Estimated time: 6 hours, spread out over a week

Output

You’re going to make a sheet that looks something like this:

Intro

Value props are usually the most important exercise we have clients do. Many clients are confused by them at first, and they tend to take 3-5 revisions to get right.

We’ve made this project to save you time, call out common mistakes, and answer questions you’ll likely have.

Starting with…

Why make a value props sheet?

Over and over, our clients who don’t nail value props fail to get users.

Why?

Two main reasons: their copy converts worse, and they pick the wrong channels to test. The result is that they don’t get users. (And we get blamed.)

Why?

Clients think they understand why users want the product, but they miss crucial details that explain why users actually want the product.

As a result, their positioning doesn’t land, their marketing fails, and customers don’t convert.

By walking through this process with us, you’ll avoid these blindspots and build a much better intuition for which experiments will hit — and what copy to write.

Beyond that, this is a way to get us up to speed: by sharing why people use your product, we’ll strategize with you better and give you better feedback.

Beyond that, if you ever onboard someone new (an agency, a contractor, a new hire), you can share this sheet to get them up to speed.

It’s a win-win-win. It’s just a little work up front.

How do value props get used?

Phase 1: Learn

Go through our Value Props reading in the intro guide if you haven’t yet.

Phase 2: Copy template

Make a copy of this value props sheet template.

We recommend using Google Sheets rather than Notion tables because it’s easier to comment cell-by-cell to give feedback.

You’ll update it over time as you learn from user interviews, but get it started now so we can give you more tailored feedback.

Phase 3: Watch

Note: the problem in the top example should be “you missed an important meeting because you wasted 15 minutes hailing a taxi.”

Phase 4: Write first row

Pick what feels like the biggest clear painful problem, write the bad alternative, and then write one row.

As you write, sanity-check the following:

Phase 5: 20% mentor review

Bounce that row off us in Slack immediately. Clients waste time when they write tons of value props, but miss the nuance and principles that make them good.

We want to keep this feedback loop tight so you move faster.

Phase 6: Write 2-4 more rows

Only include your five biggest value props in the sheet. If you include more than five, it’s a sign you’ll struggle to market all the nuance of your product — because your users will get overwhelmed. This exercise will force you to simplify your messaging and start now.

How do you figure out your five biggest value props? Use your happiest users as your signal. (This is also where user interviews come in.)

It’s also harder to use this sheet in practice when you have more than five total rows; it’s too overwhelming and hard to reference.

Phase 7: Full mentor review

Bounce your completed sheet off us in Slack. Note that it typically takes 3-5 revisions to get things down pat, so stay the course.