Market Fit, Muscle Cars, and Music
PRODUCT-MARKET FITBRAND ADVOCACY
When Kendrick Lamar dropped the GNX album, it brought me back to the late 90’s in Boston. I was a typical east-coast suburban teenager listening to west-coast hip-hop. I loved fast cars, especially the Buick GNX, but the budget for my first car afforded me something less cool.
Why did one of my favorite artists love my coveted car? I went down a rabbit hole and dug up a story that hit home because of my love of music and cars, but also the work I do. Buick and Kendrick pivoted their offering, expanded to new audiences, and re-energized their brand. Not dissimilar from strategies for B2B tech.
Buick Shifts Gears
In 1982 Buick took advantage of its recent championship win in NASCAR to create a commemorative model called the “Grand National Experimental”. This product pivot was fueled by aspirations to beat the Corvette. They gave it a powerhouse engine that hit its goal and even beat the Ferrari F40 by 0.3 seconds in the quarter mile.
Engineering and product drove strategy, but marketing was part of the pit crew. Launched at The Nascar Grand National, the GNX was a huge upgrade in style from the cushy Buick Regal the brand was built on. They built just 2000 copies of the GNX in ‘84, with George Thorogood’s "Bad to the Bone” playing in their commercial as an all-black body retrofit rumbled through the streets. It even earned the nickname the Darkside and Darth Vadar’s car at Star Wars’ peak.
Buick’s pivot was to:
Re-platform the engine and body of the Regal as GNX (product - what)
Reach a new generation of car enthusiasts by elevating their brand (market - why)
Reposition against Vette/Mustang/Camaro and win Grand National (fit - how)
Driving Market Momentum
Pivots like Buick’s work in B2B technology, there are just more internal silos and market complexities. I’ve built, marketed, and sold all types of tech acronyms over the last 20+ years, from large enterprise software to small startups. Buick’s strategy followed a strategy framework I’ve seen for some time:
Strategy (Pivot) = Roadmap Vision + Go-To-Market Motion + Target Customer
To oversimplify to 3 pieces, here are the levers you can pull in a strategy:
Tune Roadmap Vision: Pivot product strategy to launch new products, add features to existing ones, or change pricing and packaging (Product includes acquisition and/or partner strategies)
Build GTM Motion: Change go-to-market through positioning and/or brand, remapping your customer journey, and moving between a Sales/Partner/PLG Model.
Map Target Customers: Shift market focus with ideal customer profiles (size, region, industry) personas (buyers, users, influencers), and use cases or problems across your ICP/personas.
Note: Messaging is the paint on a strategy, it comes after. Without it, what are you painting? Also, it goes on everything, strategies rust without messaging.
Later in the 90’s Buick’s strategy changed to profitability and number of vehicles sold. That meant models and less frequent innovation, which bent back to selling the Regal to older generations.
⚠️ Don’t get Buicked ⚠️ Tech is racing faster than ever, and many companies are running on resource fumes due to profitability strategies overriding innovation.
Supercharge Strategy with Flywheels
Flywheel processes make it easier and easier to turn productivity wheels, keeping your GTM engine running with less gas, and fueling market momentum. They also break down silos in B2B tech that cause your engine to, well, break down. Buy-in is critical to not have a lopsided strategy other teams reject
I was talking to a head of product at an established tech company with a strategy I’m hearing a lot. They were going to re-platform to launch new AI products (new product - what) to help sales win bigger deals to the C-Suite AND cross-sell existing customers (market - why) and reposition against AI startups in the rearview AND outrun their direct enterprise competitors with the same strategy (fit - how).
My advice was to focus on an innovation flywheel, where:
Market Insights across teams were constantly fed and aggregated into consistent Market Requirements (MRD) from multiple sources, leveraging AI for research
A new dream team or Center of Innovation (COI) would review this, help PM determine roadmap prioritization, and generate new opportunities or fine-tune their roadmap
New innovation events and larger deals would see this vision earlier, keeping momentum on big deals, and gaining real-time feedback back to the MRD and prioritization.
Key Takeaways:
Stay in the Fastlane: A strategic pivot helps you pass your opponent, but if you keep shifting lanes you lose speed each time, frustrate your teams, or crash and burn.
Clean Your Windshield: Without a way to capture near real-time market insights today, you will waste a lot of gas driving in the wrong direction or constantly getting passed.
Assemble a Pit Crew: One team can lead a pivot, but like Buick, you need 2-3 departments to keep spinning the wheel for momentum and create the flywheel effect.
Kendrick Leaves Drake in the Dust
Kendrick came home from the hospital with his dad in an '87 Buick Regal and now has the ‘87 GNX. He used the car to tell a growth story of “who he was in this present moment”. The album paid homage to the West Coast hip-hop across generations and was one of my best new music of 2024.
It propelled Kendrick to be the Superbowl Halftime show. Many people who knew his music wouldn’t have guessed he would 1) be invited or 2) accept it. The performance maintained his cultural perspective and won his feud with Drake, leaving him in the dust with the song “Not Like Us”, where he compares him to the glitzy Ferrari owner Enzo aka “il Drake”.
Kendrick is constantly reimagining his art and story, through music and performance, but who knows what medium he will use next?
Me and My Car Story
My first car was a ‘83 Pontiac Gran Prix. Immediately, I dropped in a new stereo and speakers with a 12” subwoofer bumping Beastie Boys and Outkast that rattled the trunk and my neighbor's nerves. The seller said the upgraded engine was “pisser”, but ended up with a head gasket leak. Funny enough, afterward, my elderly neighbor gave me a very nice deal on his Buick Regal. Still no GNX though. I’ve recently become a father, and am scared that my little fiery boy will want a muscle car.
