Is Your Product A Vitamin Or A Painkiller?

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230736

by mindcrime • 13 years ago

23 14 13 years ago

mindcrime2• 13 years ago

I hear this analogy used all the time, with the implication being that you must sell a "painkiller" to be successful. But the more I think about it, the less convinced I am. I mean, ok, analogies are only analogies, but "in real life" guess what... a TON of money is made selling "vitamins" and "nutritional supplements". I got bored once and looked up some data on this point, and the numbers were pretty staggering.

The other issue I have with it is this: Talking about "pain" is talking about something that exists NOW and is, presumably, rooted in something that happened BEFORE. That is, "I stubbed my toe THEN, so NOW my foot hurts, give me ibuprofen". This means that selling painkillers is inherently backwards looking, rather than looking forward and looking to opportunities.

"Here kid, use this protein shake and you'll get buff and then you can pick up all the hot girls at the beach this summer". That's forward looking, that's selling a "vitamin" as opposed to a "painkiller", and for a lot of kids, it's a pretty compelling message.

Is it really necessary to focus on selling painkillers? I don't think the answer is as clear-cut as some people want to make it out to be.

wdewind• 13 years ago

The timing distinction you made is particularly interesting. Thanks.

xivzgrev2• 13 years ago

To be fair, in your kid example, the kid IS feeling a pain NOW: low confidence, and muscles will help him build that.

I think anything forward looking is seeking to solve: 1) things that are painful now but current execution on technology isn't optimized. Either you combine existing technology in new ways or develop new technology. 2) things that will be painful in future. For example, we're building drones to help with the pain and cost of shipping physical goods. Someone is going to develop software to manage those drones, someone is going to develop expertise in drone laws, etc. All pains that don't exist today because drones aren't widespread enough yet.

mindcrime2• 13 years ago

To be fair, in your kid example, the kid IS feeling a pain NOW: low confidence, and muscles will help him build that.

Well, yeah, to some degree you can usually (always?) fiddle with definitions and find a way to position a "vitamin" as "painkiller". That's actually an important point in it's own right. If nothing else, it illustrates that the vitamin/painkiller dichotomy might not be intrinsic, and may be mostly about messaging / positioning.

The book Mastering The Complex Sale by Jeff Thull has an interesting little tidbit there about some processing room anti-corrosion stuff made by, IIRC, Shell. There was some sample dialogue about the stuff to illustrate this point:

Person A: What's the business value of the anti-corrosion stuff?

Salesman: Business value? Well, it doesn't generate revenue or cut costs. I don't know how you'd talk about it's business value.

Person A: What happens if a refinery doesn't use this stuff?

Salesman: Well, corrosion builds up and will eventually cause a leak that could result in a fire or an explosion.

Point-of-view counts for a lot.

hojoff79• 13 years ago

One underlying assumption the author seems to be making here is that he is discussing B2B businesses rather than B2C. I actually think this message is much more applicable in the B2B space than the B2C (where I think it is wholly wrong).

xivzgrev2• 13 years ago

"So what do you do, Mr. Levie? You help businesses sync files locally across computers for quicker access? Sounds like a feature Sharepoint will add to its roadmap, removing the need for your business."

moheeb• 13 years ago

This article was a waste of electrons.

"Vitamins are "nice to have," but not "need to have." " I'd like for the author to go for several months without Vitamin C.

georgemcbay• 13 years ago

Presumably he meant vitamin supplements as opposed to any/all vitamins ingested through food/drink, though that assumption only makes the analogy marginally better since most contemporary research puts vitamin supplements somewhere on a range between useless and actively harmful.

alexshye• 13 years ago

Nir Eyal behavior design work includes an interesting thought on this: apps that are vitamins can become painkillers.

If you haven't gone through his slide deck, I'd highly recommend it. He goes through the vitamin/painkiller part pretty early in the slide deck.

http://www.slideshare.net/nireyal/hooked-model

lowglow• 13 years ago

Hm. What do you get when your product is both a painkiller and vitamin?

Maro• 13 years ago

Facebook wasn't painkiller.

rogerdickey• 13 years ago

for some people, not knowing what their friends/ex are up to is painful

codingdave• 13 years ago

This analogy seems 100% backwards to me. Maybe because I have lived with chronic pain for enough years to really understand these materials...

Painkillers mask deeper problems, letting you continue to get by without fixing root causes. In and of themselves, they do nothing for your health. On the contrary, they make you less sharp and restrict your capabilities.

Vitamins are either completely redundant in your system, and thereby useless, or they fill in crucial gaps that let everything else work as designed. They are not needed by everybody, but if you have ever truly experienced a chronic vitamin deficiency, then fixed it, you will never again think they are a "nice to have".

I know that this is just an analogy being used to make a point. But a more true analogy could make an even better point - you don't need to sell to everyone... just make sure you truly solve a serious problem for a specific audience.

thwarted• 13 years ago

[painkillers] make you less sharp and restrict your capabilities

From one perspective, that's what you get when you outsource something to another that is providing the "painkiller" product or service. You gain agility in general because you don't need to concentrate on something that isn't your core competency (pain management). It does make you less sharp because you don't need to be, and thus won't be, an expert in providing that service for yourself. And it restricts your capabilities because you're tied to whatever limitations the painkiller provider feels like operating under or exposing you to.

Sometimes the "serious problem" is something that "causes pain", and removal of the pain may be the solution. Agreed, though, that it's better to actually remove the cause of the pain (and thus the pain) rather than just mask the symptoms.

Is Your Product A Vitamin Or A Painkiller?

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