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Built to Fail: What Google, Ideo, and 37signals have in common

andrewchenblog.com

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Re: Built to Fail: What Google, Ideo, and 37signals have in common

#11

Post by jmtulloss »

sriramk wrote: post #5
marcusbooster wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't do focus groups on products designed and designed again from the bottom to the top? They even say so in their jobs faq: Apple hires quality assurance engineers for internal product testing...We also create focus groups to provide feedback on our products. http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/pro/inside/questions.html

I'm going by Ive's interview plus off-hand comments I've heard from ex-Apple employees http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/07/01/a-fireside-c...

When you have 10,000 employees (or however many they have now), it's very possible to do focus groups and usability testing completely internally. A startup with 3 guys, not nearly as easy.

Re: Built to Fail: What Google, Ideo, and 37signals have in common

#12

Post by marcusbooster »

sriramk wrote: post #5
marcusbooster wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't do focus groups on products designed and designed again from the bottom to the top? They even say so in their jobs faq: Apple hires quality assurance engineers for internal product testing...We also create focus groups to provide feedback on our products. http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/pro/inside/questions.html

I'm going by Ive's interview plus off-hand comments I've heard from ex-Apple employees http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/07/01/a-fireside-c...

The "We don’t do focus groups" statement from that article is referring to how Apple decides what products to build, not how they are built.

Re: Built to Fail: What Google, Ideo, and 37signals have in common

#13

Post by joez »

There is a difference between planning to fail and failure-tolerant.

People and companies still need to have long term vision of what to do "in case" your product is actually good, your startup actually gets funded, and of success in general. This turns you into a proactive player.

If all one does is have a system in place that reacts when something goes wrong, then this is really being reactive.

I believe Andrew is missing the bigger picture.

Re: Built to Fail: What Google, Ideo, and 37signals have in common

#15

Post by sriramk »

marcusbooster wrote: post #12
sriramk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going by Ive's interview plus off-hand comments I've heard from ex-Apple employees http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/07/01/a-fireside-c...

The "We don’t do focus groups" statement from that article is referring to how Apple decides what products to build, not how they are built.

You're probably correct. I doubt that even Jobs and Ive are superhuman enough to build the right product at the beginning. I do wonder how they do this with their culture of secrecy. Any focus group they run must be quite small or they must be splitting up their focus group tests.

For example, I remember reading a story about someone testing out the iPhone UI alone in a contraption in a box as opposed to the real hardware.

Re: Built to Fail: What Google, Ideo, and 37signals have in common

#16

Post by aditya »

russell wrote: post #4

The unanswered questions at the end are interesting. "This area of thinking started out with the hiring process, and the idea that maybe interviews don’t work at all – there’s a bunch of academic research that implies that, actually. So if how would you build a failure-tolerant system around the hiring process, if you assume that good interview candidates actually have no correlation to successful employees?" I have…

The problem with contract to hire is that it sounds great (atleast on paper), for the company but for the employee - most people interviewing take it to mean that the company wasn't super impressed with their interview and wants to test them out, and they could get kicked out at any time.

Think about interviewing for a job (not from an entrepreneurial mindset) - what you're looking for is the safety and security of a job and what the company is giving you is a contract position that can be terminated at any time without severance or notice.

It is a great idea but there is stigma (possibly unsubstantiated) associated with it.

Re: Built to Fail: What Google, Ideo, and 37signals have in common

#17

Post by weaksauce »

sriramk wrote: post #15
marcusbooster wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "We don’t do focus groups" statement from that article is referring to how Apple decides what products to build, not how they are built.

You're probably correct. I doubt that even Jobs and Ive are superhuman enough to build the right product at the beginning. I do wonder how they do this with their culture of secrecy. Any focus group they run must be quite small or they must be splitting up their focus group tests. For example, I remember reading a story about someone testing out the iPhone UI alone in a contraption in a box as opposed to the real har…

I heard a while back that they would intentionally use fake products for testing to see what group leaked the information. Kind of like having a watermark in the review copies of the movies given to the academy and sundance.

Re: Built to Fail: What Google, Ideo, and 37signals have in common

#18

Post by lief79 »

aditya wrote: post #16
russell wrote: post #4

The unanswered questions at the end are interesting. "This area of thinking started out with the hiring process, and the idea that maybe interviews don’t work at all – there’s a bunch of academic research that implies that, actually. So if how would you build a failure-tolerant system around the hiring process, if you assume that good interview candidates actually have no correlation to successful employees?" I have…

The problem with contract to hire is that it sounds great (atleast on paper), for the company but for the employee - most people interviewing take it to mean that the company wasn't super impressed with their interview and wants to test them out, and they could get kicked out at any time. Think about interviewing for a job (not from an entrepreneurial mindset) - what you're looking for is the safety and security of a…

There is a strong risk of losing out to anyone offering full time employment. In practice, the full time employment doesn't have much more of a guarantee with it.

This is especially true for computer programming and Business Analysts. The normal 3 month span will show you a minimum of competence, but it doesn't show anyone's final working level. The exceptional individuals will still stand out, but most companies don't have that kind of draw or the salaries to focus on them.

Re: Built to Fail: What Google, Ideo, and 37signals have in common

#19

Post by rimantas »

Where all these companies just put there for their names? Article just doesn't make sense. There is the talk by Jason from 37signals, where he specifically talks how he does not get this obsession with failing: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1798-jasons-talk-at-big-o...

Re: Built to Fail: What Google, Ideo, and 37signals have in common

#20

Post by Semiapies »

sriramk wrote: post #2

The standout there is Apple. Apple builds great products, doesn't do focus groups. They probably do multiple iterations but without large betas, the audience of those iterations is probably very limited. Their releases are not cheap - once you announce a new iPhone, you cannot change the hardware before release so you really need to get it right. The soonest you can update it is a year or so. Most of all,Apple is the…

The downside of the "great man" setup is that Apple was not at all impressive without Steve Jobs at the helm. Uninspiring to outright bad Mac models, Microsoft putting out a superior OS for a time, etc. To be glib, with Jobs, you get the Wired "Evil Genius" cover story on Apple - and without Jobs, you get the old "Pray" cover story on Apple.
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