Designing for true customer needs
Ever wonder why the BMW i3 happens to look a lot like a Prius? It almost feels like someone declared that all electric vehicles have to look different and dorky. It looks as if they designed it by focus group, or committee – as if they asked a bunch of people what they thought an electric car looked like, and they all replied with what they already knew – a Prius.
But there’s no rule that electric vehicles have to look so sad. Tesla produces the worlds best electric vehicles with award winning design. When they plan their cars they start from first principles and ask tough questions about customer needs and behavior – that’s how they developed the Model X with the falcon wings. While it might appear flashy, it’s also an extremely thoughtful design, making the task of packing or unpacking the back seats considerably easier.
Design by focus group is easy, and it will give you the illusion of delivering something the customer wants. But what they really want is something they need but didn’t know they wanted. It takes hard work, deep thought, and conviction to surface those true customers needs and solve them well. But if you can do it right, it will make all the difference.
America’s terrible shame
The state of healthcare in the United States is profoundly disappointing. It both saddens and angers me that the wealthiest nation in the world chooses to accept such a broken system. It accepts that some people will have limited or no coverage at all. It accepts that the prospect of getting sick becomes as much a financial burden, as an emotional one. It accepts that an impossibly complex structure of billing and payments is allowed to persist – a structure that punishes those least able to protect themselves. The American healthcare system represents the worst in us all – a system created and perpetuated by the greed of organizations and individuals, at the expense of being on the right side of history.
The rest of the Western world implemented national healthcare over half a century ago. Perhaps they were helped by sentiment and promises made during the second world war. Or perhaps they made that change amidst the prosperity and optimism that accompanied the post-war decades. But why those other countries made the switch isn’t important. It risks being used as an excuse for America to stay the current, corrupt, course today. The only fact that matters is that in 2016 the mightiest country in the world chooses not to use it’s abundant resources to provide for, and protect, all of its citizens. It chooses to stand on the wrong side of history, and that’s a terrible shame.
On the illusion of health
Too often we take our health for granted. In particular, our physical health. The reality is that we move through life far closer to death than any of us would like to admit. We live with the illusion of health. That illusion is only broken when something goes wrong, as it inevitably does. Bones break. Arteries get blocked. Hearts take on irregular rhythms. It’s when things break that we realize how human we really are. We realize that our skeleton is just a brittle, metal structure with predictable performance characteristics, and that our arteries work the same way – put them under the wrong type of stress and they break. Something gives.
The miracle is that we’re alive at all – that an infinitely complex organization of atoms, molecules, proteins, cells and organs, all work together in relative harmony sustaining this thing called life. On average, this incredible juggling act is sustained for seventy or eighty years. If we’re lucky, most years are blessed with good health – everything just works. But it’s certainly not a given, and we shouldn’t take it for granted.
On Writing Well – William Zinsser
Zinsser’s main message is that writing is hard work:
The essence of writing is rewriting.
Great writing is often the product of relentless rewriting. Cutting out the clutter, finding the perfect word:
The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components
More than just hard work, writing well requires clear thinking:
Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say? Surprisingly often they don’t know. Then they must look at what they have written and ask: have I said it? Is it clear to someone encountering the subject for the first time? If it’s not, some fuzz has worked its way into the machinery. The clear writer is someone clearheaded enough to see this stuff for what it is: fuzz.
… and removing clutter:
Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there.
Clutter is the laborious phrase that has pushed out the short word that means the same thing.
Clutter is political correctness gone amok.
Is there any way to recognize clutter at a glance? Here’s a device my students at Yale found helpful. I would put brackets around every component in a piece of writing that wasn’t doing useful work.
Covering the gamut of writing skills like word selection, unity, leads, endings, and style, he provides practical guidance on how to write well. He then spends considerable time talking about different types of non-fiction writing, ranging from ‘The Interview’ to ‘The Memoir’. Great advice for anyone interested in expanding their repertoire.
Perhaps the best aspect of the book is that he ‘eats his own dog food’. The book is fun to read. It flows. This is a classic, originally written in the 70’s, updated in the last decade, and as timeless as the written word itself. Do yourself, and your readers, the favor of adding this book to your collection. And if you’re looking for other material on the topic of writing well, read “If you want to write” by Brenda Ueland – another classic that shares many of the same principles espoused by Zinsser.
Independent thought
The most important thing is to think for yourself. Independent thought. To form your own opinions and interpretations of reality.
Principally because it is the only sure way to make your way in the world. If you take other people’s advice on a course of action, without understanding internalizing and deciding on that course yourself, you will be beholden to that person and their view of the world. After that point, you can’t make decisions without them. You don’t know how you got into the maze, so you don’t know how to get out.
