Not disagreeing with the rest of the article, but what's wrong with craigslist? It's super clean, simple, fast, and easy to use. What could extra javascript/flash/ajax possibly add to the site?
You're Overthinking It
11–20 of 55 posts
Re: You're Overthinking It
#12Upvoted just for this absolute gem: [...] it also depends on where you are on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The lower on the pyramid your product is, the crappier it can look. If your product is core to helping people make money, pirate movies, or sell your useless couch, you don’t need a designer. But if you’re high on the pyramid, ugly/clunky UI makes it impossible to for people to see your vision. Never heard this…
I think that design could still be really helpful if its helps achieve one of those core 'needs.' Craigslist leaves alot to be desired when searching for apartments (my only experience with it) compared to Hipmunk's hotel search, which plots the results on a map with color/size coding.
Re: You're Overthinking It
#13What evidence exists that building a product that you would use leads to a greater chance of success? I can think of plenty of counterexamples of entrepreneurs that have built successful products for an audience other than themselves.
I doubt you are going to fine the statistical evidence. Though that would be an awesome find.
The main reason I want to be the user of the product I make: it's 100 times easier to get out of bed in the morning to work on the thing you want to use that day. If you are working on something for someone else, and the "I'm an entrepreneur" honeymoon wears off and you are struggling to get your first revenue, it's HARD to work on that thing you think other people need. Even if you've got some evidence that other people need it.
Doing customer development is so much harder in practice than theory :) When you get to be your own customer, you get to save tons and tons of times waiting for folks to return your emails and calls.
Re: You're Overthinking It
#14Not disagreeing with the rest of the article, but what's wrong with craigslist? It's super clean, simple, fast, and easy to use. What could extra javascript/flash/ajax possibly add to the site?
I would guess the vision is typically, well, "flash". In the "pizazz" sense of the word.
Re: You're Overthinking It
#15Only making products that you are a user of is a great advice. Vote up.
Re: You're Overthinking It
#16Upvoted just for this absolute gem: [...] it also depends on where you are on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The lower on the pyramid your product is, the crappier it can look. If your product is core to helping people make money, pirate movies, or sell your useless couch, you don’t need a designer. But if you’re high on the pyramid, ugly/clunky UI makes it impossible to for people to see your vision. Never heard this…
I think that design could still be really helpful if its helps achieve one of those core 'needs.' Craigslist leaves alot to be desired when searching for apartments (my only experience with it) compared to Hipmunk's hotel search, which plots the results on a map with color/size coding.
I recently discovered padmapper while apt hunting, and it's a godsend. It scrapes craigslist for data and posts it to a map.
The killer feature is obviously to be able to look at a region and see what's available, but the filtering options are also way easier to use than craigslist's rather pathetic interface.
Re: You're Overthinking It
#17Not disagreeing with the rest of the article, but what's wrong with craigslist? It's super clean, simple, fast, and easy to use. What could extra javascript/flash/ajax possibly add to the site?
Go to craigslist, and try searching for only 1 BR apartments.
Re: You're Overthinking It
#18What evidence exists that building a product that you would use leads to a greater chance of success? I can think of plenty of counterexamples of entrepreneurs that have built successful products for an audience other than themselves.
A 'greater chance of success' is too loose a variable to really correlate with something like intuition. Success and its magnitude are highly variate. The best you can do is, as PG says, don't make the stupid mistakes.
Speaking of examples, a lot of products have come from building things for oneself (BaseCamp for instance.) Building a product you use may not be much of a help if you're making any fundamental mistake. However, it makes the life of the developer a hell lot easier.
When you are designing a service you use, intuition comes to your aid. Some things just feel right and some things just wrong. It is not something I can really put into words. Intuition, like determination, may not be something you could measure or plot on bar graphs but boy, it does matter.
Re: You're Overthinking It
#19Also really good advice:
A year into my first startup, my first major product epiphany was to never, never, ever try to build a product you couldn’t be a user for
You have to have the vision, understand everything around it. Relying only on (potential) outsiders doesn't cut it. You need prioritization, focus (" means saying NO"), simplify the UX... You need to be committed. Otherwise you just get "feature creep"
Re: You're Overthinking It
#20Not disagreeing with the rest of the article, but what's wrong with craigslist? It's super clean, simple, fast, and easy to use. What could extra javascript/flash/ajax possibly add to the site?
Go to craigslist, and try searching for only 1 BR apartments.
Would you really refuse to look at a 2 BR that's in your price range? Personally, I always just set a price and then take the best available. I guess if you wanted to pick a configuration and then take the best price, craigslist doesn't help filter much. But the price first approach is also the one every broker I've used took.