Define Your Own Market — The #Slack Approach

Life of the startup is generally divided into two distinct phases. Phase 1: Before product-market fit. Phase 2: After product-market fit. Once the product is accepted in the market, a company is able to spend on promoting a product that will actually sell. The things you need to do in Phase 1 (test & iterate) are very different from the things you need to do in Phase 2 (scale & optimize). In any Phase our job as Founder/Product Manager is to understand what people think they want and then translate the value of your product/service into their terms.

The only way to achieve real sales and profit growth is to create a new category or subcategory in which competitors are weak or irrelevant. Also, the best possible way to find product-market fit is to define your own market.

Despite the fact that there are a handful of direct competitors and a muddled history of superficially similar tools, we are setting out to define a new market. And that means we can’t limit ourselves to tweaking the product; we need to tweak the market too. — Stewart Butterfield, Founder Slack.

This isn’t a new idea. There are many brands whose marketing activities or positioning has them selling something other than (and usually larger than) their product: Harley Davidson sells motorcycle riding, but it especially sells freedom and independence. Most luxury brands sell something that comes down to “being better than you are” (richer, better looking, more attractive to those you find desirable, etc.)

Here are 5 steps to do so..

Step 1: The new category or subcategory needs to be defined.

The category or subcategory should be defined so that the boundaries are clear and potential competitors will be classified by customers as missing some “must haves” — and thus not relevant. The challenge is to make those “must haves” visible enough to affect customers’ decisions to consider the brand.

Slack unlikely to be able to sell “a group chat system” very well: as there are just not enough people shopping for group chat system as people were happy with email and fax machines. So, they tried selling organizational transformation by selling “a reduction in the cost of communication” or “zero effort knowledge management” or “making better decisions, faster” or “all your team communication, instantly searchable, available wherever you go” or “75% less email” and they found more buyers (product-market).

Step 2: Strive to make the brand the exemplar of the category or subcategory.

Focus visibly on the category or subcategory. the brand will automatically have credibility, visibility and authenticity with respect to the new category or subcategory.

Slack branded themselves as tool for team communication and boost in productivity.

Step 3: Focus on Promoting The Category or Subcategory and Not The Brand.

The goal is not only to reinforce the exemplar status, but also to make sure the new category or subcategory wins because that’s the heart of the innovation strategy. If the category or subcategory wins, the brand also will win. Slack did lots of promotions for Team Communication Tool.

Step 4: Stimulate Buzz.

A new category or subcategory will involve a substantial or transformational innovation. That often means that it’s worth talking about.

Innovation is the sum of change across the whole system, not a thing which causes a change in how people behave. By that measure, Slack is a real and large innovation. Slack brought in dramatic shift in how time is spent, how communication happens, and how the team’s archives are utilised with significant changes in productivity. With this they created lot of buzz.

Step 5: Don’t Stand Still.

Innovation, improvement and change will make the category or subcategory dynamic and the brand more interesting.

Slack team approached Slack with beginner’s mind. And they do it every day, over and over and polish every rough edge off until this product is as smooth as lacquered mahogany. They are adding many integrations to achieve same.

That will make the category or subcategory a moving target and will make it harder for a competitor to become relevant.

We at WeCcarryy are also trying to follow theses 5 steps.