I struggle with balancing the urge to putter like the author puts it, with doing "expansionistic" things like marketing or building features that are valuable to new customers rather than existing ones. The "correct" business analysis will say the business gets much more out of new acquisition channels than micro-optimizing the product further, that I shouldn't fall into the "build it and they will come" mentality. But my first instinct will always be to want to just create the best possible product for my existing customers - it's what brings me joy, and it's really hard for me to designate any suboptimal state of the product as "good enough for now" and focus on acquisition instead. For now I try to balance it by alternating doing one or the other in each sprint - that way I never neglect puttering completely, but I also force myself not to do it exclusively like I'd probably do if I just based the decision on personal motivation.
My product is my garden
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Re: My product is my garden
#12I struggle with balancing the urge to putter like the author puts it, with doing "expansionistic" things like marketing or building features that are valuable to new customers rather than existing ones. The "correct" business analysis will say the business gets much more out of new acquisition channels than micro-optimizing the product further, that I shouldn't fall into the "build it and they will come" mentality. B…
I'd say if you have existing customers, you're already past most companies with a "built it and they will come" mentality. Most of those fail to ever acquire real users.
Re: My product is my garden
#13Hits home! One of these days I'll join you and have my own garden.
Re: My product is my garden
#14I struggle with balancing the urge to putter like the author puts it, with doing "expansionistic" things like marketing or building features that are valuable to new customers rather than existing ones. The "correct" business analysis will say the business gets much more out of new acquisition channels than micro-optimizing the product further, that I shouldn't fall into the "build it and they will come" mentality. B…
I agree with you and I will add my own tint to it: I do this to push myself to grow and move forward and then lie back and do what's comfortable and familiar. Rinse and repeat.
Re: My product is my garden
#15Love the garden analogy in software, especially when faced with complex systems that can't easily be managed by rigid IT project management styles.
Was reminded of another short piece going way back to 2007: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/591-brainstorm-the-software-g...
Re: My product is my garden
#16Love this analogy. I feel like it's intended to me. I've been part of this Indiehacker movement since last 2 years building Remote Leaf[1]. Sometimes I worry too much when I get 2 churns in a day and happy next day when I get 1 new customer. I hate these process.
Instead of trying to be like growth at all costs, I need to follow your strategy. Just help people. Just improve the product. Just do the gardening.
[1] - https://remoteleaf.com
Re: My product is my garden
#17Lovely post, and a great idea. I personally very much like the idea of not scaling - and in fact have done this for 10 years with our (still tiny) digital agency. We could have chosen to take on staff many times but instead opt for a lifestyle business where I can hang out and look at the sea and be with my wife and kids.
In building products, my biggest issue to date feels like it is that I rarely bring anything to fruition - but actually this article helped me with that. It really highlighted how it's ok to incrementally push things along, get to a couple of launches just for your own satisfaction, and maybe make a little bit of cash - but you don't have to have any aspiration to "make it big". Thanks for posting :-)
Re: My product is my garden
#18Does he mean `potter`?
Re: My product is my garden
#19> This is my garden, and I intend to putter.
I was about about to correct that use of "putter" as a typo, but it seems it's a USAism. Never seen that before. I'd always thought machines/engines putter, gardeners potter. I put it to the super-accurate Purported Google Results Test:
putter in my garden - 7 million
potter in my garden - 142 million
putter around - 9 million
potter around - 363 million
putter about - 49 million
potter about - 581 million
Although when I put on a USA accent, there's not very much difference between my "potter" and "putter", maybe that's something to do with "putter" apparently being the US spelling.
Re: My product is my garden
#20What a nice sentiment, and one I am completely on board with. I've likened my "digital puttering" to my father whiling away the hours in the garage during my childhood. Some hammering, some grinding, and my mother occasionally taking out a cup of tea.
And to build on that there was a cool video recently about a forensic pathologist in Houston who makes kitchen knives. He's not scaling, but it seems that it is a hobby that he loves.