Pivot to Your PMF Through A Robust Tech Platform
Product Market Fit – the elusive holy grail that every product owner is continuously trying to figure out, isn’t it? When one vector hits the target, the others don’t and when a few more are lined up well, another vector just spoils the party. We’ve all seen this, and we all have done what needs to be done – pivot. Changing customer needs don’t make it easy at all.
When you think of the role of technology in conjunction with PMF, you are usually looking at the usual suspects – data, analytics, predictive analytics, and more. Might as well throw in generative AI, for good measure, going with the way the wind is blowing today. But have you considered the role of technology from an entirely different perspective? The perspective of building a technology platform that enables you to pivot seamlessly or with minimal friction?
You might say – the platform is built based on the current requirements, why would I invest in building a technology platform for a use case that doesn’t exist? That’s a fair point but what we’re saying here is that a modular technology platform that enables you to pivot and go-to-market (GTM) quickly, rather than re-building your tech stack again from the ground-up?
Sounds interesting? Read on.
The Basics
The basic requirements of an industry stay similar unless you are building something that hasn’t been built before. It might have, you just might not have looked around well. Let’s enumerate the basic requirements:
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- Privacy
- Security
- Onboarding users
- Managing users
- Managing discounts and offers
- Engaging with users
- Scaling the platform
- Enabling the users to contact you
- Enabling the users to customize what they experience
- Delivering your product’s promise
While there could be more, this is a good enough list to begin with. Except number 10 above, all else is what you could term as basic requirements. These basic requirements form what we can call as the canopy that your product’s promise is built enclosed within. But hey, the pivot comes into play because the product’s promise is not what the users are happy with! True. And that’s again, where a customized and modular technology platform comes in.
Pivoting made easy
Your product’s pivot will still stay true to the fundamentals of the business that you have ventured in. What would change is the mode of delivery, the features that you are offering, and the price point that you are offering the product at. Let’s dive deep into the features. Let’s assume that you have built a Rich-Text Editor (RTE) that you envisaged, would be used by learning management systems through a subscription. You’ve got everything in place – customizable fonts, formatting, ability to embed images, video, formulae, and the likes. Your GTM is sorted, and your website starts clocking the sales. And then, you start getting feedback from users.
“There are no gridlines to align the content.”
“There should be a way to edit the images.”
“Why can’t I have changes in track mode?”
The list begins to grow longer, as do the posts on discussion forums highlighting the shortcomings ‘from the users’ perspective. What would you do? Now these are features that are available in many products but not in RTEs available in the market. You sense an opportunity and pivot to a full-suite, rather than piling on small features to the existing product. The pivot also means that each additional feature could be bundled with the product or could be an add-on for additional subscription revenue.
While the subscription bit is taken care of by the basics that we had listed out, a modular technology platform would enable you to introduce these features without much effort. And how’s that possible? That’s possible through an architecture that’s seamless and flexible. Think of it as an additional API setup, rather than a new technology module. With scalability and enhancements already covered in the basics, it’s an iterative effort and not an entirely new effort.
Does it sound too theoretical?
Well, it isn’t. We have built similar platforms where product pivots could be executed in a matter of lower single-digit weeks, without disrupting the existing platform and the user flows. The underlying layer architected by us enabled a fintech client to introduce loan management facility to their existing fintech stack without any disruptions or for the need for additional inputs from the users, except their signing up for the product.
We have also built platforms where an LMS could be integrated with an AI agent without any disruption, enabling the users to create high quality content through the AI agents’ help. We were able to build these layers alongside the existing platform, and not over it, to ensure that there’s modularity in the tech stack.
Who can we do this for?
Like we mentioned, we’ve done this for fintech, loans and learning management platforms. But the same approach and architecture can be extended to supply chain, manufacturing, retail, or any other industry for that matter. The secret sauce is the architecture and we’ve been building architecture platforms for over three decades.
Talk to us to know how we can help you build your technology platform in a way that you don’t end up spending much more on that pivot from a tech point of view. Helping with sleepless nights to figure the pivot out is something we can’t do, but we sure can help take the sleeplessness out when it comes to your technology platform.