For this one I compared three tools that sell to PMs: Jira, Linear, and Productboard. Using Steve Blank’s market types, I looked at which market each entered, whether it’s in a red or blue ocean, and what each had to believe about PMs for its bet to work.
Jira feels like the clearest case of an existing market, and it won by bending to fit any workflow. I think that also puts it in the reddest ocean of the three, since everyone else is defined by competing with it. Its bet seems to be that PMs will put up with complexity as long as the tool can do anything.
Linear, to me, is a resegmented market. It’s going after the same job as Jira but for a narrower group: fast software teams who care more about speed than configurability. It’s still a red ocean, but I feel like it found a calmer corner. Linear had to believe that some PMs would trade flexibility for opinionated defaults, and that endless flexibility turns into chaos.
Productboard seems as though it’s the only true new market here. Instead of tracking tasks, it’s a system of record for customer feedback and deciding what to build, kind of like Salesforce for product teams. That’s a blue ocean, but you have to teach people the category exists. Its bet is that the hardest part of a PM’s job isn’t shipping, it’s figuring out what to ship.
My biggest takeaway is that all three are “for PMs,” but each assumes a different version of the PM’s job. Jira sees a process manager, Linear sees someone helping a team ship fast, and Productboard sees the person deciding what’s worth building. I think that’s why they can coexist, and why Productboard integrates with Jira rather than replacing it.
