Jira resegmented the bug tracker market by being a cheaper, low-end product with no sales team. Bugzilla and other bug trackers made this a red ocean, but Jira found a patch of blue in it. Jira believed that PMs didn’t need a tool of their own, just a clear view of what engineering was building, so one tracker could organize the full team. Eventually, they released a partner product, Confluence, that was more team focused. This product, a knowledge base for team collaboration, extended that bet by putting PMs’ docs right next to engineering’s tickets, creating a full suite for product teams.
Linear entered the existing market, a red ocean that Jira now dominates. Founder Karri Saarinen says he “can visualize a version that is what I think is better” when working in the space of an existing product. Karri believed that software companies “have a lot of money to spend” on product management, and that PMs would give up configurability for speed, so Linear could compete by being faster.
Productboard resegmented the market for product management tools. It was certainly a red ocean with established tools like Jira or an alternate solution like spreadsheets, but Productboard believed that there was a blue gap, that product management is “about customers and their needs on one side, and then the products and services that you offer to them on the other.” No existing product focused on both sides of the job. This is the connective role LeMay describes, and our Torres reading and my PM interviews have emphasized customer understanding as core to product management, so this bet makes sense to me. The risk is that blue oceans can quickly become red, and Jira has since launched Jira Product Discovery to do the same.
Sources
Jira: https://www.peakforce.dev/blog/atlassian—everything-you-need-to-know-beginners-guide
Productboard: https://www.intercom.com/blog/podcasts/productboard-founder-and-ceo-hubert-palan-on-mastering-product-strategy
