How does your product make your customers' lives better?
We tell founders to focus on solving a problem.
But that's bad advice.
Your customers don't care how well you solve a problem. They only care how much you improve their lives.
So make that your focus instead...
How is your customer's life better after they use your product?
Stock Alarm, They waste less time on stalking charts and have more freedom throughout their day, we notify them when something interesting is going on (they define interesting).
One of my side project makes life easier for my customer's customer.
Does that even count? Some are paying. So maybe.
I'm trying to help people track their time so they can better understand where their day goes. It's so often I'll be sitting at my computer at 10pm and wonder where the day went. When I started tracking my days, it was so clear that I was spending too much time reading emails, or working on a project that wasn't yielding any results. This enabled me to reflect more concretely on my day and impact my decisions on how I'll spend my day tomorrow.
Check it out: Forty
https://forty.app
Command. Less moving parts to run your business, less money going out the door each month, without compromising. Translation? Less stress/overwhelm and more focus on building a great product and keeping customers happy.
They will be less stressed, less anxious, less tired. https://soothingboard Would love to have your feedback :)
They'll waste less time and money on dreadful meetings 👍. Fun exercise.
You know, I have had the hardest time figuring this out for Fantasy Congress (https://fantasycongress.com).
My audience is split between people who play with friends and civics educators. The educators I understand pretty well: Fantasy Congress makes students more engaged and easier to teach.
Everyone else though, I've had a hard time pinning down what exactly they're getting out of this. From what I'm able to gather from my users, Fantasy Congress is ironic and silly and people see it as a good time. So, "fun" is the word that always comes to mind, and it's been my "north star" for the project thus far. I guess it improves people's lives because it's entertaining? It gives them a good laugh? I'd love to hear what other people think.
Haha I think this is really one of those situations where you have to learn from your users. What I (or any other indie hacker) think really doesn't matter...
Ok, i'm still not comfortable sharing my work, but i'm starting to get there, here goes
Weak Back Builder (weakbackbuilder.com)
Awesome!
I'd say the last point seems to be what you're actually improving in their lives. At least, it's the beginning of it. What does 'having a healthier spine' mean for a developer?
Like the points, just wondering however, would this come across a little sales(y)? Especially if targeting developers?
Actually, i see your point, thanks!
No comment as to whether that's how you should market the product.
But - when people are buying the product - that vision of themselves is definitely what they're really buying ;)
Thanks
I am confused by this.
I end up seeing all these landing pages that say I will "save money & improve productivity" and I never really understand what they do. Who signs up to these?
It boggles my mind that this "sales talk" actually works.
How did you get from...
to...
Those two things have nothing to do with each other at all.
Sorry if I misinterpreted your comments.
But in this case I literally don't understand what you are saying.
How to turn "when people are buying the product - that vision of themselves is definitely what they're really buying" into actionable advice?
Or are we just doing philosophy now?
Nope not philosophy, very actionable.
This isn't the point I was making in my original post by the way. But it's an interesting and useful diversion.
Let's say you want someone to buy your product. A new CRM tool that's much more efficient than their current CRM, for example.
Why would they do that?
Do they want to use a CRM? Would they rather spend time using your software than have the money the spent on it?
No, of course not.
The reason they buy (and use) your CRM tool each month, is because it saves them time (compared to the alternative).
Make sense?
The customer isn't paying you $50/month for the CRM. They're paying you $50/month for a life in which they have (for example) 10 extra free hours each week...
They're paying you to improve their lives.
So, if your marketing and sales pitch doesn't make it very, very clear how you improve your customers lives, they won't care about your product or what it does.
Now, my original point is slightly different. In that point, I was explaining that you have the choice between two options...
Those two options are closely related, but they aren't exactly the same. You're more likely to be successful at building a profitable business if you focus on the second option.
Hope that helps!
Makes sense, thank you for elaborating!
I know what you mean and it’s for this reason I give technical and tangible benefits on my landing page which comes naturally to us devs.
However I guess we need to remember this is all an experiment at the end of the day? I guess context & audience play a part in targeting the message?
Alright, let me take a shot at this!
Lensant (https://lensant.com) makes people's lives better by taking the stress out of media monitoring.
Instead of worrying about whether you missed a mention in the media or a critical review on someone's blog, you can trust that Lensant has kept you fully up to date about what people are saying.
You no longer have to prowl around the internet, hopping between Google queries and Twitter searches, to find out what people are saying. Instead, it's all been assembled for you!
Nice!
Can you quantify the value of that 'stress' in some way?
What does not feeling that stress do to improve their lives? Less missing out on opportunities? Less manual work?
Good q. I think less manual work is a part of it, as are the increased surface rate of the opportunities, but I honestly think that having less stress & uncertainty is a sort of at the root of it (insofar as stress and uncertainty is ~usually~ something we want to minimize).
