Product-Value Fit
Is product-value fit more important that product-market fit? Actually, they are two sides of the same coin. However, unless you can have your value correctly defined, sustaining continued growth in the realm of the market will be tougher.
I recently came across a report on the “rise” User Generated Content, which almost made it seem that the author had stumbled upon it very recently. It waxed eloquent about the ability for content platforms to produce and curate content at much greater scale and serve the long-tail much better.
But the point is that it has been around for some time now. In fact, much of the modern web has been built around democratizing information and content. Think Facebook, Twitter, Instagram — in fact, any social media; the large majority of youth content platforms; and even larger legacy organizations like BBC and CNN that have had citizen journalist programs at some point or another. TIME Magazine named “You” as the Person of the Year in 2006.
So, why talk about it now?
There is no doubt that it is a powerful tool. It helps content and news organizations bring a multiplicity of views at very low costs and distribute it to its audiences who find the voice/tone more relatable, thereby causing a positive feedback loop in engagement & retention metrics. It also forms the bedrock of some of the most impactful and influential content companies, including some of those that we have invested in.
However, while on the one hand low cost and relatability enable scalability, on the other hand low entry barriers have also seen the emergence of bad actors spreading non-factual/harmful content either willfully or unwittingly.
And when something is so systemically entrenched, rather than regulate or control the platforms, it may make better sense to take a look at aligning the business and social incentives.
What does that mean?
It means that UGC is easy to scale, but a pain to quality check. In many situations and economies, UGC might be the only viable way to gather information. Similarly, it might also be the most powerful way to spread messages — both good and bad. It is a powerful tool to create pools of information that allow millions to live better. But this tool must be wielded in a way that feeds only the good monster’s hunger. And the way to do it is to introspect on the business model.
Finding the Product-Value fit
“If your beliefs and values are in tension with your business model, you’ve got a real problem.” Jimmy Wales, Co-founder, Wikipedia
This is something that Wikipedia did very early on because he right value proposition always has its own strong and loyal market. And if served well, it can benefit from network externalities to become the behemoth that it is today — a large, scalable platform, completely dependent on volunteers to contribute, edit and maintain neutrality. And where does the value part fit it? It’s in their goal to present each and every piece of content fairly, and not seek the ultimate truth (because that may often be one-sided).
Similarly, Josh Talks in India navigates the product-value fit very well. Unlike Wikipedia, it is a for-profit organization, but in its heart and values it is an organization that genuinely cares about the problems that millions of under-privileged youth experience in India. Therefore, it is able to draw a straight line from the value that it serves to its communities by way of motivational content that it curates from amongst its community, to the value that its community, in turn, bestows upon Josh (Skills) by trusting it to provide educational content that helps them beyond academics.
The bottomline
As always, the solution (how to do) lies in the answer to 3 questions: (1) Why does an (content) organization exist? (2) Who does it serve? (3) What value does it seek to create?
