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Container logistics marketplace · Hamburg · 2021

xChange: four value pillars, sourced from their own case studies.

SECTOR

Container logistics

MARKET

Global

COMPANY

xChange

ROLE APPLIED FOR

Product marketing manager

DATE

Nov 2021

MarketplaceLogistics

The situation

Their site said what the product was. It did not say what it was worth.

xChange runs a marketplace where companies find containers to buy, lease or sell, and find the partners to do it with. Their site said what the product was. It did not say what it was worth, or why them.

I had no login and no demo. The brief had a deadline. So the material came from the place their customers' own words were already published: their blog and their case studies.

01 · What this engagement produced

6 of 34 outputs

6 of the 34 outputs, across four of the six stages.

01Research1 of 6
01Voice of customer

5 not produced

Win / loss, Market report, Why now, Assumption log, Pre-mortem

02Competition0 of 4

4 not produced

The Fifty, Table-stakes read, AI visibility, Competitor monitor

03Segment, position and price1 of 6
14Positioning

5 not produced

ICP and segments, Use cases, Buying committee, Packaging and pricing, Deck spine

04Message3 of 4
17Messaging framework18Claim check19Landing page review

1 not produced

Message drift

05Launch and enable1 of 8
23Channel and funnel

7 not produced

Launch tiers, Launch brief, Product Oracle, Sales enablement, FAQ, Onboarding journey, Release notes

06Measure and maintain0 of 6

6 not produced

Product funnel metrics, Launch post-mortem, Trust metrics, Customer case studies, Half-Life Map, Six-stage readout

Six outputs, and the page says where each one's evidence came from.

02 · The decision

With no product access, the evidence came from their own case studies.

A take-home with no product access has three honest options and one dishonest one. The dishonest one is to write confident copy from the homepage and hope nobody asks.

Struck

Write from the homepage

Rewrites the surface that is already failing, using the same thin evidence.

Struck

Wait for a demo

The right instinct, and the brief had a date on it.

Chosen

Mine their own case studies

Their customers' words are already published, and the slide says that is where they came from.

The deck carries a line: I found most of this on your blogs and case studies. And a second one: the feature highlights need a demo I did not have.

03 · What the deck carried

What the deck was built from.

4

value pillars built from customer language

3

positioning statements offered

1

product of my own shown as the method

Every pillar traces to a published xChange customer story. None came from using the product.

04 · What I built

4 workstreams

Four workstreams, from the method to the lines.

01The method, shown on a product I had launchedTwake, before the recommendations.

03 Segment, position & price

  • The open source workplace I had launched at Linagora used as the worked example: value proposition, positioning, differentiation and target market
  • Four pillars there too: simple and efficient, private and secure, open source, sustainable
  • Shown first so the panel could see the method applied to something real before seeing it applied to theirs
02A read of their messagingClear about the what, silent on the why.

04 Message

  • The existing line described the marketplace accurately and concisely
  • Missing: a developed value proposition, differentiation, a vision to sit beside the mission, feature detail and product demonstration
  • Named as gaps, with the source of the judgement stated
03Four pillarsTransparency, efficiency, trust, simplicity.

04 Message

  • Transparency: real-time information, public reviews, no commission, quick quotes
  • Efficiency: disputes resolved, paid on time, offers automated, alerts and notifications
  • Trust: certified partners, background checks avoided, payments protected
  • Simplicity: every transaction in one place, negotiate and pay without leaving it
04Three positioning linesOptions with different bets inside them.

03 Segment, position & price · 05 Launch & enable

  • One leads on simplicity and efficiency, one on the marketplace being global and cloud-based, one on trust and transparency
  • Given as alternatives because choosing between them needs evidence I did not have
  • Each written to be sayable out loud in one breath

05 · The judgment call

I put the source of every claim on the slide.

Naming your sources on a take-home looks like weakness for about ten seconds. A panel that cannot see where a claim came from has to take the whole deck on trust, and the first thing they check is the one thing you got wrong.

The same rule runs through the work now: every claim carries the state of its evidence, including when the honest state is that nobody has checked.

06 · What this proves

Customer language, shown method, labelled sources.

I find the customer's words.

Their own case studies.

I show the method on real work.

A product I had launched, before advising on theirs.

I offer options where evidence is missing.

Three lines, each with a different bet.

I label my sources.

On the slide, in the deck, in the room.

Scope

Briefed by the company. Unpaid, one week, no product access. Everything traces to xChange's own published material.