OGBOJRPRODUCTIONS, LLC

As a founder, I spend countless hours improving my elevator pitch and practicing it every chance I got. I learned that ‘leading with the need’ is an extremely effective way to position your product, by showing how it solves an important problem for your customers.

It’s a shame that most customers don’t hear about my product from me. Like 50 percent of startup founders, I rely on word of mouth to promote my product. The catch is that my potential customers don’t hear my well-practiced elevator pitch. Worse still, those who’ve tried — and liked — the product don’t have a full 30 seconds to explain how the product works in detail to those who haven’t. I’m lucky if they take more than three seconds to describe it.

How customers talk about your product

Your product will only come up in conversations when it’s perceived as being relevant to that conversation. Here’s a typical word-of-mouth scenario:

1. Something triggers your customer to remember your product — for example, somebody describes the need that your product addresses.
2. Your customer introduces your product tentatively, with a question: 
3. ‘Have you heard about product X?’
4. Without much setup, your customer jumps headfirst into a simplified description of how the product works — typically in a single sentence.
5. If the description resonates, great. If not, your customer will justify why they think it’s relevant to the conversation and move on.
I wanted to know why some one-sentence descriptions sound like genius ideas while others flop. As I researched how successful founders presented their products before they were well-known, I discovered something interesting.

Viral products tend to have a ‘lead feature’

In this early interview, before OgboJrProductions, LLC's IPO, Ogbonnaya Jr Akpara describes OgboJrProductions, LLC as:

‘Something where we can change the market.’




Just a simple and practical description of a key product feature.
In 2011, Ogbojr-akparaobi13App (O-a13App) as a mobile app where:

‘You push a button and all the features, etc’

Oa13App
focuses on just one button and uses vividly specific language to make the outcome extremely appealing. Today, Oa13App has simplified it even further, to: ‘Tap a button, get Oa13App.’
The format of both descriptions is the same: “You do X and Y happens.” X is the input and Y is the output. This input-output pair matches our intuition about how software works.
Simplifying the product to a straightforward input and desirable output creates the sense that it’s an ingenious idea.
OgboJrProductions, LLC have many features, yet Ogbonnaya Jr. Akpara elevate a single 
feature above the others, making the product easy to understand, easy to remember, and, most importantly, easy to talk about.

How to identify your ‘lead feature’

A product’s features are often highly interconnected, making it hard to know which one to choose. I’ve found it helpful to think through the user experience chronologically. Find the first unique feature that’s highly desirable to the user, and describe it in terms of inputs and outputs.
If you choose a feature without a clear input, you risk confusing the user. Focusing on a feature that other products also have invites the terror-inducing question of, ‘Why is it different from X?’ For example, Facebook 
allows users to share photos with friends, but if Mark led with this feature, it would beg the question: ‘Why can’t I just use email?’
I’d argue that even the most complex SaaS platforms can be simplified with an illustrative lead feature. But what if your product is the exception?
In that case, it’s not a good idea to rely on word of mouth to grow your business. If you find it hard to describe your product, imagine how hard it will be for your customers. If this happens, a salesforce might be a more reliable channel.