Finding a principle of growth
In this edition, I explore how increasing accessibility is the engine of product growth.
Growth : The pulse of a healthy product
All four dimensions - viable, valuable, usable and feasible of a product are in harmony when a product is healthy. I wrote it in new roles like product management in context of product building.
A product has to be valuable to its targeted customers, usable to its existing customers while being viable to scope further and feasible to build.
These define the status of a healthy product but not the path to achieve it. The path is paved through growing the product into harmonious status.
While there is sufficient novel literature and resourceful guides out there on growth, I am trying to define a principle that is common across all stages of product, be it 0-1, 1- 10 or 10-100, a core systemic framework that will help me understand growth to alter its rate.
The pursuit of growth leads to increased accessibility of the product. This inadvertently brings the value that any product creates to a wider set of people.
One could increase access (growth rate) through any of the work-streams we discussed in product triangle.
Thus, the goal of a product in the long run should be increasing the access of its underlying function(value) to a larger set of people(customers).
This fits with scenarios I experienced in the past journey of 0-1 and 1-10. I will share a scenario each to illustrate the principle of access being at core for growth.
Public Transit -> 0-1
The principle of growth clicked when reading through a threaded post by Adrianna Tan while writing about her public transit commute to work.
The only reliable way to get from San Francisco to Monterey without driving is the $62pp airport shuttle from SFO. Kind of nuts given how a major global tourist attraction is in Monterey (my employer). It all assumes everyone drives and everyone drives because there aren’t good transit options
A product in this space would benefit and grow organically if it makes public transit more accessible to all the residents/tourists of the city.
And, the goal of public transit system would be to increase the access for commuters who don’t, can’t or won’t use their own modes of transport.
So, let me start with my own example that revolves around transit system.
My first foray into entrepreneurship as part of a services company was to pitch visibility of bus occupancy and pre-purchase of tickets before boarding the bus. I was scratching an itch of my own having moved from Chennai(excellent bus transit system) to Hyderabad (mess in every sense).
The value proposition was in order to grow bus commuting, we proposed to first increase its access through visibility and accessible first mile commute to bus stop. The uncertainty of the crowded buses deters people from taking buses to work and we wanted to eliminate that barrier. We did a pilot with state bus transit but our journey was cut short due a black swan event called demonetisation.
Subjimandi.app -> 1- 10
“We grade you trade” was our official tagline at Subjimandi.app. This one practice enabled farmers of any land parcel or crop yield benefit by selling their produce through us.
When we started calculating 50Kg bag( or 20Kg box) as a standard unit of produce we can procure and sell, a farmer contributing 5 Premium grade bags(highest grade with high rate) or 50 bags gets the same price per kg. The growth came through word of mouth referrals that understood why we are grading in the first place.
So, inherently growth is a function of increasing accessibility.
In both these scenarios, people who don’t commute through bus transport would have attempted and farmers who couldn’t transport their yield to far off Mandi(s) are now contributing to the aggregated lot by selling grade wise at their farm.
At present, I am in the 10 -100 journey and coming to terms with the fact that increasing product’s accessibility remains to be engine of growth even at this stage. We can accelerate the rate at which we grow through different channels but the core engine runs on the same principle. Increasing access to the product is precisely what I intend to do as a I foray into growth side of things in the next year.
Round up
I am only linking one example from a profile on BYD -Chinese EV auto maker who has been doing a remarkable job.
BYD's EV success
BYD’s EV success must count as one of the most impressive corporate successes of all time.
After increasing its annual sales in China 15 times over, to 3 million cars in only three years, BYD is now exporting to roughly 95 markets, including 20 new ones this year. The company is building, has recently opened or has announced plans for assembly plants outside China in 10 countries on three continents. The speed and scope of this expansion have caught the global auto industry off guard and triggered protectionist tariffs in the US and EU... BYD’s electric and hybrid vehicle car sales rocketed from just under 180,000 in 2020 to 1.86 million in 2022...
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BYD, which stands for “Build Your Dreams,” is the brainchild of Wang Chuanfu, a 58-year-old battery scientist who in the 1990s saw an opportunity to start a rechargeable battery company to challenge Japan’s hold on the industry. It began by focusing on batteries for mobile phones and power tools, but in 2003 it decided to pursue cars. Wang’s battery and manufacturing innovations, cushioned by China’s EV-friendly government policies and the scale of its domestic auto market, have helped BYD do what Tesla Inc., Ford Motor Co. and the rest of the auto industry haven’t: build an affordable electric car for the masses and make money doing it. Since introducing a new battery technology in 2020, BYD has gone from being an also-ran in China’s crowded car market to cracking the top 10 automakers in the world. It’s unseated Volkswagen AG from its decade-plus perch at the top in China and briefly—in late 2023—surpassed Tesla to become the biggest seller of pure electric vehicles globally...
That growth is only possible because they wanted to make EV cars more accessible to everyone. Their battery technology is the best in the world and they are now building on top of the core engine, affordable cars to the masses.
Growth is simple but no one said it was easy.
Links that resonated
How hard can it to be buy software?
Jesse writes a short post describing her journey with implementing a SaaS tool that they recently bought. She concludes the journey to be long and arduous.
Sign off
Its been a short week at work as I decided to take leave to travel with my family. I am yet to finish few pending tasks at work before the start of the next. Instead of working on those tasks while I drive across 3 cities, I decided to write this post to continue the streak.
Growth is a topic I am addressing at work and such intermittent processing of it during breaks from driving provided the right set of constraints to help come up with a principle.
Let me know if this post was accessible to all the new subscribers. It helps with the growth of the readership.
Singing off till the next time,
Vivek, writing to 32 subscribers now.