Why do successful founders and product people always talk about "customer-first" or "customer-obsessed"? A thread on customer research and problem validation 👇🏼 1/9

RT @Citrini7:

@zorbadgreek Oh no. Now I’m scared to update my app. Honestly, after reading through Reddit, it almost seems like they dont even know how users use the apps. They really hyped up the new app weeks before as well. Sucks to see that it’s disappointing.

Mostly to indulge my home automation hobby! I would integrate it into Home Assistant to manage room and area occupancy with much more precision. I use occupancy sensors to manage lights, TV, audio, voice announcements, and outlets (e.g., turn off the heater when the kid's bedroom is not occupied). Motion sensors and cheap mmWave work, but not nearly as well as I would hope. But I do realize I'm a power user, and most consumers wouldn't use/need this type of technology.

It’s okay. I have one but gave up on it (for now). I have a few Everything Presence Lites that work pretty well. The range on both devices are not as good as I hoped. Also, really want something I can mount without wires dangling down the wall. Ceiling mounted PoE would be great.

@andrewfarah Nice! Looks awesome! I wish there were consumer solutions that worked with Home Assistant as elegant as this!

@harper @Sonos I had a ton of problems using Sonos when I put all the amps on my IoT network. I eventually gave up and put it on my primary network and works great from the app, home assistant, and via Alexa. Check your network configs and VLANs.

@sweatystartup Old Forester 1920

@karrisaarinen I ditched middleman and Jekyll for my personal site in favor of Gatsby. I had to handcraft, but was happy with the quality and output. Here’s the source if you want to poke around

@KiwiDenny Storytelling

@saeedwkhan @JustAnotherPM This 👆🏽 And make sure those stakeholders understand what product management means.

@ParvSondhi @KiwiDenny By startups, I assume the OP meant pre-PMF. Does the definition of product strategy change based on the size or stage of a company?

@clairevo @aakashg0 I agree with @clairevo. If you have a good amount of confidence in the problem and solution, yoloing is acceptable. Sometimes, those small swings annoy B2B customers or don't provide enough value to them.

Yes, this happened a lot earlier in my career. I found that this typically occurred when engineering was too far from the market, customer, or problem. Bringing them in earlier during discovery and customer development has generally eliminated these situations. Unless it's a very high compliance industry, I typically interpret "need more details" as "I don't know what we're building and why" or "I don't want to own this thing, and you should give me all the details, so I can just do what you want."

I tend to agree with this statement. Strategy requires a deep understanding of the market, clarity on a target customer, and a unique way of providing value. Pre-PMF and early stage startups are typically exploring markets and opportunities, and thus, usually dont possess the knowledge to craft a good strategy. In fact, a strategy could be detrimental to their success. Startups should treat themselves as experiments and focus on testing an evolving hypothesis. This doesn’t necessarily apply to all startups. Some founders who have deep industry experience and a unique insight will benefit from a good strategy.

Depends on the stage of the company and the market. But, in general, there’s a realistic assessment of the market/situation, defined problem, target customers, and clarity on unique/differentiating factors. A roadmap and project plan should be included as well, but the items above are core of the strategy, not the features or detailed functionality. One thing to note, the assessment and differentiators are typically the things decent strategies lack. Sometimes there isn’t an honest assessment of the market and competitive landscape. And more often, there is nothing unique about the strategy that would improve their chances of success, e.g., winning in the market.

Depends on confidence and risk factors. Low confidence in problem means move as fast as possible with little regard to quality. High confidence in problem but low confidence in solution means move fast and maintain good quality. High confidence in problem and solution should focus on high quality over speed. The challenge is knowing how to properly evaluate confidence.

@anothercohen Yup! They’re great with young kids. Check out Disney cruises too. We went on one early last year and the kids loved it. Great service too. You can sometimes find discounts if you have Disney+ too.

@shreyas Great advice! I learned this the hard way years ago being stubborn forcing “the best process.” I’ve found that creating specific principles for the product/team that align with the outcomes has been much more successful.