Speed Shapes Your Product Faster
Be faster to solving problems and you’ll be just fine.
In 2010, Jeff and I accidentally started PageLever.
We had been working together on BrandGlue for a few months and we had landed some great clients. From Mint.com to Intel, we were really at the leading edge of what a social agency should look like at that time. We created content, designed graphics, wrote status reports, all of the things that an agency does, but we didn’t build software.
However, I’m a software guy, not a marketer. My original goal in joining up with Jeff was that I’d learn some new skills. No less than a few months passed before I had to write some code or I’d go insane.
We had two clients, Nordstrom and ICanHazCheeseburger, that had some really specific needs out of a Facebook tab product. They were managing multiple individual Facebook Pages and needed a tool to control them all from one place. In the market at that time, there was a handful of products, but nothing really matching what they needed. So, we decided to build it.
We launched it and, honestly, it was pretty solid. I felt accomplished and was proud of what we had built. A huge rush of accomplishment and excitement.
This is how most early stage product stories (should) sound, especially for young entrepreneurs innovating in an emerging space. But, we didn’t succeed because of our wonderful product discovery process or our clean code or some fancy idea.
We succeeded because we moved fast. We didn’t even know that’s why we were succeeding at the time.
Build just enough
- Yes, you have to listen to the customer
- Yes, you have to build something they’ll use (and pay for)
- No, you don’t have to build everything they ask for
- No, you don’t have to build everything you think they’ll need
Your goal isn’t to build the perfect product right now; it’s to build something that people want to use because it serves a purpose. Success is defined by how helpful your product is, not how many features it has.
Do you consider yourself capable enough to build all of the possibilities? Do you have the time to carefully consider all of the possibilities? Do you have the runway to support all of those requests? No. No. No.
So, you have two choices: figure out how to balance all of your product feedback inputs to create the perfect roadmap or just go faster.
Speed is a super power. There’s an infinite number of decisions you can make about your product. Each of them will open up a new path for you to take. Each step creates a new reality.
The next step is what really matters.
“Going faster” doesn’t mean “build faster”, it means “figure out our next steps faster”.
Some tips:
Start with the known hard problems. If you know how to solve the easy problems, then don’t spend time on them now, even if you can solve them faster. Break down the problem into smaller pieces. You can then more easily delegate the work, optimize your available time, and keep customer feedback focused.
If you don’t have customers yet, get some first. “We had this problem, we think you might also have this problem. If we solved this problem, would you use this product?“.
Match the level of fidelity of your solution with how much you know about the problem. If you don’t know anything, stop and go solve other problems. Don’t waste your time.
Be extra careful when hearing requests that don’t align with what you thought would be the solution. There’s always some nuance that you could be skipping over, so be attentive.
Building a product completely on spec is a surefire way to waste time, even if you think you’re innovating. Remember, you want your products to be bought, not sold.
It’s going to be ugly, but that’s ok.
I’ve had people tell me that my solution is terrible (it wasn’t a solution, it was a question).
I’ve had people tell me that I’m wasting my time (they just saved me six weeks, six months, and possibly even six years).
I’ve had people tell me that this product is perfect (they don’t actually use it, therefore telling me it’s not there yet).
All of that is exactly what you’re looking for. “No” is an open door for a “yes” to walk through. It’s so much easier for most people to provide feedback about what’s wrong than it is for them see themselves using the product successfully.
So, what’s your next step?