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Episode 43 - Aligning your Positioning & the Myth of Product Market Fit (with April Dunford, Author “Obviously Awesome“)
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Episode 43: Aligning your Positioning & the Myth of Product Market Fit
April Dunford, Author "Obviously Awesome"10 Mar 2021
10 Mar 2021
About the Episode
An interview with April Dunford. April is a Positioning Consultant and author of 2019's "Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It".
We speak about a lot, including:
- The origin of "Obviously Awesome", why she self published and how publishers don't like "doing" books
- How taking over a failing product and repositioning made it a success, and showed her the power of good positioning for the exact same product
- How conferences and publishers reacted in horror at the concept of positioning content, and how it's swung back into fashion these days
- The shocking story of what happened when she asked a real author for advice and what they said about her book
- The problem with "fill in the blanks" positioning statements and why they won't help, and might harm
- The importance of positioning against your actual competition and not just your direct competitors
- Why Product Market Fit doesn't exist, isn't operationally useful, and is a VC pipe dream
- The importance of creating a market point of view story to help land your positioning and drive alignment across the organisation
- How you can use the POV story to help people buy your offering over that of your competitors
And much more!
Buy Obviously Awesome
"You know your product is awesome — but does anybody else? Forget everything you thought you knew about positioning. Successfully connecting your product with consumers isn’t a matter of following trends, comparing yourself to the competition or trying to attract the widest customer base.
So what is it? April Dunford, positioning guru and tech exec, will enlighten you."
Visit the book website or check it out on Amazon or Goodreads.
Contact April
You can contact April on Twitter or aprildunford.com.
Related episodes you should like:
- Product Marketing & the Importance of Pirate Metrics (Abby Hehemann, Senior Product Marketing Manager @ GetResponse)
- Creating the Perfect Sales Pitch (April Dunford, Author "Obviously Awesome" and "Sales Pitch")
- The Importance of Messaging & ROARing Your Way to Product/Message Fit (Diane Wiredu, Founder & Messaging Strategist @ Lion Words)
- Valentine's Special! A Love Letter to Problems, not Solutions (Uri Levine, Founder @ Waze & Author "Fall in Love with the Problem, not the Solution")
- Making Sure you REALLY Know your Customers and Pulling out of Growth Stalls (Adrienne Barnes, Founder @ Best Buyer Persona)
- Getting Ahead of the Competition by Getting Good at Competitor Analysis (Bethan Vincent, Managing Partner @ Open Velocity)
- Banishing Cynicism and Empowering Yourself as a Product Leader (Claire Vo, CPO @ Color & Impending TikTok Influencer)
- Diving into the Deep End as a Woman in Product (Darby Maloney, Product Manager @ Divvy & Occasional Swimming Pool User)