Just about the complex: how to present a complex product

I am often asked to tell us the essence of our service. Both friends and potential customers ask, and just people I meet at business events.

For a long time I could not learn to answer this question correctly. It turned out either too seriously (a platform to automate accounting and business processes), or too narrowly (in our service you can customize CRM taking into account the specifics of the company), or you had to explain for a very long time until the interlocutor had a more or less complete understanding of the capabilities of SkyBase .

And recently the answer was born by itself - in the form of such a simple and understandable picture.
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If you are developing a complex product for which a short and understandable definition is not yet invented by everyone, then you probably faced the same problem. You have to look for a way to somehow convey the essence of the product to your target audience. I will tell you what the difficulties were in our case and what solution we finally found.

What does “complex” product mean?

Let's see what is meant by a complex product . This is not about how difficult your product is “from the inside” or how many man-hours you spent on its development - it’s about the complexity of perceiving the essence of your product to the user.

Suppose you offer a task scheduler to a client. Most likely, he will easily imagine what is behind these words - a system in which the manager sets tasks for his subordinates and controls the timelines for their implementation. Then he can provide some other details that may or may not be specific to your task scheduler. This presentation of his can be adjusted later, with a more substantive conversation. The main thing is that the person understood the basic meaning of your sentence correctly.

And what will happen if you say that you are developing a business application designer ? That is how we initially presented our service . A person immediately has a lot of thoughts, questions:

• What is a business application?
• And, by the way, what kind of application - mobile mean?
• Designer ... Lego for some reason seems to be. What have children toys?

Sometimes these questions are asked out loud - then you can continue the dialogue and, perhaps, still get to understand the essence - and sometimes they simply transfer the conversation to another topic. The interviewee does not want to seem stupid, so he can keep the questions raised with him. And it will seem to you that he understood everything, just your proposal did not interest him.

We tried another description of the description: SkyBase is a platform for automating accounting and business processes . In general, this wording is understandable to our target audience. But here lies another problem. It happens that people say "Oh, no, we have not grown to this!". Apparently, such a phrase creates in their view something so global and powerful that it becomes scary to get involved in it. And fear is clearly not the kind of emotion we want to get from them.

In fact, the service is oriented, first of all, just for those who have not yet grown to large clever systems. Our users are usually small businesses. There are quite small companies among them (2-3 employees). So any company that uses Excel in its work has grown to SkyBase.

How to describe the essence of your product in a nutshell?

First, find out who is in front of you. To whom you are applying - to a potential client, investor, or person far from your line of business. This will help reduce the amount of information that needs to fit into the desired "couple of words." It is important for the client how your product will be useful in his work (well, or in something else, if you have a B2C product). An investor must believe that it is worth investing in you. And it’s just interesting for a person from the outside to learn about something new.

When you understand what interests your interlocutor, try to speak with him in the same language . It is not necessary to throw out all the information you own yourself on him - show him only that part of the product that is really important to him.

Let's return to our picture. It presents views on SkyBase from three different sides.



First, it is a platform for solving automation problems. The same designer, which we talked about in the beginning. The difference is that now such words as a platform and a constructor we speak only to those who understand them. This may be the developers who are looking for a tool to solve their problems. Or large customers who understand that the system they need in a finished form does not exist, and it will have to be developed on something.

The platform allows you to focus on the main thing and do not delve into all the technical details. You simply build an application from ready-made blocks, like a constructor.



Secondly, we have been doing custom development for several years now, and we have accumulated solutions to typical problems in various business areas:

• Selection of real estate parameters - for realtors;
• Scheduling classes - for the school of dancing;
• Accounting for rental equipment - for rental.

We sell some of them as ready-made solutions - you can immediately start working with the application, and then, if necessary, refine it.

We tell about ready-made solutions to those clients for whom we have such solutions :) It happens that there is not exactly what is needed, but rather close in functionality - then we show this example and talk about the possibility of any improvements. A person can immediately (without spending time and money on development) understand whether our solution is suitable for him and what changes in it will be required. Often, this approach is easier than from scratch to figure out what the “dream program” should look like.



We are talking about the third use of our product to companies that have complex business processes and a lot of specifics in accounting. Typical solutions are unlikely to suit such customers. In this case, we offer individual development on the SkyBase platform. And we embody any dreams of our clients :) And if in the process of working on a project it turns out that there are not enough opportunities, we do not back down - we are finalizing the platform and still embody the dream!

By the way, if you are also engaged in individual development, we invite you to cooperate . We will help you to master the new tool and in the future significantly save development time. In addition, you will receive a reward with your customers' payments.

Summarize

If you are going to offer the market something new and unusual, be prepared to face difficulties when describing your product. Nevertheless, the solution is:

• Try different options and look at the reaction. Do you understand? Do they understand correctly?
• Study your target audience and speak the same language with it.
• If there are several audiences, separate them and offer each one what they are interested in.

If you have a similar experience - share in the comments how you solved this problem.