Do you know what your product is?

It’s been six months since you left your day job as a software engineer and started a company around technology designed to solve a specific problem you encountered in your job as an engineer. Now you’re talking with your old boss, and he asks: “So, what exactly is (YOUR PRODUCT)?”How long does it take you to answer? Your old boss is essentially asking you to state your company’s market category by saying what type of thing it is. Ideally, you’ll be able to provide a one-sentence answer that correctly describes what the software is and what it should be used for. For example:

• Container-native storage for mission-critical applications

• An application management framework for regulated industries

• A container platform for lean, fast-moving SaaS companies

Whether you call it a tool, platform, framework, library or pipeline matters — it will trigger a different set of assumptions in you old boss’s mind. When those assumptions are correct, it makes it easier to showcase your product’s value and ultimately easier to sell it. When those assumptions are wrong, you end up being compared with the wrong types of competitors, your special, differentiating features are ignored and getting traction is an uphill battle. If you can’t describe your product in less than 10 minutes, reach out — it’s possible you have a positioning problem.