

Build a product. Not Features. - whoisvince
http://vincentjordan.com/2011/06/build-a-product-not-features/

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ctdonath
This morning I was mulling over the notion "when the product is good enough,
specs don't matter; if specs matter, the product isn't good enough."

Consider Apple's "retina display": users don't care what the resolution is,
because it's beyond anything they can reasonably perceive. Ditto iOS device
memory size, processor speed, etc.: nobody (on the whole) cares, because it's
enough to do the job. While other tablets are touting their long list of specs
& compatibilities, the iPad triumphs because it "just works". Likewise most
audio products, good enough that few users notice. Likewise the reason DVDs
still dominate the HDTV media market: upsampled to a decent display, they look
fine. You get the idea, insert your analogy here.

This is relevant to the article insofar as a list of features amounts to a
list of backhanded excuses for why the user should buy this product after all:
it's not so good that it "just works" and 'nuff said, marketers have to dazzle
the audience with nifty verbiage which amounts to "it's good enough despite
the limitations". This entails the bait-and-switch / smoke-and-mirrors of
distracting customers with either great-sounding stuff they won't actually
use, or presenting the sad facts in a cheerful way (akin to pharmaceutical ads
depicting happy people dancing thru fields while a pleasant voice notes "may
cause kidney failure", which the audience registers as a good thing).

Convincing the audience "it's adequate" means it isn't. Make something which
just works. Lists of features is pleading a case which shouldn't be necessary.

~~~
whoisvince
Great comment @ctdonath.. and exactly. Even if it's unintended too this
'issue' still happens, and slowly creeps up on companies. Palm mentioned at
how they wanted to build the pre and then slowly kept adding wow-features and
tricks to the list, until they realized that's what was wrong with their
products already. Granted, I'm not a huge fan of the Palm Pre, I believe they
did an excellent job in comparison to their past product releases where they
solely focused on tech. specs & things the average consumer really didn't care
about.

It's not guaranteed success either way, but making a product that "just works"
in the your users eyes will give an advantage.

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cek
Amen.

One of my favorite truisms is "The best product development teams are as good
at saying 'No' as they are at saying 'Yes'."

Also: "Do a few things, and do them really, really well."

Which goes along with: "As a leader 90% of the decisions you make are
unimportant. Focus on the other 10%."

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ebiester
Caveat: This works in B2C and some B2B. In some B2B, RFPs are reduced to
checklist / price, no matter if they need those features, think they need
those features, or have no interest in those features.

As always, know your market.

