Value Proposition: A case study of Piggvest and Cowrywise.

The product market is incredibly competitive and as a product manager your goal is to make sure your team's executions on the product are good enough to satisfy the market and give you a competitive edge. This is known as having product market fit — every product manager’s dream; our magnum opus.

Achieving product market fit means that you are in a good market where your users and consumers are happy with your product, engaged by your product and spreading the good news of your product.

Product market fit is not easily attained. In order to thrive in a good market and not be lost in a sea of competing products, there are many things a product manager could do. I believe the most important thing to do is understand the product's intended value proposition and how the product is going to be different or be perceived as different from competition products. To engage in this exposition, I will be looking at two similar personal finance and saving products: Piggvest and Cowrywise.

Value Proposition

The product manager’s job is to provide value to the customer with whatever features a product might be offering. The goal is that so much value is being provided that the user would not choose an alternative to your product. The risks of not providing any value are great. The product would be generally unappealing. If the product stopped trying to be competitive and does not remain valuable to the users, they will abandon the product. The product will enter a state of decline and might ultimately be shut down.

Value propositions are instruments to communicate the value offering to the users. They pitch your product’s central thesis- what they can benefit by using your product and how you are better than the alternatives available.

Within the team, value propositions assist product managers in making decisions at each stage of the product life cycle. Value propositions also help the product manager in effectively communicating what it is that they are building. It is the "why" we are building what we are building. This helps the engineering team that are not usually consumer facing develop empathy for the consumer.

When the product team is focused on the value proposition they will build products that provide superior experience because clear value propositions are born of a deep understanding of the user's pain.

There are various methods that can be used to craft the products value proposition. I will be focusing on two of those methods: Crossing the Chasm's value proposition model and Alexander Osterwalder's value proposition canvas. I will examine how the product teams at Piggvest and Cowrywise might have used these methods to come about their value proposition.

Crossing the Chasm's Value Proposition Model

This value proposition is short and sweet. Its simple format is basically an industry standard. it goes:

For (target customer) who (need statement) the (product brand name) is a (product category), that (key benefit statement or compelling reason to buy). Unlike (primary competitor) (primary differentiation statement).

A value proposition statement using this model for Piggvest could be:

For Nigerians between the ages of 20-45 who need a better way to save and invest, Piggvest is a better way to save and invest; unlike Cowrywise we offer wider saving methods and more accessible investments with up 25% returns in shorter periods of time.

While Cowerywise might go something like:

For Nigerians between the ages of 18-45 who need a simple way to save and invest, Cowrywise is a smarter way to plan, save and invest unlike Piggyvest we offer concise methods of saving and tools for investment that will help you build wealth in the long term.

When you examine both value propositions you can see how the product team for either Cowrywise or Piggvest would have had something similar guiding their product decisions and how that influenced the released products and the continuous improvements they will make on it.

Alexander Osterwalder's value proposition canvas

Alexanders method is a visual user-centric tool that will show the alignment between your product and target customers. This method goes deep into the pains, gains and jobs to be done of the users. it is great for product managers with products that may have multiple use cases and a diverse group of users.

Alexander's value proposition canvas on Cowrywise;

Customer Jobs:

-saving money

-getting the money to work for them

-attaining financial freedom

Pains:

-Not being able to build a saving culture

-Not being able to understand the financial market enough to make long term investments

Gains:

-easy way to start saving

-gamified incentives to start investments

-a feeling of satisfaction about that state of their finances

Products and Services:

-a feature to help the user save money

-a feature to help the user invest money

-equip the users with tools they can use to create long term wealth

Pain Relievers:

-killing the user’s frustrations of not being able to save money

-removing the risk the user might come to for lack of emergency funds

Gain Creators:

-the user starts feeling the growth and improvement of their personal finances

-the user is able to save has much has intended.

If I were to use this canvas to create sample value proposition for Piggyvest a lot of what I would input into each category would largely be the same since but products are meant to provide solutions to the same problems. However, the genius of each products product team is in the execution of the products. The uniqueness of each similar feature is a testament to each product teams understanding of their respective users and the strategy behind their customer segmentation.

An example would be that on Piggyvest you can save your money in Dollars and it holds against the irregular value of the Naira. Cowrywise approach is a Dollar Mutual Fund. In fact, Cowrywise investment philosophy is built around mutual funds, their investment feature is gamified to guide the user from simple low risk funds to more high risk high yield funds. In contrast Piggyvest offer easy to understand money market with reasonable returns within a relatively short period of time.

Summarily, understanding user needs and pains will greatly assist you, the product manager is framing your product value proposition. In turn focusing on that value proposition and effectively executing against it is crucial to achieving product market fit.