Avoid The Baggage: Rex & Anchor
Who likes having all the awkward emotional baggage in relationships?
Exactly. No one.
I think that applies to products as well.
Here’s some back story before I get to where I am going with this piece.
I test a lot of different products. I like giving feedback to various product teams. I feel invested in products whose teams have two types of characteristics —
- A people-centric mindset (Business is human after all)
- Very approachable and receptive to honest feedback
If a team has those two characteristics, giving feedback becomes fun, constructive and fulfilling.
Lately, I have become invested (not financially, I wish I was) in two products — Anchor & REX. I have written a bit about both of them here and here before.
I loved how Chris Smith, the cofounder of REX, reached out to me to set up a call shortly after I published the piece reviewing their product. We went our every single point that I talked about in that piece and brainstormed ideas and potential changes.
One thing that I have been thinking about a lot from that piece and our conversation is that a new product should always try its best to avoid being associated or being remembered in terms of some bigger, well known brand.
I thought that the design of REX is similar to that of Instagram. Yes, there were a lot of thoughtful differences between those two designs. But, in my mind, I associated REX with a well-known brand.
Similarly, when I gave feedback to Kristin, the community manager at Anchor, I mentioned that they might want to use a strong content strategy to distance themselves from Twitter’s brand. I said so because I saw a lot of users saying “Anchor is audio Twitter”.
Whenever a new social product comes to the scene, people do not hesitate even a bit to associate the new product with the brand of an established social network. Snapchat faced this and that influenced the way brands and advertisers looked at its ad products.
I think this is a slippery slope for the new players. I think its human nature to associate new concepts in terms of concepts that we already know much about. It helps us process new things quickly. But, doing so also hinders our ability to understand the new concepts objectively.
So, when Anchor and REX are compared to Twitter and Instagram, every single step taken by Anchor and REX is very likely to compared and contrasted with those taken by the bigger players. It is quite clear that most people are not comfortable with Twitter. And when I hear a friend telling me “There is this new app called Anchor. Its like audio Twitter”, I am very likely to let me opinions about Twitter influence my judgment of Anchor. And this could work against the smaller, newer brands and products.
I think new products should consciously try to differentiate themselves from the established brands in their space from the very outset. I think innovating in terms of design and content would be the way to go. Consistent branding through proper messaging coupled with a unique design that clearly shows the value proposition could go a long way.
Setting the expectations right from the beginning is crucial. Once I know how different Anchor and Twitter are early on when Anchor was very young, I will stop thinking about one in terms of the other.
Establishing a unique, standalone identity really helps both the teams and users objectively try and test the changing nature of a young product. A well-defined identity helps in taking new paths with support from the users.
Companies like Mattermark, Product Hunt, and Buffer have pulled this off really well.
Tweet me your thoughts @sarthakgh
PS- Thanks Kristin and Chris for listening to my feedback so openly.
