[Discussion] Good-to-have vs must-have, how do you identify?

Hello,

How do you define whether a product is a good or must-have? Is it based on the audience? Your product can be a must-have for a particular niche, while it can be good to have for others.

Can a product start as a good-to-have and eventually become a must-have? For example, (I think) when Slack started as a communication product within an organisation, there were already many tools. It might have been a must-have for particular teams while being a good-to-have product for most other companies. But, as they kept adding more features, and as people started to hear more about Slack from their friends, they would have tried it, and it eventually became a must-have product.

Now, if we go a step back, maybe it's about Slack, but it can be about a real-time "conversations" product. Even before Slack existed, people communicated over emails, and if you were using Google Suite (Google Workspace), you already had Google Chat available for real-time conversations. The whole space itself was a good-to-have that converted into a must-have.

The most common advice is to solve people's pain points (aka must-haves). But, on the contrary, the challenge is that there is already a ton of competition for that pain point. You need to find a big differentiator to make people switch to your product. However, suppose you start with a good-to-have product with a solid current alternative user behaviour (like in the Slack example, people are already sending emails back-end-froth). In that case, there is a higher probability that your product can win big.

I might be wrong about this approach, have something fundamentally wrong, or have a strong point. I'd love your perspective on this, especially from your personal experience.