Four stages of market development

There are four stages to the development of a market for a product:¹

In the beginning the most important thing is technology. We’re trying to discover what it is possible to make, and what is the best way to make it. However, as soon as there is competition, the most important thing is features. It becomes less about what the technology does and much more about what the customer wants or needs to use the technology to do.

That continues to be true for as long as customers still care about missing functionality. Once the various competing products and services in a market have feature parity, the differentiator becomes experience or how it makes customers feel. This is often more about subjective things like brand and design.

Finally, once customers can no longer tell the difference between different options, the product or service has become a commodity and the only differentiator is price. The most successful products at this point will be those that can be produced efficiently at scale.

So,

1. Technology (until there is competition)
2. Features (while customers still care about missing functionality)
3. Experience (for as long as customers can tell the difference between different options)
4. Price (once it’s a commodity)

Each of those stages require different skills and likely different people.