From System to Product: A Developer’s Guide to Productization

1. When we talk about productization, are we thinking of the same concept?

To answer this, we first clarify the definitions of “system”, “product”, and “commodity”.

System: a collection of discrete functions forming a functional whole.

Product: a reusable functional collection with clear usage value and good encapsulation.

Commodity: a reusable functional collection packaged for trade, with usage value and good encapsulation.

Example: a timing system built from various components works well for internal teammates, but when released to the market it is criticized for being ugly and overly complex.

After adding an attractive dial and strap, the same system becomes a polished product that attracts market inquiries.

Setting a price turns it into a commodity. Thus, a system can become a product, and a product can become a commodity. The conversion from system to product is called productization; from product to commodity is commercialization. Complexity decreases while user experience improves along this path.

2. Are the things we develop daily already products?

Most internal system teams deliver solutions that sit between a pure system and a product; they are not easily reusable across multiple customers because they are often tied to specific scenarios, internal logic, and proprietary components.

True products should be quickly copyable for many customers (e.g., internal HR, finance, procurement tools). However, internal systems often lack this portability, prompting productization efforts such as turning the internal collaboration platform AONE into the cloud version “Yunxiao” or packaging the HSF middleware as the commercial EDAS product.

3. Which teams need to productize?

If a team has built a valuable system over years, believes it can compete in the market, and is ready to serve more customers, productization should be considered. Example: an internal office collaboration tool X was productized and opened to the market.

4. How should a development team start productizing an existing system?

Example from our own experience: we productized several internal systems (BUC, SSO, ACL, VDS) into a product called MOZI, now serving over 200 business units across the group.

The productization process can be roughly divided into three steps:

Accumulating and building product capabilities.

Enabling low‑cost, rapid replication.

Optimizing user experience.

Product capability accumulation

Improve the product’s usage value by benchmarking against competitors, filling gaps, and consolidating strengths – a continuous improvement cycle.

Low‑cost rapid replication

Support multi‑tenant SaaS or low‑cost on‑premise delivery, strip unnecessary features, offer minimal modules, and allow customers to customize and pay only for used functions.

Optimizing user experience

In today’s era, visual appeal matters; follow the “don’t make me think” principle, continuously polishing UI, interaction, and overall experience.

5. How much investment does productization require?

Productization is an ongoing, iterative process rather than a one‑off effort. Comparing two internal ticketing systems (A and B) shows that higher productization leads to better user value and market adoption, but continuous updates are needed to stay ahead.

6. Suggested productization roadmap

Define customers and users, create personas.

Identify pain points and core problems the product solves.

Define core functionalities and moat.

Clarify value proposition and market positioning.

Build capability to serve customers.

Establish configuration ability for delivery.

Develop tooling for developers (plugin ecosystem, mini‑programs).

Reduce cost and enable rapid replication.

Continuously polish user experience.

(Optional) Define business and revenue models.

(Optional) Design billing schemes.

Build benchmark applications for platform products.

Collaborate with industry leaders to set standards.

7. Ultimate question: How to build an excellent Internet product?

There is no single answer; discussion and community interaction are encouraged.