🧠 Customer Mindsets / PM Snacks 81
🧠 Customer Mindsets / PM Snacks 81
The Arc Product-Market Fit Framework • How novelty effects and Dopamine Culture rule the tech industry • Progressive Reduction • Validation Patterns • Habits for getting sh*t done
Hey everyone,
I’m on my way to Greece 🏖️ to holiday for a few weeks (first real break in 2 years). But before I go, here’s a few of my most interesting reads this month.
I’m sharing yet another article about product-market-fit because it highlights the importance of customer’s mindsets in the way we should approach product building. Then, we move on to a piece on the “dopamine” culture we all partaking in and how it affects these mindsets. Finally, you’ll find two very short resources about validation tactics and adaptative user experiences.
Yesterday, OpenAI introduced their latest model GPT-4o (2x faster, 50% cheaper), making it one step closer to a personal assistant (like in the movie Her). It seems it’s made possible by a smaller model (= cheaper, faster), that is as powerful as the previous GPT-4, and multimodal (= now it understands audio, text and vision in one neural net). If you have not checked yet, here are some demos.
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1️⃣ The Arc Product-Market Fit Framework • Apr 2024 • 11 min read • #strategy
The framework describes 3 product archetypes in B2B beyond the “hair on fire” we automatically think of. To self-identify which path your company is on, start from the mindset your customers have. I’d argue that it’s powerful way to understand how to better compete & serve users, their mindsets should guide building conversations:
- Hair on Fire: You solve a clear, urgent need that your customers have identified. As a result, they already employ a solution (a competitor or even Excel), the market is crowded and to win, you will need to build a best-in-class and differentiated product. The latter part being the most important.
- Hard Fact: Customers may not even be conscious they have a problem, you will hear them say “it is what it is”. As a result, you’ll need to overcome their habits and start educating the market. For example, when Hubspot started, they had to invent the term “inbound marketing” to explain what their product was for. Square decided to tackle the “cash only” hard fact by turning every smartphone into a credit card reader, and distributed their solution for free in order to stand a chance.
- Future Vision: You enable a new reality through visionary innovation, requiring endurance and lot of investment beforehand. Customers will first be skeptical you can even deliver the solution you are pitching. Think of products like the iPhone, Figma or ChatGPT.
2️⃣ How novelty effects and Dopamine Culture rule the tech industry • May 2024 • 8 min read • #culture
Even though this article is talking about consumer products, it’s a fascinating exploration of our time, and how the mindset we all share as customers is moving towards more convenience, and immediate gratification.
- Immediate Value Delivery: products should offer immediate, tangible value to capture and retain users. Break down complex flows, design emotional experiences and reduce time to “aha” moment.
- Strategic Differentiation: Consider counter-positioning by providing in-depth, substantial content alongside quick, dopamine-inducing experiences.
- Beware of the Novelty effect: leverage the novelty effect for initial traction but ensure the product remains useful and engaging over time.
3️⃣ Progressive Reduction • Feb 2013 • 3 min read • #design
“The idea behind Progressive Reduction is simple: usability is a moving target. A user’s understanding of your application improves over time and your application’s interface should adapt to your user”. This article is 10y old by now and I bet we can recycle this technique to think the AI interfaces that will pop-up everywhere, either to recreate progressive reduction, or the opposite: progressive disclosure. I think this level of personalization will become ubiquitous in a few years.
4️⃣ Validation Patterns • Jan 2023 • 4 min read • #execution
An actionable library of tactics that are useful to validate problems, markets, solutions and willingness to pay. Use these tools if it helps accelerate in the right direction, but remember that in most occasions, it’s better to build something as fast as possible. The only real validation is shipping.
⏳ Habits for getting sh*t done • Apr 2023 • 7 min read • #method #execution
Most clicked link one year ago in PM Snacks 72.
Someone recently attended a talk by the renowned Shreyas Doshi and took thorough notes. Click the link to find out his best advice on habits that can help you up-your-game. My favorite ones:
3/ Start your day by gathering context: user verbatims and teams’ metric dashboards
4/ Create an intentional calendar (visible by everyone)
9/ Plan for the next day before leaving for home
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A warm welcome to the 38 new subscribers, we are now 3489 readers strong! Thank you for reading this far.
Olivier
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About → Productverse is curated by Olivier Courtois (10y+ in product, startup co-founder, coach & advisor). Each issue features handpicked links to help you become a better product maker.