AMA: Matterport Head of Product, Preethy Vaidyanathan on Product Differentiation

Product differentiation is not about a feature laundry list; it is about ensuring you are addressing a key business problem. So instead of starting at we need to build features A, B, and C that our competitors don't have; start with the business problem. Then ask how we can leverage product differentiation to reach the business goal faster, better or cheaper. This way it ensures you are solving the underlying cause and not just the symptoms. If you are in a 0 to 1 category, the main business pro ...Read More

Here is a general framework that you can leverage to customize to fit the specific needs of your product; whether it is hardware, software or service offering; entering a new geo or disrupting an existing market. Start with the customer. Create a list of current and potential customers; so this should include current customer types and the customer types that the product strategy is looking to address. For each customer type, a general framework to consider is the buying and usage journey: 1. Wh ...Read More

In this case, be competitor-aware, but customer-focused.  You don't have much control over what your competitor’s teams are doing. However, what you can drive is focusing on delivering business results for your customers and getting your internal company teams to work with your customers to publish these stories, case studies and testimonials. With this approach, your new customer prospects may evaluate you and your competitor and at first, might think you both offer the same features. However, ...Read More

Differentiation is not just a product team responsibility. However, as a product manager, you can help connect the dots from product differentiation to customer adoption and business value. Product feature differentiation is the internal metric. As a product manager, you focus on competitor feature matrix tables, technical deep-dives, SWOT analysis and more. However, the external more important metric is customer focus and sustained business value. Focus on differentiated features that drive cus ...Read More

It's a company problem and will likely need a cross-functional team effort to troubleshoot and solve the issue. In the diagnosis phase, I can't stress this enough - it's important to spend sufficient time understanding the problem before moving to solutions. Sometimes as product leaders, this is the hardest thing to do, which is to sit with the problem before jumping into fix-it mode. Start with where this problem occurs; is the misalignment happening with your clients, industry press, analysts ...Read More

One important ingredient is tying how product differentiation helps drive business value like brand recognition, product usage or increased sales. This connection between differentiation and business outcome can be overlooked because it may not be a straightforward exercise to draw causation conclusions. One strategy to deploy is to think of leading-indicator measurement (vs. lagging). Few examples: Increased sales are a lagging indicator. However, can you measure how product differentiation hel ...Read More

Looking at a long list of competitors’ features as a catchup list can definitely be daunting. This is a futile race because while you are playing catchup, the competitor will continue to keep moving ahead. Instead, turn this into an asset by looking at the adoption/usage of your competitor's features by customers. We all know not all features are created equal; leverage the incumbent customer base, and get insights into which features are used the most by customers. It's also important to use th ...Read More

Focus on alignment. Aligning differentiation into the product development process, cross-functional team members, go-to-market planning and goal setting. This will ensure that there are collective voices across the teams highlighting differentiation as a strategic investment and helping influence your exec teams. Here are a few tactics you can deploy: Leverage your core differentiation pillars in product activities. Roadmap communication, product launch demos, buy/build/partner analysis, beta pr ...Read More