In my experience, when something doesn’t make sense to, it’s because it probably doesn’t make sense at all. Don’t accept that you don’t understand or aren’t smart enough. Instead realize that you are capable of understanding anything, and any shortcomings are either in the manner in which something was explained or, perhaps it’s full of shit. Figure out which one it is and act accordingly. Stay true to your own point of view and operate within your circle of competence.
Going long USA
At the end of 2014, people are starting to believe again in American economic prosperity and resilience – home prices have more than recovered, unemployment is dropping and the stock market is making new all-time highs. Only 5 years ago the country was in crisis and future prosperity was far from given. Many felt we were falling into the depths of a dystopian future characterized by a shrinking economy, falling real wages, rising unemployment and increased strife domestically and abroad. But like all contractions and crises of confidence before, America has since bounced back. The question is what underlies America’s prosperity, and is it sustainable? The answer is complex, but I think there are a few things that explain past performance and give us confidence in future prosperity.
Property rights and rule of law: This is perhaps an obvious ingredient to a healthy economy, but it’s far from a given in many jurisdictions around the world. A clear rulebook, and the knowledge that you can keep what you create is foundational to any sort of investment or innovation. I can’t say I would have confidence in my property rights operating in China, Russia or any of the BRIC countries for that matter.
Opportunity agnostic of race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation etc: Perhaps the most important and unique aspect to American economic prosperity is the fact that anyone can come to this country and succeed. Despite the talk of discrimination and glass ceilings, America is one of the most multi-cultural and accepting places in the world. This is both morally correct and economically advantageous. Even if you spoke Russian or Mandarin, do you think you could immigrate to those countries, become accepted and achieve a measure of success? Doubtful. Other countries in the world are closed to foreigners. America embraces them (despite more recent immigration issues). This alone makes it the best (and only) place that ambitious entrepreneurs can come to achieve their vision and goals, regardless of where they were born.
Largest integrated economic block: America has spearheaded the creation of the world’s largest economic block. Economic cooperation across countries and continents is a non-trivial effort, but the gains are tremendous and well-discussed in various economic papers.
English as a first language: English is the de facto international language today. This might not always be the case, but it’s likely that it will continue to remain the ‘reserve language’ of the world. Thanks to British imperialism, English has a strong hold on vast swathes of the world which make it the natural language for everyone to standardize upon. The importance of this is a natural leg up for the export of American ideas and products.
Critical mass: One of the biggest benefits to a common language and unified economic block is that the economy gets a certain critical mass that makes new ideas viable and profitable. Given the sheer scale of the American economy, it often makes sense to build a new technology for America first. There are the greatest number of businesses and consumers who might need and would be willing to pay for a given innovation.
Exporter of technology and brands: For many of the above mentioned reasons, America has become a massive exporter of ideas, technologies, products and brands the world over. This has made American corporations some of the largest, most competitive enterprises in the world. It brings the most leveraged jobs and activities to major American cities.
Blessed but not dependent on resources: America has plenty of resources, but is far from dependent on them. Contrast this with Russia, Canada or Australia.
Infrastructure: America has some of the most advanced infrastructure in the world. This is the result of centuries of capital investment. For an apt example, American farmers can bring their grain to market for $0.10 a bushel – in Brazil, it can cost them up to $2 (20X more!). That’s a remarkable difference. The cost of innovating and finding new solutions is dramatically lower when this type of infrastructure already exists.
By and large, betting against America has been a very bad wager over the last ~300 years. I believe that will continue to be the case. If you’re born blessed with smarts and motivation, there is no better place to be. This isn’t to say the country is perfect – there are many social and political changes that will be needed over the next few decades – but it’s still the best place to be for individuals looking to make a dent in the universe. It seems every 15-20 years the country experiences a crisis of confidence, becomes convinced that its best days are in the past, and that they’re being overtaken by a foreign rival. Already in my short life I’ve seen this play out several times. In the 30’s and 40’s it was Germany, in the 60’s it was the Russians, the 80’s had the Japanese and most recently it has been China. But in all cases, the reality of these economics rivals have eventually hit their own economic road-bumps that slowed them down. What makes America unique is the ability to adapt to the road-bumps and bounce back every-time, enabled by an environment that supports the initiative of bright, motivated individuals to make a better life for themselves by creating tremendous value for others. That seems to me a sustainable source of competitive advantage.
Successful startups bend the rules
Breakout startups usually bend or break rules along the way. Examples include Airbnb, Uber, Square. All of them pushed the limits of their industries’ conventional rules. Startups do this because they can. They do it because it’s also one of the only ways to bring about real change. Lastly, they do it because it’s one of the only ways to get an edge on incumbent, deep-pocketed competitors. Startups are free of the liabilities of an established business. They don’t have to worry about the risk of a new, innovative business model potentially bankrupting an established, cash-generating asset. A startup is basically an option on breaking the rules just the right amount. If things go well, the option is in the money and everyone wins. If they go too far, the startup implodes, but the worst case outcome is only the loss of the initial, often modest, amount invested.
