How Startups Get Distracted by Buzzwords

Startups are constantly under pressure to look modern, innovative, and competitive. One of the easiest ways to do this is to copy what competitors are doing—whether it’s AI-powered features, quick commerce, ultra-fast delivery, or virtual spaces. These marketing buzzwords promise to make your product look “trendy,” but they don’t always solve your customers’ real problems.

The danger is that founders can get pulled away from their core value proposition, spending time and resources on features that don’t matter. This is why many startups oversell trends instead of focusing on what keeps customers happy.

Wrong prioritization is one of the major reasons for the failure of Startups and Businesses.

Buzz Features Startups Chase Regardless of Core Value

You might have seen this following features in most of the recent startups, irrespective of what Core value proposition they provide.

  • AI-Powered / Generative AI / ChatGPT Integration
  • Quick Commerce / Ultra-Fast Delivery
  • NFT / Web3 / Crypto Features
  • Hyper-Personalization / Personalized Feeds
  • Gamification / Rewards Points

In some cases, these features are mandatory. In some cases they are just a delighter to attract the customer to try your product. But what happens when you focus on a delighter and lose on core product feature?

Use Kano model to categorize your Customer needs

Every business has a list of items or features it provides to customers. But for each of these items, how important is it from the customer’s perspective?

The Kano Model helps you categorize your product or service features into three main types:

Core Features – Essential features customers expect. If present their satisfaction is neutral and without these, they will be disappointed. Example: Correct order delivered, food quality meets expectations, restaurant hygiene, basic packaging.

Performance Features – Features that directly impact customer satisfaction, improving the experience proportionally to how well they are executed. Example: Faster delivery times, accurate estimated delivery, availability of popular items, easy payment options.

Delighter Features – Unexpected touches that delight customers, going beyond basic expectations. Example: Real-time order tracking, personalized thank-you notes, complimentary condiments or small freebies, loyalty points or surprise discounts.

Case Study: Food Service Business

From the example below, you can see that the same feature can have different importance depending on the type of food business:

  • For a Street Food customer, a feature like fast service may be a Core feature.
  • For a Fine Dine-In customer, the same feature may be a Performance feature or even a Delighter, because the expectation is different.

This illustrates an important principle: some features are mandatory for certain customers, and without them, they will be extremely unhappy. Understanding which features are Core, Performance, or Delighters helps you prioritize resources and improve customer satisfaction effectively.