Jira entered an existing bug-tracking market, a red ocean, and won on flexibility. Its bet was that teams would trade usability for configurability. The clever part was landing with engineers and then expanding across the whole company. The flaw is that configurability becomes process debt. PMs turn into ticket admins, which over-weights the organization part of LeMay’s CORE skills at the expense of research. Instead, I’d ship opinionated default workflows and make heavy customization the exception.
Linear resegmented the same red ocean, betting that PMs on fast startup teams value speed and craft over configuration. Its cleverest move is that taste works as distribution, because users bring Linear with them to their next company. The flaw is that niches age. As customers scale, they need permissions, reporting, and compliance, which pushes Linear either to lose them or to become Jira. Instead, I’d design the scale-up path early, adding enterprise features without diluting the core experience.
Productboard created a new market, a blue ocean at first. It bet that a PM’s real job is deciding what to build, and that PMs would pay for a tool of their own. The clever part was building for the research skill that ticket trackers ignore. The flaw is the one Blank warns about: new markets need slow, costly customer education. PMs also often lack their own budget, and incumbents can bundle a “good enough” version, as Jira Product Discovery now does. Instead, I’d embed deeply in Jira rather than compete with it, making Productboard the layer incumbents can’t easily copy.
In short, Jira made PMs fit the tool, Linear fit the tool to fewer PMs, and Productboard redefined the PM’s job. Each choice carried its own risk.
