One thing that I believe that startups can do pre-launch to market themselves is to start talking about the problem (in a broad sense) that they intend to solve and their “point of view” about a market. Being able to articulate a point of view about a market is a good starting point for building your messaging so I thought it would be work diving into this more in a post.
What is a Market Point of View?
A market point of view is essentially your philosophy on how a market should best be served. It’s the big picture idea that underlies why your product is different (and better) from what is out in the market today. Prospects that share your point of view about how a market’s challenges are best solved will clearly understand the value that you deliver with your product.
Here are some examples of differing points of view about a market:
Best of breed vs. integrated one size fits all – At several of the companies I’ve worked at this was our main difference in philosophy about the market. We were up against large competitors that offered tightly integrated solutions with functionality that spanned several markets. There were obvious benefits for customers that wanted all of the pieces and preferred dealing with a single vendor for the whole solution stack. Our point of view however, was that some customers would be better served by a more narrow offering that did only one thing but did it very well. We noticed that some customers didn’t need the breadth of functionality our competitors offered and were wary of having so much of their infrastructure locked in with one vendor. While our competitors were going broader and broader with their feature set across markets, we were going deeper and deeper with products that served individual markets in the best way possible. It was exactly this point of view that clearly differentiated us from our competitors and made us successful.
More is more vs. radical simplicity – You see these two philosophies play out in mature markets often. More mature products will add more and more features to offer prospects the most feature-complete solution possible. Of course this richness generally comes with a price in terms of added complexity. It’s at this point in a market where you will start to see competitors popping up that have a point of view that simplicity trumps bells and whistles.
High volume/low price vs. amazing customer service – Most online retail businesses have traditionally been about selling as much as possible for as little as possible. Zappos has proven that an online retail business that focuses primarily on customer service can also be wildly successful. When they first began talking about this point of view, it wasn’t obvious that customers would potentially pay more for customer service. Sure their competitors were serving their customers but it wasn’t a core part of how they defined their business. After Zappos proved that a business could be successful with this philosophy, other businesses in other markets began to follow their model.
Startups get to Start with a Clean Slate
This is, interestingly, the stuff that mission statements should be made of. Unfortunately most mission statements are nothing more than meaningless, generic fluff about something the company wishes they were rather than an articulation of an underlying corporate philosophy that guides how they approach their market today. It’s one thing to adopt a tagline that says you are customer-oriented, but quite another to build, grow and manage your business that way.
In this respect, startups have a massive advantage over larger companies. Established companies have philosophies are set in stone over years of operations. Many have had their point of view watered down or twisted by rotating sets of senior management to the point where often they don’t really have one or have so many different ones, it doesn’t matter. Changing what a company stands for in any real way is a massive undertaking and in my opinion, almost impossible.
Startups on the other hand have the benefit of learning from everyone that has come before them and starting with a clean slate. Who are we? Why should we exist? What type of customers would we like to serve? Every possible option is available. The answers to these questions can be developed and tested long before you have a company or a product to launch. Is there another, fundamentally different way to solve a particular problem in your market? What types of customers would want a product that does that? How valuable would that be to prospects? How might it be feasible to create a product and/or a company that way? The best way to test your point of view is to let it lose on the market and see how the market reacts.
Interesting post. I’m thinking about examples like Apple and their focus on design as a key differentiator – they have never lost sight of that and you can see how that would effect a lot of their decisions. I think the hard part about having a vision like that is to stick with it and not compromise on it or try to change it. You could see how doing that would destroy exactly the thing that makes you special.
Thanks Jacob,
That’s exactly the idea and why it’s hard. I think all companies start out with something like a market point of view whether they articulate it or not. If they aren’t conscious of it, it’s pretty easy to lose it.
April
@aprildunford Interesting way for talking abt what you are b4 you can say what you do Market Point of View for Startups http://t.co/13hMMnO
Market Point of View: Do You Have One? http://bit.ly/h0A1Y6 // RT @aprildunford
I like this idea. How do I handle it if I start talking about my point of view on a market and then it changes? Do I need to worry about that?
Hi,
Thanks for the comment. I think people worry a lot about talking about things related to their startup before everything is completely baked for exactly that reason – what if it all changes? The funny thing is that even though I have seen more pivots in startups lately than I even have, I generally don’t see the startups do such a radical pivot that they leave the market space they originally intended to target. That’s because mos of the learning you are doing in the early stages is in that market. If you learned that that market is in no way viable, you are probably looking at doing a complete restart of your business at that point, in which case, everything goes back to square 1, including your point of view.
Hope that helps.
April
Blog post Do you Need a Market Point of View? http://bit.ly/h0A1Y6 #prodmgmt #startup #marketing
Market Point of View: Do You Have One? http://ff.im/-zn9SD
Hi April,
Valuable advice, no doubt!
Question: I love the idea but would like to know your thoughts on making the market perspective actionable. Yes, I think I already have a market perspective for my startup, but how do I best *use* that market perspective? Maybe a follow up post on how to leverage one’s market perspective for optimal benefit, ideally with concrete examples where companies have done so?
Thanks in advance.
-Mike
Hi Mike,
By definition it’s a high-level philosophy or vision so how you translate that into actions depends on what the vision is all about. Buy usually it’s so fundamental it drives everything.
For example I worked at a company where we had a point of view that databases didn’t need to be one size fits all. In fact, we noticed that those types of databases were lousy at workloads that involved crunching a huge amount of data to fine one particular bit. Our database by definition was different – it was purpose built for a specific kind of workload. In our messaging were were very specific about that and we created a large amount of content that backed up our claim that a one-size fits all database was not the best way to tackle some specific problems. We went so far as to partner with other database vendors that could delivered databases that were good for other types of workloads, but not the one we were good at. Our target prospects were only companies that generated large amounts of data (usually machine-generated) and needed to do specific queries against that. Our sales pitch, demo, etc. were all oriented around this basic point of view. So essentially that point of view informed almost everything we did.
Does that make sense?
April
We’re doing this now but the division has already launched (before I got there). We’re telling people they shouldn’t have a ‘cloud strategy’, instead they should discover what cloudy bit makes the most sense for them and do that. It’s a great way to start a conversation because it’s also a differentiator. Analysts and press will want to know more. Prospects will also want to know more if what you are talking about is different enough or disruptive or against the flow of common thought or best practices.
I think that’s a good example!
April
Does your Startup have a "Market Point of View?" Post by @AprilDunford (If not, why not?) http://t.co/48HqZls
RT @aprildunford: Market Point of View: Do You Have One? http://bit.ly/h0A1Y6 another way to differentiate early.
RT @aprildunford: Market Point of View: Do You Have One? http://bit.ly/h0A1Y6
RT @aprildunford: Blog post Do you Need a Market Point of View? http://bit.ly/h0A1Y6 #prodmgmt #startup #marketing
"Market Point of View: Do You Have One?" http://revw.us/i3OvRZ
RT @aprildunford: Market Point of View: Do You Have One? http://bit.ly/h0A1Y6
Market Point of View: Do You Have One? http://revw.us/eeosNR
Market Point of View: Do You Have One? http://bit.ly/fcZDvG
why start-ups have a massive advantage RT @aprildunford: Market Point of View: Do You Have One? http://bit.ly/h0A1Y6
Thank you…RT @aprildunford: Market Point of View: Do You Have One? http://bit.ly/h0A1Y6
Market Point of View for Startups | Rocket Watcher: Product Marketing for Startups http://t.co/Kjnd3K8x