Providing an "everything for everyone" solution is actually possible when you have an amazing dev team — but then you're in the services business. You don't have a product, or product-market fit, if everyone uses you differently or each customer is seeking a bespoke solution. There's a lot of "services-led" conversation happening right now, which I'm supportive of, but when you're selling a product, you need to start building guardrails as you gather technical requirements.
The conventional approach is to answer the "what is your ICP" question, but that frankly limits what many companies need to solve at the early stages of this new wave of AI-first companies. People genuinely don't understand how easy it has become to build certain features now. As exciting as that sounds, it can also make your life a lot harder.
Maybe you've started doing services-esque work on a specific set of product requirements, but your customers' asks keep stretching your team too thin against an already compounding backlog.
Start defining what your product does
This is where you need to define what your product does based on what you've built for the initial cohort of companies using it. You must define what is table stakes, what is uniquely differentiated, and what is the specific workflow that earns technical wins. If you can't, keep digging.
Here's what your v1 should start to look like — teaching people how to evaluate your product and translate that into value. Start with a general overview so someone can ground themselves in what the product is supposed to do:
- Define 2–3 primary things your product does today that get people to experience the value (even if they don't know it yet).
- Spell out what they'll evaluate when using your product for a set number of days — for example, accuracy of suggestions and the quality of what they ship (bonus points if it's faster).
- Show how using [Product] compares to their previous workflow.
Then build guardrails
If you've already mastered the above, now is the time to build guardrails on feature requests. As a repeat set of problems emerges from quality customers, you've started to find fit. Repeatability isn't just about consistently bringing in revenue — it's about solving a repeatable problem that brings in revenue and helps you reach your first $10M+.
You may know how to drive an evaluation, and people may be open to purchasing, but the repeat challenge is that prospects need a feature you don't quite have yet. This will be an ongoing challenge no matter how successful you become, but it's important to start being more definitive about what you can offer rather than constantly being an "everything for everyone" solution.
What [Product] will help [Prospect] achieve:
- The 2–3 core capabilities you deliver today.
- Future: a roadmap item being released next month. Signal that it's being built, but make the purchase on what exists today. Commit to it — and make sure it's something you were already planning to build, but were hoping a customer like this would ask you to pull forward.
You don't need to commit to that future item until you have alignment from someone who can sign off on the purchase.
The best products let you build the best repeatable revenue business out there.