For those of you who have seen City Slickers, I’m sure you’ll recall this memorable exchange between the Billy Crystal character (Mitch) and the Jack Palance character (Curly):
Curly: You know what the secret of life is?
Mitch: No, what?
Curly: This.
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don't mean shit.
Mitch: That's great, but what's the one thing?
Curly: That's what you've got to figure out.
Product managers would do well to apply Curly’s advice to their own jobs.
Before anything and everything, PM’s need a deep robust, understanding of the core value proposition. What is the “one thing” that’s really driving customers to adopt your product? OK, it may be more than just one thing, but it’s definitely not 20 or even 10. With any successful product, there are a core set of features which are unique to the product and which address a key pain point that customers have. This alignment drives the sale and a repeatable go-to-market model.
At NetScaler, we had a data sheet full of features, like most companies. These features were valuable and important to a number of customers, but there were a few key features that really drove the purchase decision.
By deeply understanding and constantly testing your core value proposition, a number of things become possible:
- Real marketing. How do you market a data sheet full of features? It’s not possible as the essence of marketing is about a simple, easy-to-understand message that resonates.
- Enlightened product roadmap trade-offs. One thing that’s certain is that you can’t do everything. By definition, product strategy implies scarcity of resources. Development focused on maintaining and extending the core value proposition should be prioritized above all else.
- Crisper competitive analysis. Threats come from all over – from existing competitors to new competitors from new product categories. Clarity around what’s really important will help to fine tune your competitive focus and to identify the real threats to your business.
For any small company with a v1 product, getting to the heart of your core value proposition won’t happen overnight. Customers buy a product for all sorts of reasons –you got there first, they don’t know about the alternatives, your sales people are better looking, etc. That’s all good stuff and you take a sale anyway you can get it.
But what I’m talking about here is the strategic, not the tactical. Tactical advantages are fleeting and opportunity-specific. You need to get to the meat. Keep asking questions, analyzing, and testing hypotheses. Patterns will start to emerge and you’ll find your “one thing.”
-Raj
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