Think Beyond the Hardware
or remembering not everyone wants tech
As part of my job, I will often buy competitor’s products or those with similar features. I want to learn from each of them. What nifty widgets do they implement, what pain points we should avoid.
Essentially, how can I make a better product than them?
And I’ll admit, perhaps I have a bit of egocentricity going on, but many of these products are incredibly disappointing, often with a simple, reoccurring theme:
They are all about the device, cool tech, or a single nifty feature but forget about the customer.
By that, I mean that the app itself has minimal features and all the copy talks about the device rather than what I am trying to solve. In short, the company is selling a machine, not a product.
And yes, as a hardware engineer, I have been guilty of this myself. It can be so easy to get fixated on a unique feature, or that because of my ingenuity the battery will last four times as long, or the plastic is perfectly white like Apple.
But in the end, the customer doesn’t care! Some might. Maybe those tech reviewers, or the sales team, or your mom. But the other 99.999% of your customer base? Nope, they want to solve a problem or make themselves feel good.
So What To Do?
“kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” — Steven King
While King’s quote here is in reference to writing, we should take a page from his notebook and kill our product darlings.
Start thinking beyond the device. Image if ten other companies had the exact same features, how would you position the product? Adding more features? Price?
Step back. Think about what the product is trying to achieve. Better yet, go out and ask actual customers, real people who live outside your company’s bubble. Find those that couldn’t give a shit about the nifty feature.
And see what they are asking for.
Listen.
But don’t create a faster horse.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” — Henry Ford (maybe)
This quote, often attributed to Ford, may upset those who cheer for customer feedback. But at the heart of this idea is that customers didn’t really want faster horses (a product feature if you will), they wanted to get to their destination faster.
Ford didn’t invent anything new; the Model T didn’t have any breakthrough innovation. Except he made it cheaper and more reliable than any other car. Other cars may have gone faster, but if the average customer couldn’t buy it and they needed to repair it multiple times along the journey, it didn’t solve their need.
That is where Ford’s enginuity came in, he saw a need and filled it with a solution.
Hardware is a hard business model
Building a successful business off of selling hardware is a complicated way to make money. Margins are generally constrained, manufacturing takes time, and you have to store and ship pallets of inventory.
And once a customer does buy the hardware, they expect you to support it for years, even if there isn’t a monthly service plan, maybe especially if it is a free plan.
The companies that are doing well in the hardware space don’t sell hardware. They sell a solution that happens to include the option to buy a piece of hardware from them.
Amazon’s Echo is a good piece of hardware with cool technology. But look at their marketing material for it. They don’t spend time talking about the multiple microphones and a faster processor. Instead, they show how you can use their service to answer questions, listen to music, or be productive. The hardware is an enabler.
Or take FitBit. They sell multiple devices now including scales. But they don’t focus on the accuracy of their step counting algorithm or impressive ability to measure heart rate. Instead, they market how it can help you get and stay healthy. They provide a solution that includes a hardware element.
Thinking Beyond
Take a look at your company’s products. Are they positioned as nifty techno-swag? Touting the lasted breakthrough in advanced bullshitalytics?
Or do you have an opportunity to improve your product by thinking of the solution it solves and building an experience instead?
Go, build a better widget, but think beyond that widget and wow me with an awesome solution.
