31–40 of 41 posts
Design thinking talks about being empathetic to your users/customers. Which also sounds like the essence of this post.
Thanks for writing it.
"Your ideas are not nearly as important as your process — and the best process starts with understanding what the customers you wish to serve already do to solve their problems today and even more importantly, understanding why." Ideas matter, if your ideas do not include a reflection of current ways people are solving problems you have bad ideas and would be better off thinking and researching before talking to anyo…
For sure, ideas matter A LOT. But we over-index on product solution ideas by default. I think ideas that matter most for is for founders are the ones around a strong conviction on the market opportunity and then be flexible about the solution that is built to capture that opportunity. The latter is where I think process is more important than the product solution idea having seen my product solution ideas fail hundre…
One mistake I (and no doubt other founders) made was assuming you'd "get it right" because you were scratching your own itch. My cofounder and I started our company [0] literally based on the pain points we were feeling and still, when the first user tests on the first version of the product came around, users didn't get it. Or they didn't see the value. It was a tough lesson - we were building the thing we thought w…
completely agree with this. This is why the idea behind Cagan's "Empowered Product Teams" [ https://svpg.com/empowered-product-teams/ ] is so important. Founders are often too blinded by their initial approach of solving their own pain that they are blinded to superior alternatives that could be more easily seen by fresh eyes. Key is to empower those people to solve the problem, not just implement a solution.
One mistake I (and no doubt other founders) made was assuming you'd "get it right" because you were scratching your own itch. My cofounder and I started our company [0] literally based on the pain points we were feeling and still, when the first user tests on the first version of the product came around, users didn't get it. Or they didn't see the value. It was a tough lesson - we were building the thing we thought w…
One mistake I (and no doubt other founders) made was assuming you'd "get it right" because you were scratching your own itch. My cofounder and I started our company [0] literally based on the pain points we were feeling and still, when the first user tests on the first version of the product came around, users didn't get it. Or they didn't see the value. It was a tough lesson - we were building the thing we thought w…
One mistake I (and no doubt other founders) made was assuming you'd "get it right" because you were scratching your own itch. My cofounder and I started our company [0] literally based on the pain points we were feeling and still, when the first user tests on the first version of the product came around, users didn't get it. Or they didn't see the value. It was a tough lesson - we were building the thing we thought w…
But, that's still better than 'trying to create a product that may solve the problem of others', right? I mean, feeling the pain seems a valid start point?
Does, I think, raise the chance of falling in love with your solution though, which is also dangerous.
One mistake I (and no doubt other founders) made was assuming you'd "get it right" because you were scratching your own itch. My cofounder and I started our company [0] literally based on the pain points we were feeling and still, when the first user tests on the first version of the product came around, users didn't get it. Or they didn't see the value. It was a tough lesson - we were building the thing we thought w…
Just because I (as a manager) had previously been willing to adopt bleeding edge tech with no hoops to jump through to eradicate hundreds of man-hours, doesn't mean that the average customer is.
If you're not representative of the typical customer/user, you need to find someone who is to use as a yardstick.
It doesn't automatically mean you're headed in the complete wrong direction, but it does mean a lot of your initial assumptions (pricing, deal size, sales cycle, etc) are probably way-off.
Two things come to mind:
1) Wants are not needs. To pun Ford a bit, "I want a bigger, faster more reliable horse to get to work. Something safer for my family" is what the clearly stated want is. Remove horse and you're at root need. The Need. Too often, The Need is never distilled from the want.
2) In Covey's classic book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" he says something along the lines of: Seek first to understand, then be understood.
Yes, listen with intent. But before you write a single line of code, draw - yes, free-hand - a prototype of (what you think) you heard and share it with the other person - the user, the customer, even a colleague.
Never assume. Never assume a want is The Need. Never assume you understand until you've vetted that understanding.
"the greatest teacher failure is" Demonstrably false and wrong. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/11/success-failures-lear... https://www.futurity.org/learning-from-failure-2196272/
I don't believe that study has any relevance to the world of creative work -- like building products or becoming a Jedi ;) -- that is driven by intrinsic motivation to iterate and improve. Success rarely requires the same level of self-evaluation and reflection in creative contexts.