Clay reposted this
"How you position — or fail to position — the product shapes all the product features that you build, in addition to shaping people's view of you." - Kareem Amin, CEO & Co-Founder of Clay. Over the years, Clay went from horizontal positioning (everyone) to vertical positioning (segment). It's pretty cool to see how this evolution happened by looking at snapshots of Clay's homepage positioning over the years. The move was key to finding product-market-fit and content-market-fit. As the positioning became more focused, growth became more unblocked.
I could've sworn that early 2022 messaging was still generic and not focused on outbound
So cool! I would be super interesting to see the data behind those changes and to follow the team making those decisions.
Alex Lindahl. Thank you for the post! Kareem Amin's insight on product positioning is quite provocative. It challenges the common startup mantra of "build for everyone." I'm curious: at what point did Clay realize that their horizontal approach was hindering rather than helping? Was there a specific metric or moment that triggered this pivot? The evolution from broad to focused positioning raises an interesting question about the nature of innovation itself. Does narrowing your target audience actually expand your capacity for meaningful innovation? It's counterintuitive, but Clay's experience suggests it might be true. I believe this principle applies beyond SaaS products. And for those who've made similar transitions, I bet there were unexpected ripple effects on company culture, hiring, or even product development priorities. It would be fascinating to hear about the internal debates that likely occurred during this shift. How do you convince a team that's been building for "everyone" to suddenly focus on a specific segment? The psychological aspect of this transition seems just as crucial as the strategic one.
Shoutout to Matt Maiale and Giacomo Bottoli for many of the iterations!
Check out this job at TalentXi: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3935764775
Alex Lindahl , how do you get those screenshots : The Wayback Machine?
GTM Engineer | Clay + AI in GTM | Creator
1moI originally posted the screenshots on my newsletter: https://www.clayautomation.com/p/clays-homepage-positioning-and-pmf-evolution