In 2002, Jira entered into the existing market of bug-tracking tools, competing with products like Bugzilla. It entered into a red ocean, as the market already had known rules and competitors. It later expanded into broader project management, and added features like customizable workflows that separated it from its competitors.
Linear entered a resegmented market with its launch in 2019. It is faster and simpler than Jira, and is marketed towards agile startups and software teams. It still entered a red ocean, but resegmented it instead of directly competing. Linear was hoping that agile PMs would prefer a simpler tool with less upkeep.
Productboard entered a new market. Instead of tracking existing products and the work related to it, it helps product managers decide what to build next. It offers a place to collect customer feedback from interviews, and create roadmaps. It was founded in a blue ocean, and hoped that PMs needed a platform for deciding what to build. It also had to hope that the workarounds used by PMs at the time were time-consuming enough to justify a new tool.
