#4 About customer conversations
One with the fun game
I’m coming back on track. Hoping to build some discipline soon. A lot of fun things to cover in today’s update. I thoroughly enjoyed curating this one. I hope you have as much fun as well.
1.
The Mom Test is a must-read if you are building anything. To build stellar products & memorable experiences, talking to a customer is critical. It sounds easy. And we all believe that anybody can do it. This book shows how wrong this assumption can be. It, also, shows how to do it right. Here’s the opening of the book that summarises this pretty well.
“Trying to learn from customer conversations is like excavating a delicate archaeological site. The truth is down there somewhere, but it’s fragile. While each blow with your shovel gets you closer to the truth, you’re liable to smash it into a million little pieces if you use too blunt an instrument.”
I’ve summarised the first two chapter here. For the rest, do read the book. It’s a very small read and will be worth every minute of your time.
2.
This one is a fun exercise. I remember doing it long back. But, this time, I did it with Saanvi (my 7yo daughter). For each question, we both picked our choices. I tried to apply my half-baked knowledge of UI designs. She played on her intuition (and some learning as we understood the gaps). Our scores were almost the same.
Good design is simple & intuitive. One should not need any prior knowledge of any subject to be able to use the product.
3.
Gibson Biddle was VP of Products at Netflix. He has written some really insightful posts about Netflix's customer experience. Recently, he wrote a 2-part post on Netflix's personalization efforts. He has taken a jargon-free take on the ideas & execution done through the 2 decades-long journey. Building moats takes time and this one shows in good details the story behind one such moat. Facebook’s history has a lot of great examples of growth hacking. This one from Netflix is a nice narrative on ‘product’ hacking.
4.
This post covers a 40-year-old Nike internal memo penned by its first marketing head Rob Strasser titled “Principles” (Source)
We may agree with it or not! But, it’ll be great to reach a state of clarity where we can make a manifesto like this.
5.
Some random goodness from the internet:
Twitter thread: Sometimes good intention may not result in a good result. A thread by @TrungTPhan covering some good examples.
Twitter: Maps used in fun infographic way to represent trivia & trends with Amazing Maps
Newsletter: Khy Hy covers actionable ideas, frameworks and tools for improving productivity & creating a larger impact in his RadReads newsletter.
Website: Experience adrenaline rush with these feeds of some crazy rides. Beautiful views enjoyed better with sound on.
That's all, folks!