Multiply Your Potential: Build Products with Purpose

In what may have been a blink of an eye, 2021 is almost complete. With Q4 upon us and the pressure running high, many of us are functioning at full speed ahead until the ball drops. The old "go with the flow" and "what will be will be" model may do for you, but for me, I'm tearing down walls and preparing for a remodel.

The way I see it, Q4 is opportunity to start 2022 fresh with a new foundation. In other words, I'm taking the time today to reconstruct my strategies to reach ultra-stretchy goals. With my sales teams buzzing and on track in the current quarter, I'm setting my product marketing vision to the beyond. To catapult the needle far into the future.

Forward and up. 

Though some learnings we bring on ourselves, others are delightfully scheduled for us.

Today, our team at InMarket welcomed Harvard professor, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, to teach us about driving competitive advantage through willingness-to-pay. Willingness-to-pay is the comfortable zone in which someone would spend money on a product or service.

Whereas willingness-to-sell is the lowest compensation an organization would accept for a product or service. Willingness-to-pay or sell may fluctuate over time, but it's incredibly important for businesses to consider: Will anyone even buy this product? What value will this new feature bring to the customer? Will they pay more for this update?

“Whenever you think about a product, any change of that product, unless it drives willingness-to-pay, it’s not worth doing it.” - Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Harvard Professor

Thinking about my personal strategic goals and the goal of my teams, Felix's words struck me with reflection. I recalled a time with a previous company, where I was approached by an engineer with a new app. He shared he had created an app based on a request from ten years prior. (For those of you that do not know, 10 real-world years are equivalent to 1 million tech years.) The engineer had spent 4 months building the app, in a silo, and now at the app's completion, wanted to find a customer for it.

When that app didn't take off, the engineer couldn't understand why.

Didn't anyone see value in it? Wasn't anyone going to invest in this? By working together, developing a business use case, vetting the project early on, and looking at willingness-to-pay, we would have quickly unearthed that their wasn't a need for the app. Not only was there a lack of willingness-to-pay... there wasn't even a willingness to download the app for free. With perceived value low, the app went back to the shelf, with other poorly vetted ideas of tech past.

This is why we learn as we go. We can always do better.

Another key takeaway from this session was the idea of adoption and exclusivity. When interest arises around a product and it includes an engaged community, product adoption may see rapid engagement. Willingness-to-pay will rise. Especially when there is FOMO (fear of missing out.) The product or service can be made premium and everyone can join the "club" as long as they are open to spending money to play.

The challenge we see in new tech is the speed of adoption vs. the speed of innovation. For example, your teams may be able to produce a technology that will service the need of an industry, but unless the industry recognizes the need within itself, you will not be able to force adoption. Without adoption, willingness-to-pay will be low, as is value perception. The cost of product may remain high - to cover the cost of innovation. The misbalance of low willingness-to-pay and high innovation costs, AKA willingness-to-sell, may prevent the product from truly ever taking off.

In reflection, we must build products to meet the needs of our customers, at the right time, in the right place (and at the will of their wallets.) When we ignore our customers needs, market readiness, willingness-to-buy, and willingness-to-adopt, we fall short of our greatest potential. We can build, build, build - but if no one will buy - we churn, churn, churn, until (hopefully) we get it right.

This Q4:

Roll up your sleeves. Focus your scope. Change the game. 

Multiple your potential. Build products with purpose.