Jira, as an incumbent, is in an existing market playing in a red ocean. Jira had to believe that their product as the incumbent was sticky enough (heavily integrated without large pain points) so customers wouldn’t be incentivized to switch. However, from their website, it seems that they are also evolving as a product to include an agentic-centric approach to software development – potentially entering a blue ocean. They seem to be betting on an agentic-future, and that as an incumbent, they can successfully transition with their customers.
Linear is playing in a resegmented market, trying to find a patch of blue in an otherwise red ocean. Linear had to believe that the segment it was targeting would prefer their tool enough to make the switch (prioritizing speed and their specific product features), and that the overall market size was still large enough to justify ambitious expansion. Their product is also integrating AI features, and seems to be specifically tailored to product development rather than Jira’s focus on software. They are betting that there is market demand for a sleeker, more specialized tool for PMs.
Productboard, as a new market player, is playing in a blue ocean. Productboard was betting on the importance of the customer-centric model for PMs, believing that PMs needed a decision-making tool to ground their product decisions. This is a solution tailored to the “product sense” challenge, enabling decision makers to get a better sense of information and intuition to make the best decisions for the product. They are betting that decision making (rather than execution) will become more important in the AI age.
