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Startup Secrets Sandbox
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    • Welcome to YOUR Startup Secrets Sandbox
      • About Startup Secrets
      • About this Sandbox
      • FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
      • Creative Commons Attribution
    • Customer Value Proposition
      • Synopsis: Customer Value Proposition
      • Frameworks
        • DEFINE the Problem or Opportunity
          • MVS - Minimum Viable Segment
            • Beware: Don't Overlook Your MVS
            • Demandware case study & video
            • MVS compared to a beachhead
          • 4U
          • BLAC and White
            • BLAC and White moves
              • Market timing
            • YouTube: A Case Example of BLAC and White
            • Netflix, Spotify and JioCinemas in India
          • Whole Problem
        • EVALUATE the Solution
          • 3D
          • Gain/Pain
          • DEBT
            • Apple Pay case example from WSJ
          • icon picker
            Whole Product
            • Tesla DEBT
          • Partnerships
            • Strategic partners
        • Assemble Your Value Proposition
        • YOU: Founder-Market Fit
        • Applying Your Value Proposition
      • Customer Value Proposition AI
      • Slides
      • Video Recording
      • Articles
      • Worksheet / Canvases
      • Example Tools
        • Customer Discovery & Interview Script
    • Customer-Centric Business Model
      • Frameworks
        • Business Model as a Disruptor
        • CORE
        • Multipliers and Levers
          • Products that SLIP
          • Package for Pull
            • Bundling
              • 4 Myths of Bundling
              • Bundling Tooklit
              • Podcast
          • Co-Create a Win-Win
            • Acquia's Story
          • 3Up
        • Customer-Centric Models
        • RSVPD
      • Workshop Slide Deck
      • Video Recording
      • Business Model Examples
        • Stories and a Startup Secret from decades of business model innovation
    • Build a Product That Scales Into a Company
      • Perspective: Building Products into Companies
      • Frameworks
        • The Product-Company Gap
        • Design for Product-GTM Fit
          • Value Proposition
          • Minimum Viable Segment
          • Repeatable Products
        • Architect Your Business Model
          • Products that SLIP
            • Simple to Install and Use
            • Low to No Initial Cost
            • Instant and Ongoing Value
            • Play Well in the Ecosystem
          • Package for Pull
          • Whole Product Partnerships
      • Slides
      • Video Recordings
      • SLIPPERY related to PLG
    • Vision, Mission & Values: Create an Authentic Culture
      • Frameworks
        • Founder-Market Fit
          • What are you uniquely qualified for?
        • Elements of Culture
          • Vision
          • Mission
          • Culture
            • Values
        • Operationalize Your Culture
          • Communicate
          • Reinforce
          • Evolve
      • Slides
      • Video - What It Takes: Vision, Mission, Culture
    • Hiring and team building
    • Go to Market
      • Framework - GTM overview
      • Video and Slides - GTM
    • Perfect Your Fundraising Pitch
      • Workbook: Perfect Your Fundraising Pitch
      • Frameworks
        • Business Overview
        • Team
        • Key Problem & Opportunity
        • Solution
        • Vision: Why Now? AND For The Future.
          • Balancing Vision and Execution
        • Traction & Proof Points
        • Business Model
        • Market Size
        • Competitive Landscape
        • Fundraising Needs & Milestones
      • Slides: Getting Behind The Perfect Pitch
      • Video: Getting Behind The Perfect Pitch
      • Article: Elevator question
    • Funding strategies to go the distance
      • Funding Market Fit
      • Questions arising
    • Personal Entrepreneurship
      • Problem solving
        • Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX
      • Are you curious what mindset it takes to be a successful founder?
      • Have you got what it takes?
      • Roadmap to success
      • People First
      • Mutual Mentorship
        • Peer Mentoring (Founder-to-Founder)
        • Mutual Mentorship (Mentor–Mentee Relationships)
        • Master Mentorship (Mentoring the Mentors)
        • Mentorship Resources for Startups
      • Founders Can't Scale: Fact or Fiction?
      • 3 Examples of Why You CAN Afford to Fail
    • Glossary for learning
    • How to comment in Coda
      • What is Coda?

Whole Product

A "whole product" is the complete set of products and services required to ensure your target customers have a compelling reason to buy your solution. It fully addresses their needs by combining the core product with all necessary additional components.
For example, a smartphone is only a whole product if it includes not just the hardware, but also wireless connectivity, apps, and support services that make it “smart” , functional and valuable to you. The hardware alone is just part of the solution. It's easy to take this for granted, but it's crucial to consider the entire ecosystem that makes your product truly complete.
In a trivial B2C example, when you sell a new battery-operated toy, you might include the batteries with it, so a child can use and enjoy it on opening.
(Imagine the incomplete product of a toy gift and the child opening it and then asking the parent to find batteries, them scrambling around the house only to find they don’t have the right size of battery and the child ending up screaming in frustration 😫)
In a vital B2C example, for Tesla, the battery became such an essential and integral part of their whole product that it became a
part of their offering.
(Tesla then in turn became Dependent—as in the D of
—on the constituent parts of their batteries, such as Lithium, a scarce raw material.)
Now EVs in general are becoming dependent on charging infrastructure.
As at the time of writing this, consumers are finding hybrids increasingly appealing because of the lack of charging infrastructure and the planning and time required to charge on a journey.
Don’t underestimate the importance of your whole product. It might incorporate many things you could easily overlook such as:
Data needed to run your AI/ML algorithm for learning and training
Workflows that incorporate other people’s services such as verification and sign on
Compliance such as KYC of SOC2 for certain products or industries
And of course feature/functionality such as capabilities that are someone else’s CORE strength

Exercise

Tesla is a great example of a company with a lot of DEBT. What can you see might be their
Dependencies?
External factors?
Barriers to entry, backlash and burden as they have scaled?
Timing issues?
Consider these and brainstorm what you can see. Then look for some pointers here:



See the Wikipedia definition of whole product
. It’s an adaptation of the total product concept developed by , a professor at Harvard Business School, and expanded on by Geoffrey Moore.
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