Building a service could be similar to building a product.
In a product based company, you build first your product and then you take it to the market to get customers for it who will pay for it. You invest first before you gain a single dime out of it.
Service is similar. You build your service first and then you take it to the market to get customers who will pay for your service. However, the outcome of building service is somewhat different than that of building a product. In a product, you and your team are investing your time, money and energy in actually building a third tangible thing/outcome, the product (example a software or a table). In service when you are building it you cannot actually see something coming out. What we are building is team itself. We are building skills, attitudes, workflows etc. and is a combination of multiple things (technology, people, strategy) so that when our service is being actually used it performs and functions well as expected
When you have built a product you sell it to a specific customer. If my product is a women’s shoes I am not going to sell it to a man (although it could be sold to men, but they are not the primary focus). Same way I cannot sell my service to anyone. I have to find my right customer to whom I can sell my service and they need it for their benefit.