On Validating Product Ideas

That’s to build the actual thing and make it actually available for anyone to try, use, and buy. Real usage on real things on real days during the course of real work is the only way to validate anything. And even then, it’s barely validation since there are so many other variables at play. Timing, marketing, pricing, messaging, etc.

Truth is, you d... See more

Put through that process, reality usually hits like a truck. Many concepts that sound good on paper are infeasible to implement, or simply don’t produce the expected results. It’s frustrating when that happens, of course, but the pace of experimentation and learning at a startup is unparalleled. I think this is an especially important form of rigor... See more

Many concepts that sound good on paper are infeasible to implement, or simply don’t produce the expected results. It’s frustrating when that happens, of course, but the pace of experimentation and learning at a startup is unparalleled. I think this is an especially important form of rigor for theorycels like me. Building product forces a different ... See more

- There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of product development processes: - You ask customers what problems they have, and build for those stated problems. In some domains this may take the form of asking customers what they want, and then building exactly what they want. - Or you don’t ask the customer anything, instead you iterate internally and... See more

The opposite of process is chaos, but an in-between is rapid adaptation, emphasis on rapid . Limit scope as much as possible, ship small things fast, and react to feedback quickly.

The design process assumes that dev time is the utmost priority, and this moves a bulk of labor into the design process. This is a faulty premise. The most valuable thing... See more