“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford
Lately I find myself thinking about products I admire and the foresight they represent. I come back again and again to elegant execution that creates simplistic and obvious value creation that delights users. Thats really all it is and its the crux of great products. I have a running list in my evernote now of products I study and what I perceive the atomic unit of their value creation to be. One criticism of this approach could be that I fail to see the larger opportunity, what teams can do with the data blah blah blah…but I’m not terribly concerned w/ that for the purposes of this exercise. I stepped outside of my wheelhouse 2 years ago and threw myself into a position where I had to own products. It was sink or swim. Making conscious observations on what users did before a product existed helps me identify points of friction, or workarounds that users currently resort to to achieve their aims. Workarounds signal friction and inefficiency. Friction and inefficiency are itches that users will delight you for scratching. Watch what people do and not what they say. Below are a few examples:
MessageMe — What users did before: people want to share rich media but current messaging apps do a poor job (either due to performance or lack of features) in letting users seamlessly share rich media like videos, pictures, drawings, voice memos. Users will copy URLs of videos or pictures and paste them into their messaging app. The solution: A super zippy messaging app that lets you share rich media inside the app with one click of a button.
Clearslide — What users did before: Salespeople had to manually enter subjective notes in CRM systems after every interaction with a customer. This was 1) time consuming and 2) the onus was on the salesperson to communicate the relevant parts of the conversation that could impact the probability of the deal being closed. What does this mean? Clues about what part of the proposal they were most interested in. Questions the prospect asked. Who else they roped in into the conversation or shared the proposal with. The solution: Cloud based repository for sales presentations with analytics that track time spent on slides, who the presentation was shared with, when it was opened and such. All this allows for subjective notes to be replaced with data that helps prioritize leads, time follow-ups and guide conversations.
When you study products with this lense…you start to naturally isolate product value into silos of faster / cheaper / more efficient.
Don’t ask users what they want. Watch what users do and think deeply about their motivations and goals and build a solution that helps them arrive to their desired outcome faster. I’m not saying its easy…but its the best insurance you have at getting traction. Let me save you the growing pains and learn from my mistakes!
"If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses." - Henry Ford.
I can't agree with this more...this especially rings true here in the valley. Its a tightrope walk to synthesize feedback from failures efficiently and effectively while not breaking pace and letting your emotions have you pause on the undesired outcome. Persistence is magical.
My wife thought for the longest time that this store was a front for something. I had heard of a persian landlord in the area taking equity in lieu of rent for office space leased to startups but first time I'm reading of the back story of the rug store. Move over Ron Conway :)
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford
Lately I find myself thinking about products I admire and the foresight they represent. I come back again and again to elegant execution that creates simplistic and obvious value creation that delights users. Thats really all it is and its the crux of great products. I have a running list in my evernote now of products I study and what I perceive the atomic unit of their value creation to be. One criticism of this approach could be that I fail to see the larger opportunity, what teams can do with the data blah blah blah…but I’m not terribly concerned w/ that for the purposes of this exercise. I stepped outside of my wheelhouse 2 years ago and threw myself into a position where I had to own products. It was sink or swim. Making conscious observations on what users did before a product existed helps me identify points of friction, or workarounds that users currently resort to to achieve their aims. Workarounds signal friction and inefficiency. Friction and inefficiency are itches that users will delight you for scratching. Watch what people do and not what they say. Below are a few examples:
MessageMe — What users did before: people want to share rich media but current messaging apps do a poor job (either due to performance or lack of features) in letting users seamlessly share rich media like videos, pictures, drawings, voice memos. Users will copy URLs of videos or pictures and paste them into their messaging app. The solution: A super zippy messaging app that lets you share rich media inside the app with one click of a button.
Clearslide — What users did before: Salespeople had to manually enter subjective notes in CRM systems after every interaction with a customer. This was 1) time consuming and 2) the onus was on the salesperson to communicate the relevant parts of the conversation that could impact the probability of the deal being closed. What does this mean? Clues about what part of the proposal they were most interested in. Questions the prospect asked. Who else they roped in into the conversation or shared the proposal with. The solution: Cloud based repository for sales presentations with analytics that track time spent on slides, who the presentation was shared with, when it was opened and such. All this allows for subjective notes to be replaced with data that helps prioritize leads, time follow-ups and guide conversations.
When you study products with this lense…you start to naturally isolate product value into silos of faster / cheaper / more efficient.
Don’t ask users what they want. Watch what users do and think deeply about their motivations and goals and build a solution that helps them arrive to their desired outcome faster. I’m not saying its easy…but its the best insurance you have at getting traction. Let me save you the growing pains and learn from my mistakes!
"If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses." - Henry Ford.