The Overview #3

This week, looking at product feature adoption problems, how to avoid becoming a commodity, the power of focus, and five categories of true thought leadership content.

Hi,

This is The Overview, a weekly roundup of noteworthy B2B SaaS stuff. You'll find interesting tweets and articles from around the internet, plus highlights from my personal swipe file.

This is the third edition; let me know if you find it interesting.

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Don’t drop the ball: focus on adoption

John Cutler @johncutlefish

Enterprise software ... effort needed to build x: N effort to get customers to adopt x: N^3 focus on build:adopt .... 5:1

At nearly every company I’ve worked at, on nearly every product feature I’ve launched, the big bang happens and then the interest fizzles out… And nobody knows why. On to the next one!

But this tweet might offer an answer. Many times, SaaS orgs are so focused on building the product and shipping that they half-ass getting customers to adopt through customer marketing and success.

SaaS becomes a commodity when they don’t position properly

🤔 Josh Garofalo @swaycopy

Despite what I said in my last tweet about SaaS being commoditized or heading that way, I don’t disagree with this take. SaaS products/companies aren’t commodities in the traditional sense (like wheat). Instead, they do a poor job of magnifying and owning differentiators.

This article on B2B International looks at the two ways a B2B business can prevent being commoditized: either offering a sustainable customer value proposition, or by delivering exceptional customer experience.

I’ve written a lot about niching down, understanding your customers, and positioning your value effectively. And as the article notes, “All they require is carefully listening to customers, understanding their needs and turning insights into action!”.

Lessons learnt: focus

Andrew Gazdecki @agazdecki

First time founder: Tons of features, everything is automated, zero sales calls, minimal marketing, sells to startups. Second time founder: Limited features, hands on support, everything is manual, daily sales calls, paid & unpaid marketing, sells to specific niche.

Be focused, build less, do it manually, keep close to the customer and the market, build your audience. Simple.

Thought leadership content

This is an article I’ve kept open for months in my tabs because it was so good.

Thought leadership content has got samey, spammy, and too SEO’d. How can businesses get back to creating truly great thought leadership content?

A few years ago, Ben Horowitz introduced what, to this day, is one of my favorite business strategy concepts: the earned secret. On the a16z podcast, Horowitz explains it this way:

"You did something in your past to solve a hard problem and learned something about the world that not a lot of other people know."

Aside: if you’re solving hard problems and learning something niche, write about it. (Or get in touch if you’d like to guest-post on Building Momentum).

That’s the Overview for this week

Hope you found some interest in this edition.

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Thanks for reading, and happy building.

James