Good software is built by helping people do what they need better than they can currently. Adding new features does not necessarily have that result.
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Dan Cederhom recently announced that he is leaving Dribbble, the company he started over 10 years ago. It’s one of those 20-things-I-learned kind of posts, but hang in until the end where he makes a great point that hits close to home. Under point 19, aptly named Take care of yourself first, he shares a little about his experience with anxiety. > Anxiety is a medical condition—it’s biological. A chemical imbalance where our primitive “fight or flight” response kicks in at times it shouldn’t. I…
Derrick Reimer shares the story of his last year. He had left Drip [https://www.drip.com/] and started working on Level [https://level.app/], an alternative to Slack (reminds me a lot of Twist [https://twist.com]), before choosing to walk away. His desire to build a calmer chat tool is laudable and the story is interesting. But one point leapt off the (web)page and grabbed my attention. After building an early prototype and sharing with interested users, the results were not what he had hoped:…
If you have a need, then make a purchase that will cost you more upfront, but save you time and energy in the long run.
Justin Jackson makes the case that, while market fit is very important for anyone building a product, it’s not the only consideration. He states that one should first ensure the product fits the founder. If there is not fit there, the problem shows itself every day: > Serving an audience you don’t like is one of the worst feelings in the world. You have to show up every day and answer their emails, fix their bugs, reset their passwords. To do customer research you need hang out with them a lot.…
It’s hard to know where to start with this piece. It’s classic Rands. But it also hits close to home after discussing the validity of product managers [https://chrisbowler.com/journal/are-pms-needed] recently. There are so many quotable bits from this essay, but let me share those that caught my attention. Image courtesy of the Wildbit blog [http://wildbit.com/blog/2016/05/11/how-we-built-a-product-vision-and-roadmap]. First, he wisely takes the time to frame the discussion. What is the differ…
For those who start in support in the web or software world, how do you move on to something different?
The fine folks at Help Scout asked that question [https://www.helpscout.net/blog/product-managers/]. And co-founder Nick Francis seems to indicate that the answer is yes. I quite enjoy the Help Scout blog, specifically the writing of Gregory Ciotti [https://twitter.com/GregoryCiotti]. But this particular piece didn’t sit well. It starts with a somewhat inflammatory opening statement. The one in big bold text: > To build a great product, you need design and you need engineering. Somewhere along…