Expected is what makes money. You expect invoicing software to generate an invoice you can send to clients. That’s what you pay for.
There are a LOT of invoicing software packages. Every piece of successful invoicing software does what’s expected. If you are building a product to make money 80% of your time should be going into things customers will expect.
But “expected” is boring. Boring for customers and boring for the product team. No one likes saying “I build the same thing everyone else is building.”
That last 20% of your time has to be spent developing your “plus one”. That’s your differentiator. This is the polish or small touches that people will remember and smile about sending you money for your goods instead of doing it begrudgingly.
“Plus one” is inspirational. Inspirational for customers and for the product team. When I was developing product strategy at Telligent I’d always push for a healthy mix of expected combined with plus ones… things that would make customers smile that they didn’t expect. What’s your plus one? How do you pick it?