Mark Mondoka

It is painful to be amazing at building a product/solution but terrible at explaining why anyone should care.

I’m going to tell you about a simple process I use to help founders explain their technical features to executives.

I call it the The 5 Translations of TECH VALUE

Every technical feature has four extra levels of value. It looks like this:

Here’s how to use the 5 Translations of TECH VALUE.

Quick explanation:

Example: You’re building a platform for operational monitoring of AI platforms using logging & audit trails

1. Start with your technical feature What did you actually build?

E.g. Technical Feature: “A tool providing comprehensive logging and audit trails”

2. List the capability What can it actually do?

E.g. Capability: “Track every system action and data access”

3. Define the advantage Why is that capability valuable?

E.g. Advantage: “Instantly identify who did what and when”

4. Articulate the benefit How does it make life better?

E.g. Benefit: “Prevent and investigate security incidents 10x faster”

5. Quantify business impact What’s the dollar value?

E.g. Business Impact: “Save $1M/year in security response costs”

The weird thing is most builders/engineers spend 90% of their time talking about technical features.

But it’s the business impact that communicates value and motivates people to act.

• If you’re building products – you want to go up these steps.
• If you’re selling products – you want to start at the top.

The customer does not want a product they want an outcome.

That’s it.

Builders/Engineers – how many of your features can you translate into the extra four versions?

• If you can only get to capability – you built a feature
• If you can get to advantage – you built a solution
• If you can get to benefit – you built a product
• If you can get to business impact – you built a business

Happy Translating!