On packaging

On packaging.

Probably one of the areas I’m the most overplayed record about 📻 is packaging.

We often hear from founders that they are just a few features away to win against a competitor.

But our not-hot-take hot-take here is that features alone are usually not enough to win competitive enterprise deals.

As we unfortunately know in enterprise software, it's not always the best product that wins - it’s the pricing and packaging and distribution and all the OTHER stuff that makes up the buying experience to a prospect that also matters.

Positioning is also just another way of saying: how/where do we maniacally focus? As seed stage companies with limited resources/oxygen/time, how do we ruthlessly zero in on deals that are most likely to close and that positions us best to win against competitors?

A few “packaging cards” I encourage our seed founders to think about:
☑ Who is your ICP? If your competitor goes after SMB - do you choose to go after enterprise? If they go after financial services - do you go after healthcare?
☑ How do you acquire them? If your competitor is a heavy enterprise sale - can you go open source?
☑ How much to use? If your competitor requires a heavy platform fee - can you go freemium?
☑ Time to value - if your competitor has heavy implementation requirement, can you be lightweight and fast to set up?
☑ Customer experience - if your competitor doesn’t offer any customer support, can your team offer a consultative approach?

If you're in a crowded space (and the reality is that every company has some competitors), being able to use a few of these different "cards" to go above, around, or over others to win in a knife fight is critical.

When you can: don't fight the same fight as your competitors. Better products don't always win - great distribution wins.