I’m wondering what best in class practices have been used to price new products given the following criteria:
-no clear competitive / alternative offering to anchor on
-unique offering, unlike almost anything else in the market today
-ability to command a premium but need to value price nonetheless
I’m up to speed regarding tried and true methods like EVE, so I’d appreciate alternates / creative solutions given the above, thank you!
Hey Brian, would love to learn more about the product? Do you have a website?
An interesting challenge. Have you done a Jobs to be Done style analysis? Gary Bailey has been sharing some interesting ideas about JtbD approaches to pricing. I think these will be especially relevant for agents. One can then look at the value of getting that job done (which will take you back to EVE but with a new perspective). I have been building prompt systems for things like scenario planning and concept blending and testing applications to pricing. Nothing I am confident enough to share yet though.
You can still do an EVE without a direct competitor reference/price. In that case the competition is what I call the “status quo” which is often a kludge of other services/products and manual effort. I agree with @Steven_Forth that the JTBD is a great way to start.
All too often I see founders defining their competitive set too narrowly - even to the point of eliminating all competitors, from a JobsToBeDone perspective; hiring an employee, hiring software, hiring an external company are all equivalent.
My preferred question to get at hidden competitors:
“What will your customers stop using if they use your solution?”
It’s not the most scientific method, but I like to start by asking prospects a few key questions that help me get a ballpark estimate. These questions prompt the product owner or founder to take an honest look in the mirror and surface a sense of the customer’s reference price.
I would price based on value - product is unique and has no alternative offering.
I would challenge this hypothesis → “ability to command a premium but need to value price nonetheless”. If the product is unique and has no alternative, then one should try to quantify the value, find an appropriate price metric to extract that value, and set price levels so as to extract a portion of that value.
Love these questions @Andrew_Yee 
Totally agree Karthik.