I recently had the opportunity to stay at Courtyard by Marriott for a business trip.
At first, I was excited to see Paul Mitchell line of soap bars lying around in the shower. However, my excitement didn’t last longer.
As soon as I started rubbing my hands against the soap, I almost got my finger skin cut by the razor sharp edges of the soap! Prima facie it looks like a defect in just one of the bars. So, I decided to order a couple of more and boy, I was wrong! To my surprise, the other two bars had even more sharp edges.
So, what’s the product lesson here?
No matter how much perfume, jojoba oil, and fancy stuff (aka vanity features) you add to the product, if you can’t get the basics right, people will have hard time using it.
Fundamental requirement of a soap is to have round edges, so it doesn’t endanger the person using it. For some reason Paul Mitchell, and in turn, Marriott International couldn’t get it right.
Focus on core product features first then worry about fancy stuff.
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