Are your products a bold statement, or are they quietly drowning in the sea of mediocrity? It is a provocative opening question, but Tom Van Den Bosch, CPO at itsme, poses it without irony. In his experience, the most common failure mode for product teams is not that they build the wrong thing. It is that they build too many things, each one diluting the impact of the last, until the product stands for nothing in particular.

At PR_D_CT DAY 2024, Tom delivered a keynote that challenged the audience to rethink their relationship with scope. Drawing on itsme's journey as Belgium's leading digital identity solution, he made a compelling case that focused product leadership is not about saying no to bad ideas. It is about saying no to good ones, so that the great ones get the attention they deserve.

The talk is structured around four principles, each illustrated with a contrast between a company that focused and one that did not, alongside specific examples from itsme's own product decisions.

Be Different, Not Better: Standing Out Versus Blending In

Tom's final principle is perhaps the most counterintuitive: being better than your competitors is overrated. Being different is what matters. He contrasts Airbnb, which redefined the travel accommodation market by offering a completely different experience, with Windows Phone, which largely copied the approach of Android and iOS without offering enough differentiation to justify switching.

At itsme, this meant redefining how citizens interact with e-government services. Rather than competing with existing solutions on their own terms (card readers, PIN codes, drivers), itsme introduced an entirely different paradigm. It was no longer about making the old approach slightly better. It was about making it obsolete.

lightbulbRuthless prioritisation over brilliant ideas

Tom argues that product teams do not need more brilliant ideas. They need more ruthless prioritisation. At itsme, the team introduced a formal qualification process in the product innovation team to assess the company's relevance for each opportunity, keeping product managers and developers focused on what truly differentiates the product.

Tom closes with a statement that serves as both a warning and a rallying cry: in product management, blending in is the biggest risk you can take. The teams that try to compete on every dimension end up winning on none. The teams that choose their dimension deliberately and invest disproportionately in it are the ones that build products people remember.

check_circleAudit your product for features that exist because competitors have them, not because they serve your core value proposition

check_circleDefine what your product deliberately does not do and communicate that as clearly as what it does

check_circleImplement a formal qualification process for new opportunities that filters for strategic relevance, not just market size

check_circleMeasure the distance between user intent and completed action. Reduce it relentlessly

Focused Product Leadership: Crafting Impactful Solutions, Making a Mark

The Myth of More Features Equals a Better Product

infoFocus as a strategic moat

If Your Product Serves Everyone, It Serves No One

Crafting Impactful Solutions: Solving Real Problems Fast

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Be Different, Not Better: Standing Out Versus Blending In

lightbulbRuthless prioritisation over brilliant ideas

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