Loved

Chapter 11Discovering and Rediscovering Market Fit

There is one profession required—by law—to do their jobs using the written word: lawyers. Formatting as specific as how to indent a subpoint in a legal brief is strictly defined. And back when I was on the Word team, it didn't do it right.

My last year on the team, not only was it not the de facto standard for the legal market, it was the one remaining foothold of our erstwhile rival, WordPerfect.

Unsure of why, the product team did a national tour of law firms not using Word. They examined hundreds of documents and did dozens of in-depth interviews. They learned there were formatting needs for specific legal briefs that Word couldn't do without major workarounds.

Fixing these issues required a rewrite of some of Word's underlying layout engine. It meant the “legal will love this” version was at least a major release cycle away. Even though it was our biggest growth market, we couldn't fully hit the gas until those product issues were addressed.

The product marketer dedicated to legal came up with how to fit the current version to market realities: focus marketing on law firms who were more technology forward. For example, those who wanted to use the rest of Microsoft Office—PowerPoint for trial presentations or Excel to make charts.

Word has now long been the standard in the legal market. But it shows that even for mature products, product/market fit is not a one-time thing. As products and markets evolve, the product needs ...