Turning a fragmented Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) initiative into a differentiated product strategy
Keller Williams had an opportunity to create a cross-platform Comparative Market Analysis tool that helped agents price homes with confidence and win listings. When I joined, three product teams were building in parallel with no shared vision, each pulling in a different direction. My role was to figure out what we were actually building, why, and shape the path forward.
Cross-Functional Alignment
I designed and facilitated a series of cross-functional discovery workshops that forced trade-off discussions across the team. The riskiest assumption: agents would adopt our CMA tool despite free local MLS tools — tools with deeper data than we could reasonably build.
Strategic Discovery
Our assumptions were challenged by a series of discovery methods. Agents rarely paid for CMA tools, believing MLS tools were good enough, but they still faced a real gap with the "at-the-kitchen-table" pitch. Every agent had their own cobbled-together workaround and presentation style. This was our opportunity to differentiate.
Product Vision
I crafted a unified product vision with the big bets in mind – zero-effort presentation, time to first creation, agent-at-the-center, ecosystem design, and data digestibility over depth. Further testing shaped the direction, and the answer "why would agents choose our CMA tool?" became clear.
One thing I'd emphasize more next time: advocating to slow down earlier will always result in speed later.
