Ever since joining HubSpot’s Product team a year ago, I have been collecting thoughts, advice and guiding principles from team members who inspire me. I finally got around to go through all my notes and highlight some of the lessons that have helped me thus far. Whether you are in product management, design or the general startup world, I hope you also find these helpful.
1. Get Leverage on the Vision!
If the product needs a bit more to effectively convey the vision for its use and future, then invest that work because you will get a high return on it. This was one of the first lessons I learned from Christopher O’Donnell.
Here is how I started looking at this. Often times you can offer additional functionality with a simple button that performs the needed action. And maybe pressing that button will make sense for the user. And maybe it will be a natural part of the flow you want someone to go through. But does that flow become a building block for your larger vision?
It’s surprising how much leverage we can get from the vision. It communicates the story of the product clearly and puts users in a specific mindset. So while a button might do the job, it may take something different to convey the vision. For example, a button might need more context and evolve into an overlay…or its own page …or its own app.
2. Ghetto Is Good
Ironically enough, sometimes you have to start with just a button. Starting somewhere – being scrappy and ghetto in the beginning – will help you learn fast and iterate quickly. If a specific approach doesn’t meet your expectations, it will be easy to re-imagine. A ton of iterations are awaiting you and you are just scratching the surface of what’s possible. So be minimal with your initial investment and allow for those future iterations to fall into place.
3. Collaborate & Iterate
Welcome collaboration and expect to iterate. Pretty much every single person in your organization will have thoughts and opinions on the product – what it should look like, how should it work, what should be built next, etc. It’s up to you to make this feedback helpful and turn it into a resource. Get used to collaborating with people from different teams: sharing and listening for ideas, aligning people with your goals, and making them a part of the larger vision you are after.
4. Follow through
You will undoubtedly face roadblocks along the way of making something happen. The key is to stay resilient and follow through. This advice came from Elias Torres when I first joined Product. It seemed pretty straightforward, but it’s surprising how powerful it can be and how easy it can be forgotten.
5. Think of the Product as a Human
If, for a moment, you think of your product as another human being, would you hire her to do that job? Would you pay her for that job? Would you have higher expectations of her? These were some of the questions Dan Ritzenthaler brought up to me a few months ago in one of our whiteboarding sessions. They are not only humbling, but also do a great job of illustrating the key characteristics of your product. Just imagine your ideal employee. What would her work ethic be? How about her attitude? Will she ask many questions? Use these insights to not only build solid product functionality, but also frame its user experience.
6. Work with Real Data
When developing mockups, stay in touch with the real data that your customer base is using. This piece of advice also came from Christopher O’Donnell who kept encouraging me to find proof for specific design solutions.
If your design work involves just hypothetical numbers, it might lead you down the wrong path – to a product that is pretty, but not helpful. After all, you are not in the business of theoretical solutions. As you work on prototypes, make sure to test them out with real data. Did that break any of the hypotheses you had made? Or did it uncover unexpected patterns?
7. Avoid Solving Theoretical Problems
As you work out the solution for one problem, it might open up other questions or even other potential issues. Such theoretical issues could or could not affect the way you solve your initial problem. They are definitely worth thinking through carefully. Just remember that some of these other problems emerge after a lot of IFs. Avoid solving theoretical problems, especially when the solutions are or would be big.
8. Trust Your Decisions & Keep an Open Mind
People will always say you should have done something else or should have done it differently because you are being compared to perfect and because people don’t see the full picture that you see. These wise words come from Andy Pitre who has the most contagious positive attitude. The takeaway here is to make an informed decision, trust your decision, and keep an open mind.
9. Don’t Build for the 2%
You may find yourself in a position where lots of the feedback you get is from 2% of your customer base. These customers probably use multiple channels to communicate with you or their voices are just louder than that of your average customer. While you shouldn’t ignore their feedback, you should also be careful not to shape your product vision around it.
Develop an ideal customer who is aligned with your primary persona and build for her. Don’t focus on features that will help 2% of your customer base when you have an opportunity to delight the 98%.
Do you have any other lessons or guiding principles that you would like to share? Post them in the comments.
Photo credit: Strumpet101 and See-ming Lee
