When you go from a single product company to a multi-product company, how do you successfully launch a cohesive narrative?

I believe the key to having a cohesive launch narrative comes down to putting your new product into context of your existing product(s). While each product will need its own positioning, and may even appeal to different audiences, an overarching narrative can help tie everything together.

We recently went through this process at Figma when we launched our second product, FigJam, an online whiteboard. Here are two activities I found helpful in this process:

• Articulate the “why” behind your new product: To tell an authentic narrative we started by thinking about the “why” behind FigJam — what inspired us to build this product and why did it make sense for Figma in particular to be building it. I chatted with folks on the FigJam product team (product manager, designer, researcher), our head of product, our CEO, and more, to understand why we were investing in FigJam — where did we get the idea? why now? and how did this fit into our broader vision as a company? This exercise forced us to be introspective, and helped ground the narrative we ultimately shared with the world.
• Review existing positioning and tease out how your new product changes this: Your launch narrative should make it clear how your products fit together and why your customers need both. At the time, we were positioning Figma as the place for teams to design together — by design, we meant creating mock-ups and prototypes. We asked ourselves how FigJam changed this narrative — what additional activities and use cases did it unlock? How did these activities relate to mock-ups and prototypes? And how did they make the outcomes of what teams were already doing in Figma, better?

Forming a cohesive narrative is no easy feat. Here are a few principles to keep in mind as you think through how to tell a single narrative across multiple products:

• Future proof it (as much as possible): A narrative that is extendable to future products is a huge plus
• Keep it simple: A narrative should be easy to explain internally and to customers
• Be flexible: As you launch and learn, your narrative may change, and thats ok

Great question. At some point in your career you will likely encounter this as your company grows its portfolio of products. Couple of tips that might help in this case that have helped me in the past:

1. Use a consistent messaging template across the different products in your company’s portfolio. Framing your messaging in the same way across different products might help you identify how to tie them together through a common thread. Do the products all help solve a similar challenge perhaps? Or do they all outcome in a common benefit for the customer?
2. Uplevel the narrative and put a wrapper around it - the multiple products are hopefully opening the door to tell a more “solution” oriented story at a higher level instead of simply talking about each individual product capability.
3. Test internally first, then externally - reach out to a couple of reliable sources on customer-facing teams in your business. Pitch the uplevel-ed narrative to them and see how it resonates and how to make it better. After that you can pitch to a couple of trusted customers, and analysts to get their input as well.
4. Iterate - get comfortable with the idea of tweaking your narrative every couple of months as you gain more data and insight on what’s resonating and what’s not.
5. Working on a problem like this is like putting puzzle pieces together - tough, but very rewarding so be patient with the process.

Going from single to multi-product is an exciting time. To build a cohesive narrative, it's important to begin with the foundation of product-market fit. Start asking and aligning on fundamental questions like are you targeting the same core audience as your current product, or are you expanding to reach a broader audience? Are you moving upmarket or venturing into adjacent markets, potentially with a different buyer persona? Understanding and aligning on these core questions will help you craft the right narrative. Typically, I've seen companies introduce a new product to the same core buyer - in this case, you want to build a narrative that showcases the value of each product individually while also illustrating the synergy/enhanced benefits of using them together.