Two Sides of the Same Coin: Delivering Value to Users and Buyers

In the world of product innovation, most failures are blamed on bad timing, technical hurdles, or a lack of funding. However, there is one major cause of failure that leaders can actually control: how clearly they define the value they are delivering. Too often, product development is treated as a "build-first" exercise, leaving the definition of "value" as a vague concept to be "figured out" later.

To succeed, you have to stop looking at your product through a single lens. Value in enterprise innovation is a multi-sided coin. On one side, you have the User (the Value-Bearer), and on the other, you have the Buyer (the Value-Payer). While they have different needs, their interests aren't in competition—they actually support each other. When you deliver the right value to the user, you create the evidence the buyer needs to justify the cost.

What Users and Buyers Actually Value

To bridge the gap between these two groups, you have to understand that "value" isn't a single target. It means something different depending on who you are talking to. 

For the User: Relief, Impact, and Confidence

The person using the tool every day doesn't usually care about high-level corporate strategy. They care about how the tool makes their job easier.

• Time to Relief (TTR): Users measure value by how fast the product solves their problem. This is the interval between them feeling a "pain point" and that "Aha!" moment where the burden is lifted. If your product claims to "simplify," the user measures that by how many steps you’ve removed from their day.

• Lowering the "Mental Tax": We look for the "Simplicity Premium", or the value found in reducing a user's cognitive load. Clunky, complex systems cause mental fatigue; a product that makes the job feel "lighter" is much more likely to be adopted.

• Impact: Users want to do their jobs better and move the business forward. Value to them means gaining new insights and reaching recommendations that they couldn't find before. When a tool empowers them to have a greater impact on the product’s success, it shifts from a utility to a career-enabler. 

• Confidence: Often, the real value is emotional rather than functional. A user doesn't just want a "better dashboard" (that's just a feature). They want to feel confident so they know they are prepared and won't look bad in front of leadership.

For the Buyer: Strategic Impact and Certainty

The person paying for the tool—the CMO or CFO—is looking at the big picture and the bottom line.

• Removing Anxiety: Buyers are often driven by the fear of making a high-stakes mistake. Value to them is the peace of mind that comes from knowing they aren’t making a significant decision based on bad data.

• ROI: While the user wants a "seamless experience," the buyer needs that experience to translate into something they can measure, such as headcount reduction or budget optimization. You have to show how "user delight" eventually leads to "business impact".

• Governance and Consistency: In a large organization, buyers value the ability to keep everyone on the same page. They need to know that the tool ensures brand consistency and follows regulatory guidelines across the whole company.

• The "Substitution" Justification: Buyers assess value based on what they have to give up. To buy your product, they may have to trade a piece of their budget or kill an old tool their team is used to. If the strategic value isn't clear, they’ll decide the change isn't worth the effort.

Why Ignoring One Side of the Coin Kills Your Product

If you focus only on the User, you might build a tool people love, but you will lack the financial proof or strategic "win" needed to justify the purchase to the person holding the budget. Conversely, if you focus only on the Buyer, you end up building software that is paid for but so frustrating to use that the staff eventually abandons it, leading to a total loss of investment. Not considering both perspectives results in: 

• The Waste of Feature Bloat: When you build for vague "General Goods" like "better insights" or "efficiency," you often invest in features that neither side actually finds valuable. This wastes the 80% of your budget that should have been funneled into the small handful of features that provide the vast majority of the product’s real impact.

• The Sales Process Stall: Even if a user "wants" your product because it looks nice, the sale will inevitably stall if the buyer doesn't see how it connects to their KPI’s. 

• The Sacrifice Barrier: Every new purchase requires a "Sacrifice.” The buyer must give up a portion of their budget or kill off an old legacy tool their team is comfortable with. If the value isn't specific and clear to both the user and the buyer, the buyer will decide the change is too much effort, and the project dies before it ever starts.

How to Align Both Sets of Interests

The secret to a successful product is realizing that these two groups help each other. As you deliver relief to the user, you are simultaneously building a case for the buyer.

1. Conduct "Anxiety Audits": Stop asking what features people want. Ask what keeps them up at night. If you identify the specific fear for both the user (e.g., looking unprepared) and the buyer (e.g., losing money), you can solve both with one solution.

2. Measure "Success States": Instead of looking at how long people spend in your app, measure how fast they reach their "Aha!" moment. A fast "Time to Relief" for a user is a powerful efficiency metric you can show to a buyer.

3. Build a Value Map: Explicitly link user wins to buyer goals. If your product makes a task simpler for a user, show the buyer how that simplicity reduces the risk of human error or speeds up the company's "Time to Market".

4. Test the Sacrifice: Ask potential customers, "What would you give up to have this?". If they won't trade a piece of their budget or an old tool, your value isn't a "must-have" yet.

5. Talk Outcomes, Not Features: Stop telling your team to "build a dashboard". Tell them to "enable boardroom confidence". This keeps everyone focused on the actual value that both the user and the buyer care about.

Partnering with Greenlight Idea Lab

By validating value from both perspectives early, we ensure that your development resources are strictly spent on the 20% of features that provide 80% of the perceived value for both buyers and users. At Greenlight Idea Lab, we help you find the precision that turns a "good idea" into an indispensable solution by closing the Value Gap before you ever start building.