ProductA product manager at a 20–500 person company

When the product serves several kinds of customer, I want to know which to build for, so I do not build something adequate for everyone and good for nobody.

Khi sản phẩm phục vụ nhiều nhóm khách khác nhau, tôi muốn biết nên làm cho nhóm nào, để không xây một thứ vừa đủ cho ai cũng không đủ tốt cho ai.

Job context

Who: A product manager at the growth stage
When: When two customer groups pull in opposite directions
Trigger: A feature that pleases one group and loses the other
Situation: Both groups pay and both are right
Constraints: Not enough capacity to serve both well, and dropping either loses revenue now

Two groups need opposite things
High
Simple for one group is missing features for the other.
Root cause: One product is sold against two different problems
The largest revenue is not the group most worth serving
High
The biggest payers can be the hardest to serve and the slowest growing.
Root cause: Current revenue is measurable; potential is not
Dropping a group costs revenue immediately
High
The benefit of focus arrives several quarters later.
Root cause: The cost of focus precedes its benefit
Nobody wants to name the group to drop
Medium
Every customer group has someone internally attached to it.
Root cause: The organisation's structure mirrors the current customer base
The product grows complex for everyone
High
Serving both makes the product heavier for both.
Root cause: Every added feature is cognitive cost for those who do not use it

A solution is not the same thing as a product — a customer can hire a behaviour or a workaround too.

Segment the customer base
Product
Shows the groups and says nothing about which to pick.
Build two product editions
Product
Avoids choosing and doubles maintenance forever.
Look at retention by group
Behaviour
The best available signal of which group the product actually fits.
Hide features per segment
Workaround
Product people hide complexity instead of removing it.
Let the market decide by doing nothing
Behaviour
The default decision, always favouring the loudest group.

Focus decisions are made on current revenue because it is the number at hand, while the real question is which group the product fits.
Why existing solutions fail: Every financial system aggregates by revenue; fit is a judgement about the future, and no system stores judgements.
Potential opportunity: Reading fit from retention and depth of use by segment, both already in the data.
The cost of focus is immediate and its benefit is several quarters away, and that middle is where every focus decision gets reversed.
Why existing solutions fail: Reporting is quarterly, so a decision costing this quarter and paying in the fourth looks like a mistake in three consecutive reports.
Potential opportunity: Committing in advance to a period during which the focus decision will not be revisited, agreed at the moment of deciding.