“Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author
Eric Ries calls startups “human institutions designed to create a new product
or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.”
With that apt
description, he captures some of the challenges early-stage companies face:
Besides inadequate understanding of markets,
competitors and customer preferences, startups often struggle to define what
value their innovation brings to the market.
Acknowledging and addressing this challenge is a
critical first step in helping startups commercialize successfully; after all, how can you sell a product or
service if you can’t articulate its value?
It is an important tool in ultimately capturing your first
customer. The point is to make use of that tool to engage potential customers
and remove some of the uncertainty under which startups operate.
A value proposition is a short statement that clearly
communicates the benefits that your potential client gets by using your
product, service or idea. It "boils down" all the complexity of your
sales pitch into something that your client can easily grasp and remember.
It
needs to be very specific: Simply describing the features or capabilities of
your offer is not enough. Your value proposition must focus closely on what
your customer really wants and values.
Your customer wants to solve problems,
to improve on existing solutions, to have a better life, build a better business
or do more, better, faster.
Step 1: Know your
customer:
Who is he or she?
What does s/he do and
need?
What problems does s/he need to solve?
What improvements does s/he look
for?
What does s/he value?
Tip: If you don't know, ask!
It's easy to try to second guess what your
customers want. And very easy to get it wrong. So
do some market research: This could be a simple matter of asking customers
directly, or organizing a focus group or surveys. 'Market research' is not just
for external customers, it works for other 'markets' too: Depending on your
product or idea, your 'market' could be employees, colleagues, or even your
spouse.
Step 2: Know your
product, service or idea (more below).
From your
customer view point:
How does the product, service or idea solve the
problem or offer improvement?
What value and hard results does it offer the
customer?
Tip: Include numbers and percentages.
To grab your customer's attention even
faster in this financially-oriented world, your value proposition should also
speak percentages and numbers: How much will your customer gain, save or
improve? How much more efficient will he or she become? How much safer,
smarter, faster, brighter will the solution be? And so on.
Step 3: Know your competitors. Keep on thinking from the perspective of your customer, and ask: How
does your product or idea create more value than competing ones?
Step 4: Distill the
customer-oriented proposition. The final step is to
pull it all together and answer, in 2 or 3 sentence:
"Why should I buy
this specific product or idea?" Try writing from the customer viewpoint by
completing the following, (and don't forget to include the numbers and
percentages that matter!):
"I want to buy this product or idea because it
will...";
"The things I value most about the offer
are...";
"It is better than competing products or ideas
because..."
Step 5: Pull it all
together: Now, turn around your customers 'answer'
from step 4 into a value proposition statement.
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Step 2 - Identifying customer benefits:
Brainstorming the benefits you believe your product or service offers to customers is as simple as making a list.
The leap for many entrepreneurs is to be able to distinguish between what excites them about the technology and what value the product actually brings to the customer.
Keep in mind that your customer and the end-user of your product or service might not be the same. Differentiating between what your customer and the end-user perceive as value can help you communicate your value proposition more effectively.
Broadly speaking, all businesses deliver value in one or a combination of three categories of differentiation: 1) cost, 2) technology and 3) service.
These bases for differentiation include many value delivery mechanisms such as warranty, performance and accessibility.
Identifying which of these categories your product benefits fall into allows you to effectively differentiate yourself from your competition.
You can map your company’s value proposition on a chart with three axes for each of the bases of differentiation.
You can then identify where your strengths are.
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