Instead of thinking about how to improve our product and workflow, let's ask ourself a different question: What do we want our customers to become? A good analogy to think about that question is Super Mario. Without flowers and mushrooms Mario is just a little plumber that can’t jump high enough to save the princess. But with them, he can blast through the levels and reach his goal. Our product is that flower: something that unlocks a better version of themselves for our users. More productive, more creative, more confident!

Super Mario at VEED
We’re not selling the flower itself (a video editing app), we sell the powerup Mario gets from it (great videos to fuel their business growth). So ask yourself: what is your customer's equivalent of super Mario? What superpower are we giving them? 

This framework helped us put more emphasis on making it easier to make your video look great. Yes, we had a complete video editor where you could do everything, but it didn't help enough of our users become someone who is great at video. By focussing on better in-app content, defaults, and simplifying key flows we gave more people the powerup they much needed.

On top of helping with our product work, it also greatly helped with marketing. We now focus much more on the end-result a user gets from our app, which helped us nail our paid ads motion.

Implementing your Super Mario
The Mario analogy is useful a mental model to help you zoom out. It lets you understand the full context your product operates in. You can use this to improve your customer interviews: instead of asking users what specific task they set out to complete, ask what got them there in the first place, or ask them about where the product will take them in their wildest dreams. Figure out their biggest pain points in their journey and see if you can support them. Try marketing your product in a more emotional (save the princess) and less functional (here’s a flower you can eat to grow a bit) way.

Note of caution
This model comes with a big caveat. In the early stages of your product your target audience is a small set of early-adopters that knows what they want (this type of cut, this type of captions, etc). For them it helps to be hyper-specific in your marketing. Only when you expand from that group and need to get more people educated and excited you can bring in Mario.

Go find your Mario!
People buy the benefit, not the product. At VEED we feel that business growth with professional looking videos in just a few clicks. What are you helping your customer to become?