Revenue generating Products are definitive
Avoid being "everything for everyone" to build a Product
Providing an "everything for everyone" solution is actually possible when you have an amazing dev team but then you're in the services business. You don’t have a Product or Product market fit if everyone uses you differently or are each seeking bespoke solutions. You're seeing a lot of "services-led" convos taking place, which I'm supportive of, but when you're selling a Product, you need to start building guardrails as you gather technical requirements.
The conventional approach is to answer the "what is your ICP" question but that frankly limits what many companies need to solve at the early stages in this new wave of models and AI-first companies. People genuinely don't understand how amazing and how easy it is to build certain features now. As exciting as that sounds, it can also make your life a lot harder.
Maybe you've started to do services-esque-work on a specific set of product requirements but your customers’ asks for product requirements continue to stretch your team too thin on an already compounding backlog...
This is where you need to start defining what your product does based on what you’ve built for the initial cohort of companies using your Product. You must define what is table stakes, what is uniquely differentiated, and what is the specific workflow that will allow your Product to get Technical Wins. If you can't, keep digging and here’s an example below.
Here’s what your v1 should start to look like to teach people how to evaluate and how to translate this to value of your “Product”
Start with a general overview for someone to ground themselves on what your product is supposed to do so they can better understand how to evaluate your solution and eventually (key word eventually) articulate the value of what your offering and how it’s better than their current approach today:
Define 2-3 primary things your Product does today that get people to experience the value (even if they don’t know it yet)
AI-generated suggestions on your code
AI-generated code reviews on code selections or your entire codebase
What you will evaluate when using our Product for [X days]
Accuracy of suggestions and the quality of what you ship. (Bonus points if its faster)
Accuracy of recommendations and the output of the quality of what you ship. (Bonus points if its faster)
How using {{Product}} compares to your previous workflow
(Simplified example – should be more specific and granular based on your solution)
If you’ve already mastered the above, now is the time to start building guardrails on feature requests. As a repeat set of problems to solve emerge from quality customers, now you’ve started to find fit. Repeatability isn’t just about consistently bringing in revenue, it’s solving a repeatable problem that brings in revenue and helps you get to your first $10M+.
You may know how to drive an evaluation and people are open to purchasing your product, but the repeat challenge is prospects need that other feature you don’t quite have yet. This will be an ongoing challenge regardless of how successful you become, but it’s important to start being more definitive on what you can offer vs. constantly being an “everything for everyone” solution.
What {{Product}} will help {{Prospect}} achieve
AI-generated suggestions on your code
AI-generated code reviews on code selections or your entire codebase
Future: Roadmap item being released next month. We’ll signal this is being built, but you’ll make the purchase on the above. We commit to this. Note: this should be something you were already planning to build, but were hoping for a customer like this to make the ask to pull it forward.
You also don’t need to commit to #3 until you have alignment from someone who would sign off on the purchase. More on this here, and we’re always happy to share some tactics on softer approaches that are not “give me your boss or we’re parting ways.”
What you will evaluate when using our Product for [X days]
Accuracy of suggestions and the quality of what you ship. (Bonus points if its faster)
Accuracy of recommendations and the output of the quality of what you ship. (Bonus points if its faster)
Future: Should have a material positive impact on the customer and why they’re asking for it. You want it to be the functionality that makes the Product experience better for other future customers.
Where {{Product}} stands out in comparison to your previous workflow
(See above for reference)
Best Products will allow you to make the best repeatable revenue business out there.