Every so often I go into Apple’s App Store (primarily for the iPad) and look for new apps to try. I’m typically looking for new games – time killers – that I can enjoy and relax with, and maybe share with the kids as well. App discovery isn’t great, and I usually don’t end up […]
Performance vs. Features — Which is More Important?
It’s fairly well understood at this point that performance is a critical aspect of building for the web. Better performance typically means better results (for whatever you’re trying to get people to do.) E-commerce transactions go up. Sign-up conversions go up. And so on. The same holds true with B2B / enterprise software. People will […]
Always Be Pitching
Build, measure, learn. That’s the Lean Startup mantra. It sounds simple, but it’s surprisingly tough to do well. And while it’s designed to eliminate waste and provide a speedier path through product development and validation, it can still lead to silos in how we think about startup progress. It’s so easy to spend an inordinate […]
Small Features
We often measure the “size” of a feature based on how hard it is to build (development time) and how hard it is to use (for end users.) So a “small feature” is one that’s easy to code and easy to use. But are small features really that easy to build? Coding a feature may […]
The Curse of Knowledge in Product Design
You know your product best. You know every feature, how it all works, the bugs, nuances and hiccups too. You know what’s coming next in the product roadmap. You definitely know more than your customers, right? Yup, you have the Curse of Knowledge. The Curse of Knowledge is described in Dan and Chip Heath’s book, […]
The Specification is Dead; Long Live the Specification
In the olden days, most people followed a waterfall method. It involved writing “complete” specifications on exactly what had to be built, how it would be built, how it would work, look, etc. You’d have the “complete” package of documentation up-front and then you’d start coding. Seems like eons ago… Then we were introduced to […]
Piggyback and Steal: Startups Need to be More Parasitic (In a Good Way!)
In a recent NextMontreal tech podcast (which I participate in on a weekly basis), I used the phrase, “piggyback and steal.” I thought it was reasonably catchy, so I jotted it down for this blog post. Without context it makes no sense, so let me add some. During the podcast I was talking to Frederic […]
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 […]
How To Prioritize Feature Development After Launching an MVP
The initial launch of your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a big step. It means you’re putting something into people’s hands to try. Keep in mind that this isn’t so much a launch as it is the beginning of a process. But you’re out there, and people are using your product. Now you face one […]
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 […]
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