Lead Bullets (2011)
a16z.com
Lead Bullets (2011)
1–10 of 44 posts
Re: Lead Bullets (2011)
#2It's so much easier to win when the product is the best. You can still lose because of 5000 other reasons, but the best product makes everything else so much easier.
Re: Lead Bullets (2011)
#3Nice excerpt from his book "Hard things about hard things" - can absolutely recommend it.
Re: Lead Bullets (2011)
#4The other time this story was discussed here (probably in 2011, linked to techcrunch) someone pointed out very insightful comment from person claiming to be employed at a time at the Netscape in Marketing (or Sales?). According to this employee the real reason why the web server was selling was not the regained technical supremacy, but mere fact that it was boundled with mail and directory servers that customers were actually interested in. I have no way of checking whether it's true, and there are no comments on this story today on both a16z site and techcrunch, but the idea that even someone who made the company succeed and have learned valuable lessons from it may have not seen the whole picture left a deep impression on me.
Re: Lead Bullets (2011)
#52011
Re: Lead Bullets (2011)
#6It's so much easier to win when the product is the best. You can still lose because of 5000 other reasons, but the best product makes everything else so much easier.
Being the best is overrated. Three times in my career I was on an engineering team that built an objectively best in class product. Three times it failed because the competition out marketed us and/or beat us in the customer service department. Despite them having inferior products.
Don't get me wrong. You need to have a good product. Your product can't be awful but it only needs to be about 80% as good as the competition before you can win in marketing and other ways.
Re: Lead Bullets (2011)
#7It's so much easier to win when the product is the best. You can still lose because of 5000 other reasons, but the best product makes everything else so much easier.
Being the best is overrated. Three times in my career I was on an engineering team that built an objectively best in class product. Three times it failed because the competition out marketed us and/or beat us in the customer service department. Despite them having inferior products. Don't get me wrong. You need to have a good product. Your product can't be awful but it only needs to be about 80% as good as the compet…
How much of them beating you was marketing and how much was customer service?
World class customer service by itself can be a market beater, even when the product you are backing up is more expensive / lower quality for the same feature set. People like to know that when they have problems, they'll get answers quickly.
Re: Lead Bullets (2011)
#8It's so much easier to win when the product is the best. You can still lose because of 5000 other reasons, but the best product makes everything else so much easier.
Being the best is overrated. Three times in my career I was on an engineering team that built an objectively best in class product. Three times it failed because the competition out marketed us and/or beat us in the customer service department. Despite them having inferior products. Don't get me wrong. You need to have a good product. Your product can't be awful but it only needs to be about 80% as good as the compet…
Absolutely true, the whole idea that there is one dominating factor in success is a dead end. Just looking at SaaS: bad marketing means no growth and wasted product, bad product means no retention and wasted marketing.
Re: Lead Bullets (2011)
#9It's so much easier to win when the product is the best. You can still lose because of 5000 other reasons, but the best product makes everything else so much easier.
Being the best is overrated. Three times in my career I was on an engineering team that built an objectively best in class product. Three times it failed because the competition out marketed us and/or beat us in the customer service department. Despite them having inferior products. Don't get me wrong. You need to have a good product. Your product can't be awful but it only needs to be about 80% as good as the compet…
"It's the best but doesn't do X"
"It's the best but it still hasn't launched"
"It's the best but documentation is bad and nobody knows how to use it effectively"
"It's the best but has no support option"
Re: Lead Bullets (2011)
#10It's so much easier to win when the product is the best. You can still lose because of 5000 other reasons, but the best product makes everything else so much easier.
Being the best is overrated. Three times in my career I was on an engineering team that built an objectively best in class product. Three times it failed because the competition out marketed us and/or beat us in the customer service department. Despite them having inferior products. Don't get me wrong. You need to have a good product. Your product can't be awful but it only needs to be about 80% as good as the compet…
Product needs to be good enough to provide value/solve the customer's problems. Other products may be objectively "better" on some measures, but those measures may not be relevant for all users.