From Services to Product: Ultraleap's Journey
- Chris Burgess
- Mar 11
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 25
The theory of 'crossing the chasm' as declared by Geoffrey Moore highlights the issues that emerging technologies face when moving from early innovators to the early majority on the tech adoption curve. The journey from groundbreaking innovation to widespread adoption encounters challenges, particularly in emerging technologies, but there are different techniques that can be applied to lower the friction and boost the opportunities to cross this chasm.
Often, companies rely on services to bridge this gap, hoping to guide early adopters and demonstrate value. However, true widespread adoption requires treating the technology as a self-sustaining product, rather than a service-dependent one.
As a Senior Product Manager at Ultraleap, a company building the next forms of technology for interacting with computers, I directly experienced the hurdles of shifting from service-driven technology to a self-sustaining product. Despite our technology's vast potential, overlooked nuances nearly derailed our progress. Here's how I spearheaded the transformation of documentation, user education, and company culture, which ultimately redirected our path.
The Problem: Selling Solutions With No Clear Problem
As a Senior Product Manager, I observed that emerging technologies often fall into a trap: they’re exciting, but customers struggle to see why they matter. At Ultraleap, this disconnect manifested in two critical challenges:
1. Decision-Maker Dilemma
Those responsible for budgets and strategic direction lacked the technical context to guide implementations. This led to:
Ambiguous Scope: Decision-makers couldn’t articulate requirements, leaving developers to interpret how to apply the tech.
Suboptimal Outcomes: Poorly guided projects often missed the mark, eroding trust in the technology.
Costly Proofs of Concept: Sales engineers spent days on unpaid integrations for minimal-revenue PoCs, creating unsustainable operational costs.
2. Developer Frustration
Implementers, i.e., those tasked with building experiences that utilised the technology, faced equally steep hurdles:
“Drill Up” Documentation: Manuals focused on how to use features, not why. Critical capabilities were undocumented, assuming niche technical skills.
Hidden Value: Ultraleap’s engineers (steeped in the tech) overlooked gaps in user knowledge, leaving key features unexplained.
Perceived Complexity: External developers without specialised skills found the tech intimidating, stalling adoption.
The Root Issue: Mismatched Audiences
Decision-makers and developers needed different information:
Strategic Context: Leaders required high-level why and business impact.
Technical Guidance: Developers needed actionable how and use cases.
Without bridging this gap, projects floundered.
Why This Matters
The fallout was clear:
Poor Execution: External developers, given too much creative license, delivered inconsistent results.
Wasted Resources: Sales engineers became crutches for implementations, not strategic advisors.
Stalled Adoption: The tech’s perceived complexity overshadowed its potential.
The Pivot: Reducing Friction & Enabling Best Practices
I led Ultraleap’s breakthrough by reimagining how we communicated value:
“Drill Down” Documentation:
Every feature’s overview answered “What is this?” and “Why use it?” first. This gave decision-makers clarity and empowered developers to align solutions with business goals.
Inspired by popular developer tools (e.g., Stripe, Twilio), content prioritised a prescriptive approach, guiding users with clear use cases and best practices, rather than leaving them to determine their own path.
Example Scenes for Major Features:
We created example scenes for each major feature, allowing developers to build upon them, integrate them into existing projects, or simply understand their functionality. These scenes were documented within the documentation, accompanied by video demonstrations.
Unforeseen Benefit: We originally only conceived of these example scenes as developer tools, however by converting them into standalone demo applications we provided both the sales team and decision-makers with firsthand access to experience the technology. This reduced friction and improved education - and in the case of our customers, improved alignment between decision makers and implementers.
User-Centric Testing:
We invited developers into the office and tested workflows with our tools both before and after implementation, observing pain points and specifically getting our software engineering team involved in this product discovery work.
We used polls in our Discord channel for our developer community, and armed our sales teams with a survey to get feedback - this shaped the content structure, reducing ambiguity.
Pausing Feature Creation:
To focus on making things easier for our customers, we moved away from churning out regular releases, instead we focused on unlocking hidden value in existing features.
Tutorial videos catered to visual learners, while social posts (25k+ impressions) highlighted the obvious interest that these features attracted.
The Cultural Shift: Value Over Velocity
As a Senior Product Manager, I championed the idea that whilst Agile methodologies often prioritise frequent releases, Ultraleap actually needed to prioritise value (inspired by the book 'Escaping the Build Trap'):
“Fail Fast” Mindset: They held releases until features delivered clear outcomes, resisting the pressure to “ship something.”
Cross-Team Alignment: Sales and marketing used the new docs to craft compelling narratives, bridging the gap between tech and business stakeholders.
Cost Savings: Sales engineers’ time per deal dropped from days to hours, freeing resources for scalable initiatives.
Results: From Services to Product-Led Growth
Faster Implementation: External developers built projects in hours, not days.
Lower Costs: Reduced reliance on hands-on sales support improved margins.
Stronger Positioning: Clear documentation became a marketing asset, attracting informed buyers.
Key Takeaways: Building Self-Sustaining Products
Creating self-sustaining products that minimise reliance on sales engineers and support benefits from the following initiatives:
Cultivate a "Why First" Culture: Ensure that all product development focuses on the user value and market relevance.
Validate Assumptions with Real-World User Testing: Prioritise user feedback over internal assumptions, and test with real users and gather feedback through polls and surveys. Use customer facing resources to maximise your sources.
Focus on Value and Refinement Over Rapid Releases: Do not be scared of pausing new feature development to refine, improve and explain existing features.
Strong Storytelling: Build demo applications to create compelling narratives that demonstrate your why, and provide example code to give context.
Prioritise Clarity and Purpose: Use documentation to explain features to end users with "What is this?" and "Why use it?" to empower users.
Conclusion
For Ultraleap, the path to a self-sustaining product wasn’t about better tech or more features—it was about a holistic transformation in how we connected with our users. By aligning our strategies with user needs, focusing on delivering tangible value, and fostering a culture that prioritized understanding, I turned a services-heavy grind into scalable growth. This experience underscored a fundamental truth: in emerging tech, clarity and user empowerment are paramount for driving sustainable adoption.
If you're facing similar challenges or looking to transform your product strategy, let's connect. Reach out to me directly to discuss how I can help.
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