Jira went into an existing market. When it launched in 2002, bug tracking was already a thing, with tools like Bugzilla around, so it was definitely red ocean. Jira’s angle was being way more configurable than everything else. The bet was that PMs basically live inside engineering workflows, the real buyer is the company, and since every team runs its process differently, the tool that bends to fit anyone wins. That bet worked and made Jira the incumbent. It also made Jira bloated, which is exactly what let the next wave in.
Linear didn’t really invent anything new. It took Jira’s market and resegmented it, going after fast-moving startup teams, often engineering-led, who couldn’t stand Jira. It’s still fighting for the same budget, so it’s still a red ocean, but it picked a corner Jira handles badly. Linear’s bet was that speed and good opinionated design matter more than endless configuration. It also bet that PMs at modern companies are builders who’ll switch tools when something is clearly better, so adoption can start with the people using it and spread up.
Productboard went after a new market. It basically created “product management software”: collecting customer feedback, prioritizing, and building roadmaps. It’s about the why behind the tickets instead of the tickets themselves. Nobody was really doing that, so it was a blue ocean, but that meant explaining the whole category from scratch. The bet was that PMs had become their own profession with their own system of record and their own budget. Apparently, the ocean is getting pretty red now because some of the other competitors are catching on and trying to build similar products (like Jira Product Discovery).
