8 ms·

Unfortunately I think calling this will create an equal amount of questions.

by sdesol 17y ago

noodle 17y ago
if you're trying to sell a product, isn't this what you want, though? the open door to talk more about your product?
- sdesol 17y ago
  That is true, but I'm more concerned about the skeptical part. Take "ismarc" comment. Clearly this is a problem that is not fairly understood and it's something I'll need to better explain. The challenge is comparing it to something, but the closes thing that I can think of is it's an ALM but I really don't want to sell it as such.
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  No. Describe something too generally, and too much outside of the scope of existing understanding, and people will not only not be able to find you (because they were searching for things they know and understand that might solve their problems), the folks who accidentally do find you will move along because they already tend to know what they're looking for, and a vague description won't match that. We know all about this problem. Our products cover a ridiculously wide array of problems, and they're named a bit confusingly (historic reasons, and several years too late to change), and we have a lot of problems with folks not understanding what our products do. And, somehow we often end up getting tons of questions about a very small subset of related things that we don't do (at OSCON we heard "so how is this better than Nagios?" about 25 times a day, and our products don't really compete or overlap with Nagios in any significant way). Be very specific. If it means you have several landing pages that cover various aspects of your products capabilities, so be it. If it means you break your product up into modules so that you can be specific about what each one does, so be it. You cannot win if your product description is too vague for people to know exactly what you do. People are looking to solve problems; they are not generally looking to learn new things. Besides all that, if you can't describe what you're doing in a few words, and have most folks understand it, you are probably doing a lot of work you don't need to do (yet). Focus on solving real problems that real people have. When you have real customers, you will then find that they provide the guidance you need to keep moving forward without losing your focus or your ability to communicate with new customers. Reinventing an entire market, and rewriting the language people use to describe things, is generally not something that you can do solo.
  - sdesol 17y ago
    Thanks. That was really helpful advice.

Unfortunately I think calling this will create an equal amount of questions.

by sdesol 17y ago

Unfortunately I think calling this will create an equal amount of questions.

noodle 17y ago

if you're trying to sell a product, isn't this what you want, though? the open door to talk more about your product?

sdesol 17y ago
That is true, but I'm more concerned about the skeptical part. Take "ismarc" comment. Clearly this is a problem that is not fairly understood and it's something I'll need to better explain. The challenge is comparing it to something, but the closes thing that I can think of is it's an ALM but I really don't want to sell it as such.
SwellJoe 17y ago
No. Describe something too generally, and too much outside of the scope of existing understanding, and people will not only not be able to find you (because they were searching for things they know and understand that might solve their problems), the folks who accidentally do find you will move along because they already tend to know what they're looking for, and a vague description won't match that. We know all about this problem. Our products cover a ridiculously wide array of problems, and they're named a bit confusingly (historic reasons, and several years too late to change), and we have a lot of problems with folks not understanding what our products do. And, somehow we often end up getting tons of questions about a very small subset of related things that we don't do (at OSCON we heard "so how is this better than Nagios?" about 25 times a day, and our products don't really compete or overlap with Nagios in any significant way). Be very specific. If it means you have several landing pages that cover various aspects of your products capabilities, so be it. If it means you break your product up into modules so that you can be specific about what each one does, so be it. You cannot win if your product description is too vague for people to know exactly what you do. People are looking to solve problems; they are not generally looking to learn new things. Besides all that, if you can't describe what you're doing in a few words, and have most folks understand it, you are probably doing a lot of work you don't need to do (yet). Focus on solving real problems that real people have. When you have real customers, you will then find that they provide the guidance you need to keep moving forward without losing your focus or your ability to communicate with new customers. Reinventing an entire market, and rewriting the language people use to describe things, is generally not something that you can do solo.
- sdesol 17y ago
  Thanks. That was really helpful advice.