Jira (Market: Existing, Ocean: Red): Owns an existing market. It competes with other features at enterprise scale. PMs ideally work inside a process someone else administers, so they give up configuration in exchange for flexibility. The downside of this, in my opinion, as well as many others,’ are friction and the overarching complexity.
Linear (Market: Resegmented, Ocean: Red): Linear decided to resegment the existing market by targeting fast-moving product and engineering teams. It is technically still a red ocean but for niche customers. Its ideology is that PMs closely interact with engineers. Opts for an opinionated workflow over a configurable one.
Productboard(Market: New, Ocean: Blue): Unlike Jira and Linear, Productboard decided to exploit a new market. Specifically, the work of deciding what to build, which delivery tools never covered, etc. According to them, PMs lacked a place for customer feedback, prioritization, and roadmaps, and that the role was big enough to carry its own budget. The funny thing is that the ocean didn’t last blue for a long time. As soon as this category proved to be an actual predicament, incumbents such as Atlassian responded.
All in all, every product is a belief of its user. Every product aims to solve a problem that a subset of users experience, or to make something more efficient. Talking to your intended users is the best way to obtain feedback relevant to product inception and success.