Great question.
That's just some of ways we improve our customers lives.
health & wellness - - rejuviamedical.com
I see a lot of debate in the comments here, so I'll toss my opinion into the ring. I think product marketing is a 3 step process:
I think each step is important to address, and what to emphasize depends on many factors.
I think what Louis is trying to say is that people often focus too much on 1 & 2 and not enough on 3, which I generally agree with.
I think that what you should emphasize is very specific to your product, industry and customer.
So if you're Gucci selling handbags, all you care about is #3... making the customer feel good about owning their branded product.
But if you're selling rodent traps, then #1 and #2 are probably more important. "Have a rodent infestation? Our traps are super effective!" is probably better than "Enjoy a rodent-free house!"
Just my 2 cents.
I'm not sure I follow how solving their problem is not an improvement to their life. Assuming is a painful problem and you remove that pain...
Can you expand a bit?
Sure.
So that's actually not what I said at all :)
You probably do have to solve a problem (or at least, a pain) to improve someone's life.
What I said, though, is that you shouldn't focus on the problem.
Your focus needs to be on improving your customer's life.
This helps with motivation, and forces you to get out of "developer mode" and start talking to customers and really understanding what they need.
Ah ok I wasn’t referring to the “focus” advice. I was referring to this:
Yeah exactly.
I don't really get what's not clear there?
Obviously solving a problem is a way to provide people with value.
But the point I'm making is that "solving the problem" is just one way of creating value for your customer.
You have to optimise for (and focus on) either solving the problem or maximising value for your customer.
And it's the latter that'll lead to a healthy, profitable business.
I guess I'm saying this is a false dilemma.
It isn't, but you're welcome to find out the hard way :)
(most of us did)
I think what would make this advice actionable is if you had provided an example to illustrate why they aren't the same thing instead of just saying "they aren't" with the not-so-subtle subtext of "and you should just trust me because I'm experienced and you're not". Because I do believe based on your experience (and the experience of whomever "most of us" is) that there is something useful to learn here.
In my head right now, the best solution to a problem is the one that provides the most value. So they're the same thing apart from the semantics of how its phrased.
I'll throw out an example and let you comment:
Customer: "My problem is I'm not getting enough email subscribers."
Solution: A tool they can use to get more email subscribers.
Customer: "My life is better now that I'm getting more email subscribers."
Again, I trust that you're more experienced than me (you've mentioned it several times in the comments), but I'm looking for actual help as opposed to a platitude that reads like it was copy-pasted from Twitter.
That's a fair criticism. I'll have a go with the example you provided...
So first up, your customers' problem:
Oh boy, do we technical founders love a problem like this.
Doesn't it just get you excited to go out and build the best ever tool they can use to get as many email subscribers as possible?
Most indie hackers would go and build that product. They'd focus on the problem of getting more email subscribers.
Every decision they make, every feature, all made with one goal in mind: getting your customer more email subscribers.
Eventually, they'd have a tool that gets the customer loads more email subscribers.
Awesome, right?
But then something weird happens.
Your customer doesn't seem convinced. They said they wanted loads of email subscribers. But they don't seem willing to pay very much for them.
And sales is going really slowly. Some people try it out, but they churn quickly.
"Come back!" you cry, "why are you moving to these other tools? Don't you know my tool gets you the most email subscribers? You fools!"
You lose motivation. No one seems to want what you've built. Not really.
Maybe you try and pivot. Maybe you try and make the tool even better at getting email subscribers.
But none of it works.
After two years and thousands of hours wasted, you tweet a link to your post-mortem blog post, titled "My Journey".
The excitement of briefly reaching the front page of Hacker News helps dull your pain.
----------------
So what went wrong?
You focused on solving the problem.
Imagine, instead, if you had focussed on creating as much value to your customer as possible, no matter how you do so.
Imagine if that was what you thought about all day... What got you excited to get up in the morning and start work.
You'd do things differently.
For a start, you wouldn't sit down with the customer and ask them lots of questions about exactly how to get them more email subscribers.
You'd ask them different questions. Things like...
... and so on.
All of a sudden, without having to focus on the problem and being able to think freely about how you can provide the most value to the customer, you understand their business much better.
And - more importantly - you realise why they wanted more email subscribers in the first place.
Because - as is nearly always the case - it turns out that your customer's problem of "I need more email subscribers" was actually just their simple, best guess attempt at fixing a real pain they have in their business.
It turns out, your customer isn't the most up to date when it comes to tech. They have a client base that loves to buy stuff from them via SMS.
But the customer 'knows' that you can't automate bulk SMS messages. So they don't even see that as a problem.
That's why they think their problem is getting these clients to become email subscribers instead.
