A Product Manager Case Study on Walled Gardens – Part 3 – Competitor feature table
In my last blog post, “A Product Manager Case Study on Walled Gardens – Part 2 Developing a User Story & Task List” I revisited the two user personas representing a customer at Tidal (the lossless hi-fi streaming service) and at Spotify (the most popular streaming platform in the world). I approached adding the new feature in my first article, and created a task list. For part 3 of this case study, I am continuing the journey of Spotify’s Product Manager/Owner reviewing the competition to see if there are any other features Tidal has that are worth adding to the backlog, and what advantages I might have on Tidal for my own unique feature list.
The first step is creating a feature table template. Some feature table comparisons stay high level, while others get into very granular views.
| Feature | Tidal | Spotify |
|---|---|---|
| Music Videos | Yes | Yes |
| Lossless Quality | Yes | No |
| Dolby Atmos | Yes | No |
| Free Ad Supported Tier | No | Yes |
| Family Plan | Yes | Yes |
| Android App | Yes | Yes |
| iOS App | Yes | Yes |
| Smart TV Apps | Yes | Yes |
| PlayStation/Xbox Integration | No | Yes |
| Share with users on other platforms | Yes | No |
| Live performances/concerts | Yes | Yes |
| Offline Mode/Syncing | Yes | Yes |
| Import Playlists/Music from other platforms | Yes | No |
| Android Auto/Carplay | Yes | Yes |
| DJ Equipment | Yes | Yes |
| Alexa Integration | Yes | Yes |
| Podcasts | Yes | Yes |
As an example, one feature on my table compares whether both companies have “smart TV apps” but it doesn’t dive into each brand/OS. In my personal life, I use an LG TV with “WebOS” and my wife had a Vizo TV when we got married running SmartCast with a Roku Stick plugged into it. Looking at a feature table for individual smart TVs, the story changes a bit.
| Manufacturer/OS | Tidal | Spotify |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Smart TVS (Tizen OS) | Yes | Yes |
| LG Smart TVs (WebOS) | Yes | Yes |
| Various Manufacturers (Android TV) | Yes | Yes |
| Various Manufacturers (Google TV) | Yes | Yes |
| Various Manufacturers (Amazon Fire TV – android Based) | Yes | Yes |
| Various Manufacturers (Roku) | No | Yes |
| Vidaa (Hisense – Android Based) | No | No |
| SmartCast (Vizo) | Yes | Yes |
| Apple TV (Standalone Device) | Yes | Yes |
At first glance this table isn’t very interesting, but there are two obvious wins here for the product manager at Spotify.
- Hisense TVs running the “Vidaa” operating system are android based under the hood (a custom fork) and we already have an app for Android TV, so porting to this store might be an easy win to get our app on a TV brand that our competitor doesn’t have.
- Roku users can use my company’s app (Spotify) but not my competitor’s app (Tidal).
This feature table has given me an easy win for my backlog, but has also shown that Roku users have an advantage with Spotify. As of January 2023, Roku users accounted for 36% of the US smart TV market, and Roku is the #1 smart TV OS.
Roku users accounted for 36% of the US smart TV market and Roku is the #1 Smart TV OS.
TVision data Reported by Variety
Going back to our user personas in the last two articles, understanding which users/personas own various TV brands and operating systems is very helpful as a product manager to make decisions on porting apps, adding features, etc. Tidal’s app is specifically designed for lossless audio, which requires higher overhead. This is likely why there is not a Tidal app for Roku, as Roku devices have much less ram and lower power processors. While I don’t know for sure, I can reasonably assume that many Roku devices don’t have the hardware to handle Tidal’s lossless streaming audio quality. Roku focuses on the budget market, so its possible that Tidal’s primary user personas are buying more expensive devices anyways (such as Nvidia’s Shield TV, Sony’s Bravia TVs, or Apple’s dedicated “Apple TV” set top box). This becomes a “chicken or the egg” conversation.
As an outsider without access to the internal company data, I can’t be completely sure if Tidal isn’t on Roku TV because they believe Roku users aren’t interested in Tidal, Tidal users don’t own Roku devices, or that Roku devices simply can’t meet Tidal’s hardware requirements.
Seth’s BiG Question
This research session has given us some great direction. If I was Spotify’s product manager, I could potentially get an easy win by porting Spotify’s existing android app to the “Vidaa” operating system on Hisense TVs, and our marketing team could potentially target ads at Roku users, or run promotions with Roku to offer a month of free service with a purchase of the device for new customers. If I was Tidal’s product manager, I’d want to look at more market research to determine what brands of TVs my users had, and find out if its even possible to port Tidal to Roku’s hardware while maintaining high quality lossless audio. This is an example of how product managers/owners can utilize feature tables on a high level and granular level to understand the competition, the advantages and disadvantages we have versus the competition. Thanks for reading!