One to Many – Scaling your Product to Grow Revenue

You've accomplished the PoC phase successfully. You've even managed to bring onboard 1-2 design partners. Now you need to scale your business to grow revenue.

This is only one aspect of 'one to many'.

The second aspect is to scale your product to grow revenue – from a product which supports only one end-user at a time per deployment / installation, to a product which can service multiple end-users at once. From a product which was (probably) built from a general concept, to a product with a clear vision and an actionable strategy.

These two aspects must align in order for the company to succeed.

Why?

If your product is scaled to support millions of end-users at a time, while your business goals are aiming for SMBs, then the scaling the product in this manner is a waste of time, money, and loss of focus.

If your product is scaled to support 10x of end-users at once, but your business goals are focused on Enterprises or OEMs with 100kx end-users at a time, then you might miss your chance in getting the prospects you are aiming for, and the time & money spent is wasted.

If you continue treating your product as a concept w/o a clear vision & strategy to show the way, odds are you will have very little success in managing your customers and their requirements – whether it's consent to add a feature to the product's roadmap immediately / at a later phase or time / using a step approach / or rejecting all together as it does not align with the vision and strategy.

This is the exact manner to de-focus, continue being a tech-services company rather than a Product (led) company.

Learning how to say ‘No’ to a customer / prospect is an essential capability for a Product company and especially for a company aspiring to become one.

More times than not, it's easier said the done.

Mostly due financial reasons, as usually SUs have very limited funding and budget, so every paying customer introducing a new (paid) requirement gets priority. This approach often yields forcing a product built as a Demo to become an Operational product, rather than the other way around.

To avoid this waste of time & money it is highly recommended to have a cohesive and coherent plan in place – which plan?

It depends…it depends whether your company is Business-led or Product-led.

If your company is a Business-led Product company, and assuming your company is/wants to be a Product company, then the product strategy needs to derive from both the product vision and the current business plan.

On the other hand, if your company is a Product-led company, then your product strategy must derive from the product vision and the product penetration market (segment) chosen from it, while the business plan should derive from both the product strategy and chosen market.

Bottom line, a clear& coherent Product Vision accompanied by a Product Strategy plan will keep you focused on your company's market and customers, shorten your product's Time-To-Market, and save your company time & money in developing the right product while increasing your revenue potential, not to mention it completes the business plans that gives potential investors a holistic clear view on how the company is aiming to achieve its goals – thus increasing the company's valuation.

Need assistance in scaling from one to many?