How to win in crowded markets–using story-first product development
Olivine co-founder Raechel Lambert was a guest speaker at Wynter Games 11: Competing and winning (in saturated markets). Launching MVPs is dead. Enter the Minimum Marketable Product — laser-focused positioning and story-first product development.
Highlights
04:33 Why launching Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) are no longer effective
06:34 How Intercom beat Zendesk using story-first product development
16:07 Step-by-step process for product positioning in a crowded market
The entire Wynter Games 11 playlist on YouTube can be found here. Slides from all talks can be found here.
Preparing to launch a new product in a crowded market
Introducing a new product to an already established market is a challenging task. In order to gain traction in a crowded space, the very first thing you must accept is that most people absolutely hate change, although when a consumer does decide to make a change, it’s typically only to solve a problem their current solution isn’t fulfilling.
Next you must understand the four forces of switching. These four forces focus on the drivers behind why someone decides to make a change or stick with their current solution. This evaluation begins when a consumer is faced with a problem with their current solution and there’s attraction of a new product in the market that could potentially solve their problem. These two forces can positively influence a consumer to adopt a new solution. Now, where some consumers get stuck with their current product, is when existing habits and the anxieties that come with change overpower their need to solve their problem, leaving them to stick with what they have.
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According to the “9X Effect”, a product should be nine times (9X) better than the alternative to achieve mainstream adoption, which is why your product needs to be unique and provide enough perceived value to the consumer. This can be done…beginning with shifting your product development approach.
Why launching a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is problematic and what to launch instead
When preparing for the launch of a product, most product teams resort to their familiar plan of launching a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The problem with launching an MVP into an already competitive market is that it's introduced to test an idea the product team has, and ultimately results in your team launching an undifferentiated product with light features and casual positioning for the sake of testing. Remember, great marketing can’t rescue a bad product, but we have a solution for that. Introducing the better option: Minimum Marketable Product (MMP).
A MMP is a product development approach that focuses on launching the smallest possible feature set that clearly defines and solves a market-requested problem, creates the desired user experience and can be marketed and sold successfully.
By looking at these two approaches, it’s clear that MMPs are solution-focused, user-focused and better equipped for introduction to the market, whereas MVPs are more product-focused, which can land you in a feature-by-feature war with the competition and your only market differentiator being price. Not a good start.
Now that we’ve explained why you should launch a MMP, we’re going to teach you how to earn your place in the market with a strategic product launch approach.
How to set your product apart from the competition and win the market
Below, we’ll be guiding you through the requirements for crafting a compelling product story that is sure to earn a place in the market and ultimately influence a successful product launch.
The three main requirements to set your product apart from the competition are:
Define your Minimum Marketable Product (MMP) to begin crafting your product story
Collaborate with Design Partners to test your messaging, not just your product
Once you have your story, you can pre-sell the problem to drive demand before you launch
Define your Minimum Marketable Product (MMP) to begin crafting your product story
Before settling on what product you’ll be building, let’s start by investing time into these three foundational frameworks, including resources to help you define these:
Personas - Helps with positioning your product by solidifying who you’re selling to and what’s important to them, as well as demographics and pain points.
Jobs to be done - Helps you understand what motivates people to buy your product by defining the situation, motivation and expected outcomes.
Product Positioning - Helps tie all elements together to build a compelling story. By being aware of the market and identifying what makes you different from the competition using positioning, you’re able to begin building intentional differentiation into your product and messaging.
Collaborate with Design Partners to test your messaging, not just your product
Design partners (people who need/use the product and give honest feedback) are critical. They are your first testimonials after you launch your product. Though it’s not easy for these partnerships to occur, the time investment is worth it as not only will these Partners test your product and provide feedback, they’ll test your messaging as well, and as we all know, if the messaging isn’t right, the target market won’t even get to the product.
Once you have your story, you can pre-sell the problem to drive demand before you launch
When preparing to launch a new product, you need to warm up the market to your product before they’re aware of what’s to come. By this point you should have defined what makes you different within your product story and can start to drive more awareness with pre-launch announcements. We’re not talking about generic content, we’re talking about valuable, cohesive narratives that wake up the market with the solutions they didn’t know they needed.
As you define your MMP, these three overarching frameworks will help you ensure you only begin developing your product when the problem your product is solving is defined.
Case Study: How Intercom beat Zendesk using story-first product development
In this case study, Rae Lambert shares her application of the story-first product development approach to beat Zendesk at Help Center during her time at Intercom.
Intercom at the time
Intercom was a startup with a Help Center product competing for their market share against support leader, Zendesk, which was way ahead in their product features, utilization and brand.
The challenge
With the resources available, it wasn’t feasible for Intercom to compete with Zendesk’s Help Center product feature-by-feature, therefore the development teams and marketing teams needed to align on their next step.
The solution
By researching the competition, Intercom was able to define their new problem statement and identify the top challenges users faced using Zendesk’s product, to outline what Intercom needed to solve.
Once the problem statement was clearly identified, Intercom was able to begin curating the product story with the help of product marketing through the story-first product development approach.
Using the below “Product Story/Future press release” template, as championed by Amazon, and by taking the time to define the frameworks mentioned in this blog, Intercom’s teams were internally aligned and could create a product based on the product story to sway the market.
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The results
Though the feature set was light, the features developed were strictly aligned with the product story, which took in mind all the requirements we’ve been discussing (personas, product positioning, jobs-to-be-done, etc.). By prioritizing these elements throughout the product development process, Intercom was able to beat Zendesk at an industry-leading product and now six years later they’re able to compete feature-by-feature.
Ready to launch a differentiated product into the crowded market using the story-first product development approach?
In this blog post, we’ve shown you how to utilize the story-first product development approach for your next Minimum Marketable Product and set yourself up to win in a saturated market, likeIntercom did against Zendesk.
Winning in a crowded marketplace requires creativity and the ability to differentiate your product through your messaging. Paired with the above strategies influencing your product development process, you’re well on your way, too.
