Jira started out as a bug tracking tool for software engineers, entering an existing market in a red ocean with company competitors such as Bugzilla. Rather than creating a new market, Jira stood out by offering a more affordable and rapidly deployable tool. Although Jira started out as a tool for software engineers, when it started to focus more on Product Managers, it did so with the bet that PMs could manage products using the system of bugs and data that developers used.
Linear emerged as a tool designed for the product team, built especially for high-agency teams at small startups. Because they chose to focus on a smaller subsection of Product Managers, they entered a resegmented market. This resegmented market was still a red ocean competing with established tools such as Jira, but Linear stood out with its speed. Linear started out with the belief that its users wanted a much faster and more flexible system to actually build products that would lead them to abandon the slower and more rigid existing PM tools.
Productboard is a unique PM tool because it focuses on user research and deciding what to build, deviating from existing tools that focus primarily on tasks and coordinating work to deliver code. Because of this novel focus and reframing of the needs of a PM, the tool is operating in a new market and in a blue ocean. For this bet to make sense, Productboard believed that PMs needed tools to focus more on what product they were building and why instead tools for managing how to build products.
