What really intrigues me here is not the fact that they have three different assumptions about where the PM workflow pain points are
Jira moved into an already existing market and into a red ocean.
What was smart about Jira was allowing for configurable issues tracking so that it could be used for multiple workflows by many teams. The problem is that the same configurability can bring a lot of complexity and confusion. The Jira strategy is really relying on the fact that PMs would accept more process and configuration for the sake of control and scale
Linear resegments this market.
It still moves into the red ocean but managed to carve out a small blue spot for itself by specializing in fast moving product and engineering teams. Its strategy is almost the opposite of Jira’s actually where some teams will prefer speed and simplicity to configurability. This is honestly really smart because it shifts switching criteria without the need to change the user’s behavior. The problem though is that incumbents can easily copy the experience.
Productboard opens a completely new market and a blue ocean.
The idea is that before execution, PMs had a very important task, which was understanding the customer problem and deciding what to build and deserves its own workflow. This is very ingenious because it creates a new category based on an under-served workflow, which is very important. The problem though, is that it adds another tool and hand-off to the PMs workflow.
The Teresa Torres reading convinces me that Linear is the best choice because it starts with a problem in an existing workflow and not with something brand new that users need to imagine. If I were moving in today, I would start with resegmenting the market and finding a specific under-served team.
