What Feature Will They Talk About?
Your business will grow through word of mouth or it won’t grow at all.
Any sort of effective marketing will likely be too expensive and organic/viral growth from social channels is unpredictable (a nice way of saying it won’t happen).
The way you’ll grow is one customer having an experience that forces them to tell a friend about it.
So, before you worry about product, make sure your customers already happily, readily talk with each other. If they don’t, you’re making your life hard (a nice way of saying your business probably won’t work).
If they do talk, our job is to make sure we orchestrate the moment they’ll talk about.
People share “Delta 4s” - when an experience in their life jumps 4 spots on the “out of 10” scale. If walking their dog each morning used to be a 4 out of 10, and you make it an 8 out of 10, they won’t shut up about it and your dog walking service will grow.
The question then becomes what, specifically, will make it clear that the experience has jumped? It’s usually solving for the hardest part of the existing process.
So, if I particularly dislike walking my dog in the morning on really cold days (I don't, Ruby is the best, but you get it), a “feature” that would be shareable might be that the service supplies winter dog coats. This works on a bunch of levels - if the goal is to share, a coat is something people will take pictures of (and send to other dog owners). It also drives home the cold thing - it’s so cold your dog needs a jacket, but you’re warm and happy inside. the 4/10 to 8/10 change smacks the customer in the face. And, finally, it feels instinctively hard - you need to buy the coat, bring it, wash it, etc. But, think of it as your marketing cost. It’s far cheaper to buy a $50 dog coat that gets you five new customers than to figure out how to get Instagram ads to convert people.
When you add features, especially early on, they need to either be:
Absolutely critical to the single function of the product
Something you’re confident customers will both talk about and drive home the Delta 4 value
What feature will your customers talk about?