What is the right way to go through the discovery phase before launching software?

We are launching a startup, and before development they advised us not to jump straight into the code, but to go through the so-called software product discovery phase. Who is in the know - how does it happen and what is usually included there? Is it realistic to save time and money at this stage?

When you start preparing a project for development, you can't really go anywhere without the software product discovery phase - here's a detailed description: https://pharosproduction.com/software-product-discovery-phase This phase helps you put everything together - from goals to requirements and risks, so that you don't have to redo everything from scratch. In essence, it's like a rough draft, without which it's hard to get off to a good start.