This past week I attended the ProductCraft conference in San Francisco. It took place at the Palace of Fine Arts, an incredibly unique venue built in 1915 and features Roman and Ancient Greek style architecture.
The event included a respectable lineup of speakers, including a keynote from Guy Raz, presenter of two of my favorite NPR podcasts: How I Built This, and TED Radio Hour.
Here are the highlights from my notes:
From Guy Raz on seven common pieces of advice he has heard from founders interviewed over the years:
- Be prepared to leave your safety net, but do it safely (deliberate preparation is key).
- Listen to your doubters (with respect), but do not lose the bigger picture.
- Offer something that is clearly better than anything on the market.
- Failure is your friend! Learn from it.
- Always be ready to pivot.
- If you’re comfortable in whatever you do, you’re vulnerable.
- Act with kindness, it will pay you back 10x.
Hearing Guy speak in person, it was clear he took considerable energy from stories and ideas imparted by each of the entrepreneurs he’d interviewed. I really enjoy his style of speaking, one of the reasons I’m a fan of his podcasts.
From Jen Dante, head of product for payroll at Square on product ideas and mental models:
- “Product ideas are only right about 35% of the time.” This was from her time at Netflix and tallying the results of tests over previous years.
- “Be a fox.” That is, have many different mental models to choose from when coming up with product ideas.
- Two mental models worth highlighting:
- The User is Drunk: always consider the unhappy path, be clear when there’s a problem, and how to fix it. Tell them when the problem is fixed.
- The Kennedy Principle: Don’t ask the user to do things you can do for them. The user only has so much energy, don’t waste it.
There was a lot to take away from Jen’s talk. Be nimble (and humble), even the best ideas and possible solutions are right only a third of the time. Use mental models, don’t get stuck in a single way of thinking. There are many approaches to a problem that can yield vastly different results. I definitely have some new mental models to research.
From Jeetu Patel, CPO at Box on his top 10 tips for product leaders:
- Pick the right problem to solve.
- Hard problems attract the best people, build painkillers not vitamins.
- Hard problems attract the best people, build painkillers not vitamins.
- Think 10x.
- Switching costs are high, so you’ve got to be 10x better than the current state.
- Switching costs are high, so you’ve got to be 10x better than the current state.
- Build experiences people love.
- Emotion is a powerful lock in, you get word of mouth, and gives you pride and joy to work on.
- Emotion is a powerful lock in, you get word of mouth, and gives you pride and joy to work on.
- Obsess about product/market fit.
- If you took your product away would it degrade your customers life?
- If you took your product away would it degrade your customers life?
- Retention drives growth.
- If you don’t have growth users aren’t feeling your product. Deeply understand why your users come back.
- If you don’t have growth users aren’t feeling your product. Deeply understand why your users come back.
- Don’t ignore the marginal user.
- Get a group of power users loving your product, and grow from there.
- Get a group of power users loving your product, and grow from there.
- Define your organizational unit (PEAPOD)
- P = Product Management
- E = Engineering
- A = Architect
- P = Program Management
- O = Online Growth
- D = Design
- Hunger and curiosity trump all else.
- Success follows more easily when you have people with these traits.
- Success follows more easily when you have people with these traits.
- Half-life reduces dramatically in the digital age.
- Your business model is going to last 7 years in the modern age. It used to be 50+.
- Your business model is going to last 7 years in the modern age. It used to be 50+.
- Purpose matters.
- There are a lot of choices for what to work on. Hire people intrinsically motivated by your mission.
Jeetu has written up his tips in a Medium post, so you can dig into the details. I thought he brought a lot of insight that is relevant to new and established companies at any stage of scaling either a product or team.
I’d never heard of PEAPOD cross functional teams, it’s something I want to research more on, especially bringing product and program managers together.