Delighting users is incredibly hard. Most startups don’t even try. That results in boring (although occasionally effective and useful) web applications. Some startups try too hard and end up overloading their applications with flashy funkiness that doesn’t add any real value. They might get an A for effort, but they won’t keep users happy through […]
Interrupt Users to Increase their Adoption and Engagement
You want someone to use your product, then get in their face and force them to. I’ve made this argument before. One of the biggest challenges for any startup is engagement – acquiring users is hard, keeping them is usually much harder. And even when users say they love your product or think it adds […]
Take Advantage of Users for Their Benefit and Yours
When you’ve got someone by the balls, squeeze. Now think about your users and your web application. Are you squeezing ’em? Web applications typically do a very poor job of motivating users immediately after they sign up. Sign up for any web application you want and they generally drop you into a dashboard or timeline-like […]
Product-Market Fit or Market-Product Fit?
When starting out a project we know how important it is to get out of the building, talk to prospects and figure out whether our idea holds any merit. That’s the basis of Customer Development. And the goal is to get to Product-Market Fit, where the product is validated and built for a specific market, […]
Rounded Corners, Wasted Time and Technical Burden
I’ll admit it. I love rounded corners. They’ve gone out of style somewhat, but I still love ’em. When we were building Standout Jobs, we made the decision to have rounded corners on all the widgets that appeared on a career site. Actually, I probably made the decision. I certainly pushed hard for it. Rounded […]
Design Web Apps With a Scalpel Not a Hammer
Design works when it solves problems. And there aren’t many problems on the Web that you can solve using a hammer. Slamming someone upside the head is generally not the best way of getting them to do what you want. Brute force has its place, but if you’ve pummelled someone into submission, they’re not likely […]
And You Thought Building Product Features Was Easy?
Laura Klein really blew my mind with her post: 6 Questions to Ask Before Launching a New Feature. I don’t think I’ve ever put that much thought into adding a feature before. From now on, I’m going to make damn sure I do (or at least try!) The only addition I can really make is […]
Foursquare and Pavlov’s Dog
I’m a big fan of Foursquare. It’s not because of the game or even the possibility of getting deals at nearby locations when I check-in. What’s fascinating about Foursquare, and in my opinion, at the heart of its success to-date, is the fact that it has created a new, automatic user behavior. Remember Pavlov’s dog? […]
Startup D.O.A
How often have you seen startups go down the following road? A couple people come up with an idea. They’re excited. Really, really excited. They get nervous about competition or people stealing their plans. So they get very hush hush. They start building something. This usually involves locking themselves in a small, dark room with […]
Product Managers in Startups: What’s their Role?
Product managers are the unsung heroes in startups. The Wikipedia definition of product management states: Product management is an organizational lifecycle function within a company dealing with the planning or marketing of a product or products at all stages of the product lifecycle. Product management (inbound focused) and product marketing (outbound focused) are different yet […]
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