The Sliver of a Product

When you’re tempted to go head-to-head with an existing product, consider creating a sliver of the product.

Consider that generally, a buyer wants progress on common pursuits: to be seen, to be promoted, to be protected, to be inspired, to be found, to be prosperous, to look good, to stay relevant, to reduce headache, to avoid disaster, to avoid shame.

Consider that generally, the more a product has features, the higher the risk that a newcomer will feel intimidated. “I don’t want to be an expert in all of this.”

Consider that generally, when asked to give feedback on your product, people will invent an answer in order to be seen, not necessarily because what they requested will make them buy the product.

For all those reasons, there’s a risk in creating a product that has it all. So you’d want to create a much smaller product by default.

—

Let’s say that, instead of adding extra features and filters to your database of crawled content, you simply offered to send a random record each week, formatted to be used as is. For that simple offering, and for an extra fee, you’d add momentum, and reduce the frictions that cause inaction on using the data.

Let’s say that, instead of creating an intricate accounting software, you’d create a way to send pictures of receipts to an email address, which replies with a PDF collating all of the receipts for the year to date, and sending the final one at end of year.

Let’s say that, instead of creating a large video course with a big launch, you sell access to a paid weekly video drop. Low effort to record, helping people with evergreen material, for people who just want a frequent, random inspiration, from an authoritative figure.

—

There’s nothing stopping you from eventually creating the bigger product and aiming to do better than the competition in terms of size. But if going head-to-head means you’ll likely win second place, might as well earn the gold with a sliver of the product.