The "Killer Feature"
Ori Feldstein
Founder & CEO at Requiremints | Helping shoppers make the right decision
The "Killer Feature"
One feature to rule them all
If you ask experienced people in any field, they will say that making complex things is hard, but making them simple is even harder!?
It is damn hard to simplify product features, marketing messaging, organization processes, meetings, and almost everything that matters.
When trying to analyze the products of the biggest companies, we will see that there is one feature or offering that prevails, without it the entire company fails.
For examples:
All these big companies above based their entire business on one main feature, what i call the “Killer feature”.
The “Killer Feature” definition
The “killer feature” has to be defined only from a customer perspective and it has to be very easy to understand and use. If it takes to the user more than 5 seconds to understand the value proposition, it means that the feature probably fails to deliver the value. If that is the case, maybe the feature is too complicated, maybe it is “nice to have”, or maybe the design is wrong. Nevertheless, a killer feature should be simple, focused on the “must have” value proposition and it should work flawlessly.?
Usually, a company has only one “killer feature” that serves as the foundation of all other features and products. This feature is the basis for the entire value proposition of the company. Large companies that have several related products may have a “killer” feature for each specific product, but these related products will probably still be dependent on the success of the main “killer feature” of the company.
Take Google for example, though Google has more than 270 different customer-facing products and probably thousands of internal products, Google’s “killer feature” is its search engine. Their entire business model is based on us searching for information on Google. Without it and its ads, Google will not be able to fund all the rest of its products.?
From a product perspective, each of Google’s products has its own “killer feature”, for example, The ability to search addresses on “Google maps”, and the free storage we get on Google Drive.
These killer features at the product level deliver the main value of the products and they are essential for their success as well. The same logic is true also when developing internal features and tools that help in running the product, operation, and company, but remember to make sure to clearly define for each product the one killer feature that without it the product fails to deliver and lose its customers (external or internal).
The rest of the features
It may seem that I underestimate the importance of all other features, if so, it is not my intention. In reality, for a product to perform well, you need to develop many features and options to deliver the entire value for the customer, monetize the product, and support it.?
However, all these additional features are worth nothing without customers and users, and the “killer features” the main purpose is to do exactly that - to attract and retain customers. The “killer feature” is the feature that will make a customer knock on your product’s door, and stay there to enjoy many other features.
Evaluate your killer feature
Your “killer feature” should :
Your killer feature has to meet all these points above which are not easily done. But once you figure these out, all other product requirements will be much easier to define.
Start with the “killer feature” and move on from there.
Good luck.
Ori F.