Balderton

The product is the company

DEC 19, 2016

There are certain general characteristics that the leading products and services have in common.I believe that user experience (UX) is something reflects the culture of the company, its soul. If an investor intends to learn more about a company, they should meet the product/UX team, as doing so will shed light on the team’s ability to adapt and iterate based on user-feedback.How the product differs from competitors is equally vital, and can manifest in very different ways: price, offer, convenience, efficiency, reliability, integration, use-case, or acquisition channels.Sustainability is important, but difficult to analyse. It can be argued that most successful businesses started as arbitrages, and then redefined the markets that they serve. Therefore their sustainability was born from the fact that they (at least partially) created their own market-expectations, rather than demonstrated that they could be ‘sustainable’ in existing conditions.The main thing to remember is that a ‘product’ involves more than just a product team. Product is the net-result of the whole team’s effort. For your product or service to really ‘click’ with the market, it has to click within the company first.Anna Boffetta is an Associate at Balderton CapitalREAD MORE ARTICLES