Would they be willing to pay way more for a service that automated bulk SMS?
Of course, that would provide them with way more value!
But they wouldn't know to ask for that.
Luckily, when you focus on creating value, you're driven to ask questions that help you work this out for yourself.
You notice that what would be much more useful for the customer is an automated bulk SMS service.
You mention it to the customer, and they get all excited.
Genuinely excited.
You didn't even ask, but all of a sudden there's a credit card in their hand.
You leave with a nice, fat, monthly customer. And warm introductions to two of your customers' friends who are also very interested.
As you leave the room, you overhear the customer on the phone.
A muffled voice emanates from the speaker. You don't quite catch it, but it sounded something like "what do you mean, you don't need our tool anymore? But we are the best solution to solving the problem of getting you lots of emaiiiiiiiiiiiii..."
-----------
Hope that helps :)
That was much more insightful than the original post. Thanks for taking the time to write that up!
It doesn’t support your point that the two are different since in your example the founder improved the customer’s life by solving their bulk sms problem.
In the example I proposed, the customer had accurately identified their problem.
But your example does echo much of what's been shared by @robfitz in The Mom Test.
Cheers
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
Ok, take a step back for a minute...
We aren't talking about marketing or sales here at all.
We're talking about what the core, driving focus of your business is.
Are you the best solution to a certain problem your customers experience?
Or are you the solution that provides those customers with the most value?
Most founders focus on the former. You're more likely to be successful (and stay motivated) if you focus on the latter.
What's really interesting here is that so many IHers are turning around and saying "but they're the same thing!"
They aren't.
But that's why I'm posting it here. If it were obvious that they are different (but often confused by inexperienced founders), then I wouldn't have wasted the time to share it! ;)
Hmmmm...I am visualizing a nice Lexus ad!
In other words...one someone knows what you do...then it is time to make them "feel" you make their lives better.
So, maybe a bit premature for a lot of us here?
I do like the concept. I will explore it more.
Thanks,
Greg
Actually, completely the opposite!
There's no point pitching someone on what your product does, until they understand what it'll do to improve their lives.
Otherwise, they won't listen :)
Similarly, there's no point trying to build a product (and work out what it's supposed to do), before you've worked out in what way you're trying to improve your customers' lives.
Otherwise, you're almost guaranteed to build the wrong thing!
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
Sigh.
Please read what I'm saying.
Yes, solving a problem for someone improves their life. Obviously. I never said it doesn't.
What I'm pointing out is that being the best solution to that problem isn't necessarily the best/easiest/most lucrative way to improve your customer's life.
So - when you decide what your north star is - you should focus on the goal of doing whatever you can to improve your customer's life. Not turn inwards and focus on building the best solution to a problem.
They're similar, but have very different outcomes.
And inexperienced founders often confuse the two, and waste years struggling uphill building a product nobody wants to buy.
That's why I'm sharing it here :)
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
Which bit do you disagree with?
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
Yea based on Louis' example, I think what he means when he writes
is actually
I'm curious if @louisswiss would agree if the founder does proper customer development to discover the true problem (e.g. bulk sms from his example) that "solving their problem" and "improving their life" can be the same.
Yeah, so I've always thought that "solving their problem" will lead to "improving their life".
What I'm talking about is more fundamental though.
Your customer doesn't just have one problem.
They have multiple pains (areas you can provide value). And each of those pains probably can manifest itself as several problems the customer notices.
So as a company, you have a choice...
Do you pick one of those problems and focus on being the best solution to that problem?
Or do you pick a pain (or multiple pains) and focus on healing it as fully as possible? (= improving their life)
I understand that the difference might seem semantic to a founder who has never focussed explicitly on "improving customers' lives" before.
But every decision you make as a company is influenced by your north star.
And it's very easy to get caught in a situation where you choose to make an incremental improvement on your solution to problem X in pursuit of perfection, rather than spend that same time/money doing whatever would be of most value to the customer.
Does that help explain the difference?
Great. Appreciate your time and I’m glad we arrived at this.
I'm really sorry if you took it that way. It genuinely wasn't meant as a flex in any way.
I don't know how else I could have phrased that thought.
What I'm trying to say is...
"I empathise with your opinion: I used to think that solving 'the' problem and providing value were completely interchangeable. It wasn't until I started explicitly focussing on providing value that I realised how different (and more effective) it is to focussing on solving 'the' problem. Finding this out via years of struggling was an experience painful enough that I want to save other founders from making it."
Is that better?
Again, I hope that's not how others thought I came across. And it certainly wasn't my intention.
Fair enough. I realized you might not be aware that you're doing it so I ended up deleting that part of my comment.
Also, speaking of empathetic communication:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology
(FWIW I took no offense, it just made me chuckle.)
I hope that works out well for you :)
yep.