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WTF is a WOW! Moment?
WOW! Moments are the building blocks of product market fit
'Product market fit is the most important thing to get right as a startup entrepreneur. There's a variety of ways to do it, but without solving some pain point that the customer gets so excited about they tell their friends, it's really hard in the modern age to get any liftoff'
The hard truth: It's unlikely that we are going to get to product market fit in a day, a week, or a few months. And that's OK. What we are going to do instead is to get the Building Blocks of Product Market Fit, which happen one step at a time, through iteration.
Those Building Blocks are the pieces of your product that drive immediate value for a very small subset of your overall market, that get them really, really excited, and are interesting and valuable enough that your target customer knows they NEED you and your product.... Right Now!
We call these building blocks Product WOW! Moments.
"Product/Market Fit Myths:
Myth #1: Product market fit is always a discrete, big bang event;
Myth #2: It's patently obvious when you have product/market fit"
Ben Horowitz, Cofounder and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
WOW! Moments You'll Recognize
TESLA: Tapping the steering wheel to start the car
twilio: Communicating without sacrificing customer privacy
Dropbox: Sharing a file without a USB stick
+ableau: From a spreadsheet to a dynamic chart in 2 clicks
Square: Fast settlement on premise at a small business
“WOW! Moments” is inspired by P&G's “moments of truth”.
P&G pioneered the concept of brand loyalty and said that every customer had 2 moments of truth: Seeing a product in store + opening a package for the first time. These had to be “WOW!” moments for the customer because P&G was selling largely undifferentiated products.
But the principle holds true for complex, differentiated technology products as well because these moments communicate the value of a product immediately.
The Goal of WOW! Moments
1. Acquisition (conversion)
2. Activation (usage)
All successful early stage products have at least 1-3 WOW! Moments that drive customer acquisition and activation.
These WOW! Moments will have a few things in common:
- They will solve the primary pain point in a new way
- The WOW! moment will almost always be contained in one screen
- To an early adopter who gets the problem, it will need limited explanation
- It delivers on your company's core value proposition in a vacuum
- They will add an excitement later to your product
The faster your audience experiences that WOW!, and the easier it is for them to see...the faster you are going to land (more) customers.
One WOW! moment will give you a toehold for a subsegment, and then you can build around that to get to product market fit.
The Journey to WOW!
Customer Discovery. Confirm that they have the problem. Then ask: what would solve this for you? How? What would you pay for it? Walk me through the use case.
Find Value. Take the customer responses and find the core themes that people will pay for as part of a solution.
Brainstorm Moments. Stack rank the value: how can you cleanly and concisely deliver a quick solve for one or more of the 'chargable' value pieces.
Build Prototypes. Try it out! Does it get to the value ASAP? It is easy to understand what it's doing?
Test With Customers. Go back to the original customers. Show them the prototype, and ask if they would pay. Yes = new customer. No = why not + back to Discovery.
Code It Up. They like it? Now build it
"While you're alive there's no time for minor amazements.' - Alice Fulton
The Two Types of WOW! Moments
Visible Moments
When the value of your product is visible (usually around data dashboards or other visual Ul elements).
How to show it to potential customers
- Fill demo dashboards with dummy data
- Create clickable interactive demos on your website
- Explain the process on your website using screenshots
Invisible Moments
When the value of your product is intangible (speed, encryption, backend processes, etc.)
How to show it to potential customers
- Speed: Add a visual explainer of "from this to that" to explain what happens
- Encryption: Visually explain the negative / bad thing that doesn't happen
- Process: Show backend process in Ul or visuals
"A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them." - Steve Jobs
WOW! Case Study: PRIVATE ΑΙ
Private Al is a data & privacy startup out of Toronto who built a Machine Learning product that redacts consumer data on the edge (your device) BEFORE it reaches the cloud, so that customers don't have to worry about their data.
Problem: The team was getting lots of demos everyone agreed privacy mattered – but no sales.
Solution: Private Al encrypts data - an invisible process. They added an interactive visual on their website to demonstrate what a computer might read once their software has properly encrypted data. This became their WOW! Moment - and while it is does not actually exist in their product, it simply and visually captures the value that the product delivers as a whole, without a lengthy explanation of their encryption technology.
