The Anatomy of a FAILED Product

I’d like to share a story with you guys that you might find interesting. Some might be able to relate to it, some might not, but hopefully you can learn something from it. If nothing else, maybe you’ll find it interesting.So a number of months ago, I did something that I told myself I’d never do. I innovated. Let me explain. When it comes to entrepreneurship and product development, before you can sell your product, people need to understand what it is. If you’re selling a cell phone, a dress, or an improved car jack, people understand these things. This means that you can spend your time promoting the relative advantages of your product (easy to digest) rather than explaining what it is or what problem it solves (hard to digest).Unlike the services and widgets we know and understand today, products that are truly innovative or different can sometimes require explanation. If you’ve developed such a product, rather than spending your precious marketing dollars and the 0.3s of attention that your ads get pumping your product, you have to focus on explaining what it is you’re selling and what problem it solves. For a startup with limited marketing funds, no brand recognition, and an audience that is anything but captive, this can be very, very difficult and challenges the likelihood of success.I knew these things when I got into this product, but I thought that I’d give it a shot as the marginal cost of developing was only about a month worth of dev time. What was the result? A total blow out.- No one understood the product- Constant questions regarding the product followed by even more confusion- 0 sales and 0 persistent interestWhy am I sharing this? It’s a product that has failed, not my business. This was an extension of the product.What was this disasterous product?White Label Software. Specifically, white label software for a super easy-to-use website builder for service based businesses that featured online booking, payments, invoicing, customer management, surveys, calendar, etc.What is white label software? It’s software that is developed by a vendor who gives you the ability to brand the software as your own and sell it or access to it to other people/businesses. For example, let's assume that Spotify was white label software. If your name was Jimmy, Spotify would license the software to you, you would then brand the software as Jimmy's Online Music and sell subscriptions to it. It would be identical to Spotify aside from the branding. Spotify would provide you with with the tools to manage customers, answer basic support questions, and control pricing. In return, Spotify may require you to pay them for a flat fee upfront, a monthly fee, commission on each sale you make, or a combination of these things.You can market it where you want, how you want, and will own the brand that you create for it. The company who has developed the software would be responsible for everything on the technical end, including security, enhancements, and bug fixes.With so many people interested in running a tech company without wanting to learn how to code, spending years, or a spending small fortune developing their own SaaS, I thought that this would be a reasonable approach – Pay our company $1,000 up front and $10 per sale and run a business using the platform we had invested years building.Unfortunately, this made sense to 0 people. Obviously, with the marketing that I did, I wasn’t able to explain all of this in this detail. I created landing pages that outlined the business model in low detail. Those didn’t work. I created landing pages that outlined the business model in high detail. Those didn’t work. I spent $200 on an explainer video. Again, just confusion.Most white label solutions are designed to supplement existing businesses. In other words, they allow established business to provide their clients with a piece of high quality software to supplement the other offerings that they provide them with. Eg. software for ad agencies that allows their client to interact with the results from ad campagins. I could be wrong, but a turnkey SaaS whose value proposition doesn’t require additional offerings may not be common (maybe it is, haven’t spent much time searching them out).This failed product could be a combination of how different the product is or my inability to market. I’ve accepted that it’s not going to work out, and that’s fine. I’m not a professional marketer not do I pretend to be. What I’ve learned is that, going forward, unless I have significant resources, I’ll stick with products that people can relate to and understand. For now, I’ll stick with more traditional means of advertising and promotion to generate sales.So what made up this failed product?- High upfront price ($1000) combined with little brand recognition- Innovative product that customers weren't able to understand or relate to a product they could understand- A marketing campaign that may have been targeted at the wrong audience- A marketing campaign that failed to outline the core benefits of the product​If no one understands this post and if it gets 0 upvotes or comments, I think it would be a fitting end to this saga.Have a great saturday!Jason see hubwealthy.com/wealthy