How does good/better/best apply to my product?

While at National Instruments a few years ago, I got to see a large company clean up and simplify its product lines. The company wanted to move from a huge catalog of products (NI-DMA-PCI-6024E-16) to a standard set of lines (M Series, N Series). One mantra I repeatedly heard during this process was breaking things into good/better/best – that is, having three different options to appeal to the main segments of any buying population:

• good – those who always, always take the least costly option
• better – those who don’t want to look cheap, so they go one step up
• best – those who always, always take the most expensive option

NI actually uses the terms on their site

If you’re selling a product or service, then you are leaving money on the table if you don’t consider a cheaper version of your product or a more expensive service plan. In fact, this is at the core of the whole freemium meme – slightly interested users will never ever pay for your product, so give them a solution good enough to use and talk about. The more interested and serious user will actually pay for it.

Now, the cool thing is that the same good/better/best breakdown applies in markets. So, fellow startup person, are you:

1. providing a cheap solution in a market dominated by expensive solutions?
2. providing a best-of-breed platform in a market fragmented by other companies?
3. in the middle hoping to fight both ends of the market?

If you answered 1 or 2, best of luck! If you answered 3, then you should really think about how you’ll stand out and get your marketing message across. It’s hard describing that you bought the middle MacBook – the aluminum one without the illuminated keyboard. How will you describe your company if it’s not the cheapest solution or the highest quality one?