Things we've learned about building products • Hacker News Board

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#21

Post by bluGill » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:31 PM UTC

kevmo314 wrote: post #4

This list mentions A/B testing a few times and it's worth noting that A/B testing is great but it's not free. I've seen a nontrivial number of smart engineers get bogged down in wanting to A/B test everything that they spend more time building and maintaining the experiment framework than actually shipping more product and then realizing the A/B testing was useless because they only had a few hundred data points. Dat…

Most A/B tests should not be done in a production like way. Grab some post-it notes and and sketch out both A and B: then watch users work with it.

For a lot of what you want to know the above will give better information than a 100% polished A/B test in production. When people see a polished product they won't give you the same type of feedback as they will for an obvious quick sketch. The UI industry has gone wrong by making A/B in production too easy, even though the above has been known for many decades.

(A/B in production isn't all bad, but it is the last step, and often not worth it)

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#22

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:41 PM UTC

abc-1 wrote: post #9

There are companies out there that probably do none of these things and are x1000 more successful from a revenue or market cap perspective. Seems like the biggest successes are simply being at the right place at the right time and not being a complete idiot. Nobody wants to hear that though.

[deleted]

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#23

Post by ozim » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:43 PM UTC

abc-1 wrote: post #9

There are companies out there that probably do none of these things and are x1000 more successful from a revenue or market cap perspective. Seems like the biggest successes are simply being at the right place at the right time and not being a complete idiot. Nobody wants to hear that though.

"Your website is the first impression your product is making" - unless your company does not operate in market where no one cares about your website.

We get serious leads only via networking of our C-levels and sales no customer cares about our landing page and leads when we cared about landing page were not serious and waste of time.

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#24

Post by AznHisoka » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:52 PM UTC

abc-1 wrote: post #9

There are companies out there that probably do none of these things and are x1000 more successful from a revenue or market cap perspective. Seems like the biggest successes are simply being at the right place at the right time and not being a complete idiot. Nobody wants to hear that though.

Yep, I really don’t want to read any articles from any company that built their success during the SaaS greenfield period from 2008-2016. Plus, you already have had the brand and market share to built even more upon that foundation.

Now if you’ve built something big that grew in the past few years organically, there’s more to learn from that success.

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#25

Post by giancarlostoro » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:53 PM UTC

abc-1 wrote: post #9

There are companies out there that probably do none of these things and are x1000 more successful from a revenue or market cap perspective. Seems like the biggest successes are simply being at the right place at the right time and not being a complete idiot. Nobody wants to hear that though.

I was reading the wikipedia page for WhatsApp this morning and indeed, right place, right time, right talent pool.

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#26

Post by the__alchemist » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:58 PM UTC

Thought on this one:

> Trust is also built with transparency. Work in public, have discussions in the open, and document what you’re working on. This gives everyone the context they need, and eliminates the political squabbles that plague many companies.

This seems prone to feedback loops; it can go both directions. If there are political squabbles, discussion may be driven private, to avoid it getting shut down or derailed by certain people.

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#27

Post by bilater » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 6:07 PM UTC

The problem with having such a specific, prescriptive formula for success is that it never actually works out that way. Sure, there are high-level principles, the PostHog team executes brilliantly, and I love the product, but I think we're really bad at connecting the dots on what actually made something successful. Instead, we assign credit to random things just to make it all make sense. A lot of times, it's the equivalent of saying, "Bill Gates eats this cereal for breakfast, so if I do that, I should become a billionaire too."

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#28

Post by morkalork » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 6:09 PM UTC

AznHisoka wrote: post #24

abc-1 wrote: post #9

There are companies out there that probably do none of these things and are x1000 more successful from a revenue or market cap perspective. Seems like the biggest successes are simply being at the right place at the right time and not being a complete idiot. Nobody wants to hear that though.

Yep, I really don’t want to read any articles from any company that built their success during the SaaS greenfield period from 2008-2016. Plus, you already have had the brand and market share to built even more upon that foundation. Now if you’ve built something big that grew in the past few years organically, there’s more to learn from that success.

What, you're saying the secret to success isn't just coming up with cool brand name that ends in -ify or -ly in that era?

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#29

Post by sergiomattei » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 6:09 PM UTC

tene80i wrote: post #17

zabzonk wrote: post #2

Sorry, what "successful products"? And I have to say that "Technical Content Marketer " is one of the most dubious job titles I have ever seen.

Seems like a perfectly good description of someone whose job it is to achieve marketing goals by creating content for a technical audience.

[flagged]

Re: Things we've learned about building products

#30

Post by dang » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 6:12 PM UTC

zabzonk wrote: post #2

Sorry, what "successful products"? And I have to say that "Technical Content Marketer " is one of the most dubious job titles I have ever seen.

Posthog is pretty successful! But since it isn't strictly necessary, perhaps we can make this thread more meaningful by removing success from the title above.