Product discovery combines observation, research, prototyping, implementation, and user feedback to reduce uncertainty before large investment. It asks who has the problem, how they solve it now, which constraints matter, and whether a proposed improvement changes behavior or outcomes.
Discovery can happen during building as well as before it. Recreating a familiar workflow may expose friction that was invisible in abstract brainstorming, but the resulting idea still needs contact with users and market evidence.
ELI5
Product discovery is the work of finding a problem that people genuinely care about and learning what kind of solution would help. It replaces a confident guess with evidence gathered from real situations.
For example, while rebuilding a document editor, a developer may notice that sharing feedback takes too many steps. Talking to teams and testing a simpler approach can show whether that frustration is widespread enough to support a product.
