Customer as Product

My startup, Kronicity, is building a free site with paid upgrades, of course, designed to scale quickly. This scale will be monetized through a humber of means. The latest, I read a How to think out of the box book that came in an Amazon box, argued that my user was the product and my customer was the marketer and that I should build for them. He pointed to Twitter users as product and marketers as the actual customer.

Here's my take. There is no such thing as a user who is only a product. The user is both customer and product. Kronicity is designing for two customer segments, the user and the marketer. I FIRST have to develop a product the user will love and use. Only then will I be able to market to the marketer for all that lovely advertising money.

There's a pretty important distinction here. Defining who your customer is is critical. Every feature and design decision must focus on customer experience and customer perceived value. If you're monetizing your users, you have at least two customer segments. This requires viewing your product through two lenses and building two marketing strategies. And, if done properly, seamlessly integrating both segments into all planning phases.