Differentiated value and open source projects

Even if you have an incredibly technical audience, you can not count on them to immediately make the connection between your project’s features and the value that they’ll get out of it.

It’s your job to connect the dots from features to value. If you don’t, many users who would otherwise love your project will simply click away because you haven’t given them enough reason to care, and they can’t make the connections themselves.

This goes no matter how technical your audience is. Being technical doesn’t make your users somehow less human. It also doesn’t erase the fact that no matter how technically savvy they are, they are less savvy than you about whatever problem your project solves. They know about the problem, sure, but they haven’t spent the time to build a project to solve it. You have.

Help you audience understand not just what features you bring to the table, but why those features matter. What outcome they will get because of those features.

Note: Being open source is a feature, not a value. Yes, people should be aware that your project is open source, but it should not be over-emphasized.

Lastly, you have to make sure your values are differentiated. Think about the main competitors to your project. Are they also open source? If so, that is not differentiated. Does your main competitor also provide a one-click install? If so, ‘fast and easy to set up’ is not a differentiated value and shouldn’t feature prominently in your messaging.

If you care about the growth of your project and community, you have to understand and effectively communicate your project’s values, not just your project’s features. And make sure to stress the values that you can’t get anywhere else.