In a previous email I talked about the laundry list of mistakes Peloton has made recently and the fallout they might experience because of it. Well, turns out big changes were coming because the CEO has stepped down. My last message was about the product pricing mistakes I feel they made. Those changes have undoubtedly had…
There are lots of reasons products fail. I like to focus on the biggest ones so you are aware and can avoid them. The one I want to talk about today is premature scaling. Premature scaling can be understood as attempting to grow your business faster and out of sync with your product. A lot has…
I’ve read through a lot of sales ‘advice’ throughout my career and much of it has focused on people. It seems many think that to be successful in sales you need a particular personality, usually an outgoing, extraverted personality. If fact, there’s a lot of data that suggests that introverts are typically more successful as…
I’ve been writing a lot about product companies adding subscriptions to their business model for features that were previously provided for free. I want you to know why this has become so popular. The subscription model is highly profitable and recurring revenue often sees a much higher multiple if and when a company decides to…
There’s a movement underway related to sleep tracking and what’s referred to as bio-hacking. Some of it gets a little out there, but in general it’s related to health and wellness. One popular subcategory is sleep tracking. As such, smart devices are gaining real traction to help us with this effort. One such example is the…
reMarkable is an e-ink tablet manufacturer and full disclosure, I have one and I use it all the time which makes this email hurt just a little bit more. I want to talk to you about some recent pricing changes made by Remarkable regarding their product. Remarkable sells a premium, but rather simple product. It’s basically a…
Netflix is everywhere today, but that wasn’t always the case. At one point, they were the new kid on the block and the incumbents weren’t taking them seriously – much to their own demise. Netflix has experienced continued success throughout the course of their company’s journey which has required them to reinvent who they are a…
Peloton is a company that has attempted to bring the interactive group exercise experience to the comfort of your home. They make bikes and treadmills with an interactive screen that tracks your progress and enables you to get a ‘class like’ experience from anywhere. The devices aren’t cheap (several thousand dollars minimum) and are getting…
Most product companies think of competition all wrong. One of my favorite stories about competition comes from the software company Intuit who makes the product TurboTax. When telling the story of how TurboTax came to be to a large audience, the team at Intuit first conducts a poll to see who they think their competitors…
Product pricing is tricky. You’ve got a lot to consider when designing the business model for your product. Are you scaring people away by charging too much? Are you leaving money on the table or looking foolish by charging too little? At the end of the day, there’s a lot of analysis paralysis going on…