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In a world obsessed with features and functionality, these five products remind us that true value lies in solving human problems – simply, elegantly, and completely.
Every year, approximately 30,000 new digital products launch on ProductHunt alone. Add to that the explosion of AI products - with over 3,000 AI tools launched in just the past year.
Yet, studies show that about 90% of these products fail to gain meaningful traction. Those numbers might sound discouraging. But they shouldn't be.
Creating any product is hard work - blood, sweat, tears, and countless sleepless nights. Building a business around that product? Even harder.
That's exactly why we need leverage. And studying transformative products that have succeeded can offer that leverage.
Here's something interesting I noticed lately.
Working with companies of all shapes and sizes – AI startups, scaleups, enterprise transformation... underneath all their unique challenges, the same pattern keeps emerging: Nailing the value proposition.
It got me thinking about value props a lot. (Like, wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-with-ideas a lot.)
So I started studying the products I use daily, not as a coach or consultant, but as a customer:
- How did I discover them?
- Why did I start using them?
- What made me stick around?
The insights hit harder than my morning coffee. These five products stood out – not just because they're useful, but because they're textbook examples of getting it right.
Are you able to guess which ones they are?
Let's find out.
1. Calendly: The End of Email Tennis
Remember when scheduling a meeting felt like a tennis match?
"How about Tuesday at 2?" "Can't do Tuesday, how's Wednesday?" "Wednesday's packed. Thursday?" dies inside
Calendly wasn't first. YouCanBook.me was there before. TimeTrade had been around for years. Even Google Calendar had appointment slots.
But Calendly did something different. While others made scheduling complicated:
- Requiring accounts on both sides
- Needing complex setup
- Demanding everyone use the same system
Calendly made it dead simple:
- Send a link
- Guest picks a time
- Done
They didn't just solve scheduling. They solved the psychology of scheduling.
The Growth Secret: Every meeting scheduled exposed two people to the product. Recipients became senders. Senders became evangelists. Growth drove more growth.
Result: $3B+ valuation, 60M+ users, zero traditional marketing.
2. Fathom: The Meeting Notes Revolution
You know that moment in every meeting when someone says something brilliant and you think, "I should write that down" – but you're too busy writing to actually listen?
While others tried solving pieces of the meeting puzzle:
- Some handled transcription
- Some did recordings
- Some attempted summaries
Everyone was making you use multiple tools, juggle different apps, and still miss crucial moments.
Fathom said: "What if one click captured everything?"
The Brilliance: They didn't just solve parts of the problem; they eliminated the entire problem.
- Before: Trying to take notes while listening, missing key points, spending hours summarizing
- After: "Fathom, join the call." continues being a functional human
The real innovation wasn't the AI or the transcription. It was giving humans permission to be present.
3. Canva: The Design Democracy
Remember when creating anything professional-looking required:
- Expensive software
- Years of training
- A degree in design
- A sacrifice to the Adobe gods
Canva didn't just make design accessible; they made it confidence-inspiring.
The genius move? While others focused on features, Canva focused on first moments:
- PowerPoint: "Here's a blank slide"
- Adobe: "Here's all your tools"
- Canva: "Here's exactly what you need"
They built guardrails that prevented ugly, pre-selected font combinations that worked, and curated color palettes that matched.
Result: 135M+ monthly users, $40B valuation, and a world where "I'm not creative" is no longer an excuse.
4. MIRO: The Collaboration Revolution
When 2020 forced everyone remote, most tools tried recreating physical whiteboards online. MIRO did something different – they made remote collaboration better than reality.
The magic wasn't in the infinite canvas (that wasn't new). It was in making collaboration irresistible:
- Real-time presence that feels magical
- Templates that turn chaos into "I meant to do that"
- Tools that make everyone look competent
- Integrations that actually work
Result: Used by 99% of Fortune 100, 45M+ users, and the death of "Can you scroll up?" forever.
5. Stripe: The Payment Simplification
Remember when adding payments meant:
- Dealing with 17 different banks
- Reading 493-page API docs
- Sacrificing your firstborn
- Still not being sure it worked
Stripe said: "What if it just... worked?"
The revolutionary insight: Make it simple for developers, even simpler for everyone else.
- For developers: 7 lines of code
- For business owners: 10 minutes setup
Result: $95B valuation, zero cold calls, zero enterprise sales meetings, several unemployed payment integration therapists.
Breaking Down Success
Features vs. Frustrations
Let's take a concrete example of how starting with features versus starting with user frustrations leads to dramatically different outcomes:
Traditional Approach:
Starting with Features
Take meeting notes solution (pre-Fathom):
Feature List:
- Advanced recording capability
- Real-time transcription
- Cloud storage
- Sharing options
- Search functionality
- Integration with calendar
- Multiple export formats
Seems comprehensive, right?
But look what happens when we present this to users:
- "Great, more features to learn"
- "Another tool to manage"
- "Still doesn't solve my real problem"
Transformation Approach:
Starting with Frustrations Fathom's approach:
User Frustrations:
- "I can't fully listen while taking notes"
- "I miss crucial points while writing others"
- "I waste hours summarizing afterwards"
- "I forget important details despite taking notes"
Solution Design:
- One-click to join and capture everything
- Zero user interaction needed during meeting
- Automatic organization and summarization
- Instant, searchable access to any moment
Result:
Users don't talk about features.
They say "Finally, I can actually be present in meetings!"
This is the difference between building a better note-taking tool and eliminating the need to take notes entirely.
What Makes These Products Different: The Pattern Analysis
The Art of Value Proposition: Beyond Features to Transformation
The success of these products reveals a crucial truth:
great value propositions don't just align with customer needs - they align with customer sentiments.
The common threads we've discovered go deeper than features or functionality:
1. Emotional Resolution
- They don't just solve technical problems
- They eliminate emotional pain points
- Users feel relief, not just satisfaction
2. Barrier Elimination
- They don't just make tasks easier
- They remove entire categories of stress
- Users forget the problem ever existed
3. Identity Transformation
- They don't just provide tools
- They change how users see themselves
- "I am the designer" vs. "I need a designer"
4. Experience Simplification
- They don't just reduce steps
- They eliminate cognitive load
- "It just works" becomes the standard
5. Natural Growth
- They don't need aggressive marketing
- Users become natural evangelists
- Growth feels organic, not forced
The key lesson?
The most successful products don't just solve problems - they transform experiences.
They don't compete on features; they compete on fundamentally changing how users feel about previously frustrating tasks.
This is the true leverage point for product builders: understanding that your real competition isn't other products' features - it's your users' current frustrations.
*Your challenge: Before listing your next feature, list your users' frustrations.
Before designing your next solution, design for their emotional transformation. * ---
*This article is part of our "Learning from the Wild" series at Solved Together, where we analyze real-world examples of brilliant problem-solving and extract lessons for our own challenges.*
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