3. Feature-by-Feature Scrutiny (the Catalog Idea's Features)
Categories:
- Table stakes (TS): customers expect it. It earns nothing, but its absence costs you.
- Differentiator (D): a real reason to choose you over the alternatives.
- Distraction (X): built but unlikely to move revenue or retention.
- Liability (L): creates support, compliance, legal or trust risk.
Some features sit in two buckets. The primary bucket comes first.
3.1 Classification table
| # | Feature (from catalog idea E2) | Category | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hazard assessments (field-level and site-level) | TS / L | Every competitor has them, and Mitti gives them away free. Capture is table stakes. Writing the content is a liability: if your template or an AI suggestion misses a hazard and someone is hurt, you share the blame. Templates come from the consultant or employer. |
| 2 | Toolbox talks (topic, attendance sign-in, signatures) | TS | Expected. It becomes useful only when each talk is counted toward the audit element that asks for regular safety meetings. |
| 3 | Incident reports | TS | Expected everywhere. Keep them simple, with investigation fields the audit asks for (root cause, corrective action, closed date). |
| 4 | Worker certifications (tickets, expiry dates) | TS → D | A certificate list is table stakes. Expiry alerts tied to the audit question about training records are a weekly reason to open the app. SiteDocs markets certification tracking too, so the edge is small. |
| 5 | Audit evidence | D (the product) | Filing every record against the audit element it proves, showing gaps by element and month, and exporting an indexed pack for the auditor. This is the only feature a customer will pay a premium for. It's buried last in the catalog's list. Pull it to the front. |
| 6 | "Digital forms" as the positioning | L | It puts you against free tiers and a US$770M exit. Nobody searches for "a new forms app". They search for "SECOR audit checklist" and "COR audit deadline". |
| 7 | OSHA 300/300A/301 logs | X (for this wedge) | A different country, a different rule and an annual job, already sold by 6+ small tools (02). Don't build it unless the product enters the US, and then only after its own assessment. |
| 8 | Electronic ITA submission (CSV or API) | X | Same reason. OSHA already provides a free web form and CSV upload. Worth doing only as part of a US product, never on its own. |
| 9 | COR audit packs for "one province" | D | Correct instinct. Keep it to one province and one certifying partner's audit tool until renewal is proven. |
| 10 | Serving "contractors and small employers" broadly | L | Too wide. Construction contractors holding or chasing a certificate in Alberta are the buyer. Other small employers don't have an audit deadline. |
3.2 Scoreboard
| Category | Count | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Table stakes | 4 | Hazard assessment capture, toolbox talks, incident reports, certificate list |
| Differentiator | 2 | Audit evidence mapping and packs, one province's audit tool (plus certificate alerts, a weak D) |
| Distraction | 2 | OSHA 300 logs, ITA submission |
| Liability | 3 | Authoring hazard content, "digital forms" positioning, "all small employers" as the buyer |
About 20% of what was described is a reason to buy. The rest is what customers expect, or someone else's market.
3.3 "Building to avoid selling": explicit call-outs
- A drag-and-drop form builder. It's fun to build and it demos well. It's also what SiteDocs, Mitti and Safesite already do better. Ship fixed templates the consultant can edit, nothing more.
- Native iOS and Android apps. A PWA with offline capture handles a truck with no signal. Two app stores are a way to stay busy instead of calling consultants.
- Dashboards and "safety analytics". Leading indicators and charts look good in a pitch. A 12-worker contractor wants one thing: "what's missing before the audit?"
- A second province or the US. Each is a separate rulebook. Don't start one before Alberta renews.
3.4 What a disciplined v1 looks like
Keep: offline mobile capture (hazard assessment, inspection, toolbox talk, incident, certificate upload) + element-by-element evidence index + monthly gap report + indexed evidence pack export + consultant multi-client view. One province, one audit tool, on web (PWA). Defer: corrective-action tracking with reminders, subcontractor pre-qualification, a second province. Cut: the form builder, native apps, OSHA 300 and ITA, analytics dashboards, AI-written hazard content.