your product when you release it. Remember when you were explaining with bullet points what this thing does and why you need it and who's it for? All that great stuff, all that great language can be used in your sales pages, in your advertising, in your Facebook ads, in your webinars and all that kind of stuff. It's gold. And you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You already wrote it in documentation. Let me give you one last tip after you do this once. Once you start writing one document for your first product or first feature or first project, you're going to fall in love with it. You're going to love this process and you're going to do it for every single thing you build. It's just getting over that hump and trying it once because when you never do something, you just feel like it's just kind of unnecessary or maybe I don't need to do that or it's a waste of time. No, no, no. Trust me, it's going to save you so much time. It's going to build better products for you and hey, it's what the pros do. So you gotta go pro. All right. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. You don't have to be an epic writer, you don't have to be a best selling author to write documentation. In fact, the plainer the language, the better. Write documentation just like you would speak. In fact, I often dictate my documentation. I just use the dictation feature on my phone and just talk out things and then I can edit later or I just talk it out, and then I hand it over to a project manager in my team where they have all my ideas down and they clean it up and they add their own ideas. Doesn't have to be fancy and it doesn't have to be, you know, a Pulitzer Prize winning piece. Keep it simple. Keep it straightforward. Thank you so much for listening. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then.

Take care, Sam.