Mind the gap! ? Don't lose your PMF!

Hey folks!? I recently met up with a friend whose startup was acquired by Google for a lot of moolah - and he was concerned about whether he should sell his shares now or not (no inside trading ??). He was afraid that Google would fall behind Bing if they didn't roll out SGE soon (Search Generative Experience - essentially your "chatGPT for search results").?

Many of us don't remember the times anymore when Google wasn't?the default search engine - and we can't imagine a world where "google" isn't a verb.

But that's happened to those 'default' products many times. Remember when you used to Skype?your parents??

Product Momentum Gap - the?point in time where products, despite initial success, start losing their market appeal - and eventually fall into obscurity.

Watch my video rant ?

Everyone's talking about getting to Product Market Fit (PMF) - but nobody's really talking about...losing it. And it really can happen. This is what we're gonna look at today - the dreaded Product Momentum Gap ?- as Andrea Saez and David Martin put it in their book:?

But why does this gap appear at all? And how to prevent it?

First - let's go back to our Skype Story. In 2011, Skype was acquired by Microsoft. The intentions were great - integrate Skype into the Microsoft ecosystem - but the execution - as often happens - fell short of the good intentions big time. Requiring login through Microsoft account, user interface changes, which some users found less intuitive and more cumbersome than the previous versions, the emergence of Zoom that offered super-simple and reliable group calling right at the start of the pandemic, and then - the final straw - Microsoft focusing on its own home-grown competitor - Microsoft Teams, prioritizing on business calls rather than individual calls - meant that Skype was left far behind.???

What can we learn from this?

Reasons why the Product Momentum Gap appears:

• Failure to?align with the changing customer needs: Ok, you hit the jackpot once. But then, you stopped caring.?Over time, many companies?lose touch with how their?customer needs are actually evolving?+ the current market trends, leading to products that no longer fulfill user expectations. Take the Skype example: it was ok to have to join Skype and download the app and then even log into the Microsoft account for that odd call you had with your parents back in the 2000s. But as?work had to suddenly move online, the reliability of video calling, time to join a call (for anyone, not just registered users) and how easy it was to invite someone to the call - became essential. Skype completely dropped the ball on at least 2/3 of these value props.? ?
• Lack of innovation:?some companies stop introducing new features or improvements that address customer needs over time (e.g. as their priorities change: one can imagine this happened to Microsoft when they started prioritizing Teams > Skype!), making their products less and less attractive. ?
• Disconnect from Customer Value:?customer value is dynamic, and if you fail to understand how it evolves over time - you will quickly become obsolete. ?
• Poor communication of value:?Is your messaging all buzzwords rather than the tangible value your product?brings to customers?? So??

How to Prevent the Product Momentum Gap?

• Align product development with customer needs:?utilize frameworks like the Product Value Creation Plan (VCP) to focus on identifying and understanding customer behaviors, needs, and motivations. Andrea Saez & Dave Martin provided tons of templates (with examples) on how to use this plan in their book

• Focus on Innovation:?Make sure your product development is aimed at solving problems, enhancing user experiences, and introducing innovative features that genuinely add value to the user. Make sure you actually track the value of your innovations - again, you can use the template below:

• Define and Communicate Customer Value Clearly:?shift marketing and product messaging to focus on the tangible aspects of the product that bring real value to customers rather than buzzwords. Base?it on?insights from your?customer interviews (speak their language, not yours!) ?- reflecting how they behave?and what they need. See this example from Cognism that's not ashamed of saying what they do, in plain English. Thank you Cognism for stopping?thousands of users from collectively wasting gazillion hours?on trying to decipher what you?offer after landing on your website???

• Foster?collaboration between Product, Marketing and Sales: to avoid that misalignment leading to that weird heading on your website that takes 30 seconds to understand, but also - failed product launches and feature death;? ?
• Use the Value Creation Pyramid?to continuously?innovate: keeping tabs on the current value your users expect to get from your product is hard. And no, slapping AI on top of it is not the answer. To understand the expected value of your product for your users, use the Value Creation Pyramid framework?to layer in problem-solving, user experience improvements, and innovation to your?product development process. Before you can deliver value, you need to understand what value actually means - and what kind of value (Functional? Emotional? Social?) your new product feature is going to bring to your user:?

• Continuous discovery :? Just like you should continue taking your spouse on dates: make sure you keep doing continuous discovery to keep tabs on understanding of user behavior.?Make sure you regularly collect?user feedback and actually use it to adapt your product to their (ever-changing) needs - don't be like Leo:?

• P.S.: You can easily collect user feedback?in the place where it's most top-of-mind for your users - right inside your app - with Userpilot :?

• Prioritize based on user value:?I'm sure you don't have engineering resources "just lying around" - so focus efforts on actions that drive the most user value, based on validated value assumptions and user feedback. How do you do that though? Again, this Value Assumption Builder template from Andrea's and Dave's book can help:

Watch Dave Martin's short on validating value assumptions:

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• Create systems for capturing?user feedback & market insights regularly:?you know, if you don't automate it, it's not gonna happen. Just like with healthy habits - you need to go for optimal defaults (aka if you wanna lose weight - don't stock up on unhealthy snacks and sign up for expensive gym classes so you're actually motivated to go). Automate capturing and analyzing user feedback and market data e.g. with recurring user surveys in-app (again, try Userpilot for that ;)) and e.g. media listening tools respectively.?

How to spot Product Momentum Gap opening??

Churn higher than usual? Lower trial to paid conversion rate? Fewer trial signups? Lower activation rate? A lot of times you wouldn't even know...because let's face it, tracking the user activation funnel ain't easy (unless you're using ouractivation dashboards ???). These are all early signs you might be struggling with a Product Momentum Gap. In our upcoming webinar (TODAY!) we'll be addressing how tospot & stop the symptoms of the problem - grab the last seats!

Hope to see you all there! :)?