My name is Gagand 1]. I live in [LOCATION_1] and and make $200,000 per year as a [OCCUPATION_1]. manager. My birthday is [DATE_1], so I am [AGE_1] years old. years old. I am a Cermanent resident. My social security nunthar is [SSN_1] and I go back to Punjab once a yeice a year. I am [RELIGION_1] from lots of differer m lots of different backgrounds.
Customer: Hi, I'm calling about a lost credit card. Agent: Sure, what's the number?
Customer: 8734 9295 4914 2001
Agent: Ok great. So I'll pull up your account here. I just need to confirm your birth date with you. Customer: 8th of Novemy, 1949
Agent: Thanks and your phone number? Customer: 893-592-2593
Agent: Thank you for confirming with me.
Result: The second they stopped talking about their machine learning black box and added these interactive visuals, they went from having a lot of conversations to customers saying they need that.
Activity: Getting to WOW!
How to Know if a WOW! moment worked? You Know Your WOW! Moments Are Working When...
Quantitative Signals
Low touch / SMB
Customers go from visit sign up: Value is clear
Conversion from demo → paid: They like the product enough to give it a go
Conversion from free trial paid: Internal use case is clear (and worth it)
Customer use and engagement metrics: They like the product / it's delivering for them
Mid-market / enterprise
Demo next steps: WOW! moments are obvious and up front
Reduced time to close: Clear WOW! moments speed up the sales process
Customer use and engagement metrics: They like the product / it's delivering for them
Customer referrals: They are spending social capital to tell others about the value of your productYou Know Your WOW! Moments Are Working When...Qualitative Signals
What are they saying? Are they referring you? How are they reacting to demos? Can you get them back on the line?
What They Say...
1. "We could use this for X, Y, Z thing"
2. "How much is it?"
3. "Does it have security feature X, Y, Z?"
4. "This would have helped me with..."
What They Mean... (Respetively)
1. They are thinking about tangible use cases within their business versus the idea in abstract.
2. They are bought into the value and are thinking about purchase viability.
3. They like the value you deliver and are now thinking about how your solution integrates into existing systems.
4. They wish they had the product sooner / definitely have problem- solution fit with your product's value.
WOW! Moment Pitfalls & Traps
The Sales Trap
When you have problem agreement but not a solution agreement
What it looks like
Idea agreement only
• 'That makes sense - seems like a great idea. Let me circulate with my team'
• 'Yeah, that happens here a lot. I need to check with X before committing though'
Getting out of the trap
• Ask what they need to see in order to justify spending money on the solution.
• Ask what problems they feel this solution won't solve.
• Possibly: inquire about a (paid) proof of value trial to build trust with limited risk.
The SMB Trap
Putting the WOW moment after sign up
What it looks like
If you are an SMB tool trying to primarily get your customers via online tools (or some demand gen), it is common to try to drive sign ups before exposing the WOW Moment.Getting out of the trap
• Visualize the WOW moment on your website so customers see it before they sign up.
• Create an interactive / clickable demo on your website populated with dummy data.
The Mid-Market / Enterprise Trap
Demo'ing features instead of WOW! moments
What it looks like
For Mid Market or Enterprise, it's very common to take people on a feature-focused demo of the product. This isn't great because people can't retain that much and 80% of your product is just undifferentiated workflow stuff that doesn't matter.Getting out of the trap
Rather than walk through the whole product, you want to do the following:
• Confirm the problem.
• Get them to describe the cost / value of the problem / solution set.
• Show them the WOW! that directly addresses the problem / solution set you confirmed.
A WOW! Approach to Enterprise Demos
WOW! Moments Summary
WOW! Moments are the 'must have' pieces of any sales cycle, and the building blocks to product-market fit.
You get to WOW! Moments by talking to your customers, and relentlessly iterating those key pieces of your product.
When WOW! Moments are invisible, make them visible with visualizations or words.
There are qualitative and quantitative signals to know your WOW! moments are working.
Put your WOW! Moments before your demos and sign ups flows.
Now... go create your WOWs!
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