In this sense, it becomes clear why bigger companies don’t innovate as much. They have a much lower expected value for innovative ideas because they have so much to lose. They might capture the upside, but they’ll also capture 100% of the liability and downside. Big companies can’t go there because they rightfully have legal teams bent on protecting the business from numerous downside risks that could legitimately destroy value that already exists.
This is also why people might prefer to work at Startups because they provide a structure whereby real change in the world is possible, as you’re not constrained by the limitations of existing laws and mitigating risk.
So if you want to do something different, if you want to build the next breakout startup, you need to find an edge. That edge might come from bending or breaking a few rules. Embrace it. As a startup, you’re like a guerrilla army – great at navigating in difficult and uncertain ground. Uncertainty plays to your advantage. You never want to encounter the regular army forces in the open – they’ll blow you away with their marketing and legal dollars. Find the tough ground, the ground that your competitors can’t or won’t follow. It will protect you in the early days before you have a real business to worry about, but that’s just when you need it most.
Hiring – how to make the call
It’s not always easy to make the right call when hiring – but for a growing company it’s perhaps one of the most important things to get right. As the need becomes more acute there is the temptation to lower your bar – it’s not explicit, but you find yourself starting to rationalize and make excuses for candidates that are close but not quite right for the role. You start to second guess yourself and wonder whether there are any truly exceptional candidates out there… maybe all the talented individuals in Bay Area are already taken. Maybe what you’re looking for is a unicorn that doesn’t exist.
Falling for this temptation is a bad idea. Do not lower your bar. Ever. Anything other than a resounding ‘Yes’, should be a no.
That’s easier said than done though, so I’ll share with you the secret I use when hiring – it’s one simple question: Would I want to get in front of our CEO (or board) and present the case for hiring this candidate?
This simple question seems to put everything in perspective. All the rationalizations and excuses quickly fall away. If I believe in someone, then I would be excited to present and share why I think they’ll be awesome. If I’m on the fence for any reason, I start to get this anxiety around ‘explaining away’ some of those reservations. If the thought of going to bat for this person bothers me, then I know it’s not a solid yes, which means it’s a no.
There will be other candidates. Waiting for the right one is absolutely worth it. More important than growing fast, is growing strong by building a team of A players.
How to transition to tech
Over the last few years I’ve seen more and more people shift to a career in tech. People looking to breakaway from the ridiculous demands, and soul-crushing work of consulting and finance. Recent MBA grads who want to be the next Steve Jobs. People who read the winds of change and realize how big the next 20 years will be for tech. I was a prime example of this – back in 2009 I abandoned a career in consulting and finance to start out as a Product Manager with Intuit. I took a 50% pay cut, and moved out of my plush corner office to an ‘open concept floor-plan’. At the time, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Looking back on it, I’m not even sure I would have hired myself. Luckily I managed to convince a few people that I might do a half decent job.
Making that move was the best career decision I’ve ever made. It wasn’t easy, but it can be done. I was raised on the teat of corporate America, and the world of tech was a foreign place. It took a while to figure things out. I can’t speak for everyone, but if you’re coming from a background in consulting or finance, and you want to break into product management (or corp dev, strategy, general management), below is what you need to know:
Congratulations, you’re 80% of the way there
The good news is that the majority of skills you need are transferable from your previous experience. These include:
- Learning fast – tech moves fast, you need to learn new industries and technologies constantly
- Communicating – written and oral, critical to success
- Talking business – being able to talk about business strategy, or synch with the finance department
- Engaging with customers – ability to speak with people, perform primary research, synthesize and share learnings
- Working in a team – working with and managing others, leading without direct authority
Yes, you will have to learn tech
You don’t need to become a developer yourself, but you should understand how the entire technology stack works (high level). You should be able to hack together basic prototypes yourself. Not because anyone will ever use your code to do anything. You need this because it will make you a fully functioning member of a technology organization. Without this understanding, you lose credibility. You’re an outsider. It’s like being an executive of a major car company who has never driven a car in their life. I’ve seen too many situations where senior leaders with no technical background make terrible strategic and operational decisions – and not because they weren’t bright, successful people in other careers. They just didn’t ‘get it’. They didn’t understand how software is built. They didn’t understand how engineers work best. They couldn’t tell good design from bad, let alone come up with something on their own. Pulling from a Woody Allen analogy, they didn’t know how to work the camera themselves – Woody Allen is a director, but sometimes to get the exact shot he needs he’ll get down in the trenches and work the camera himself. He can do this because he has worked as every role on a film shoot at some time in his life. He might not be the best at every role, but he understands it and could step in himself if need be. You need to be like this, but for tech.
The good news is that it’s the easiest time in history to learn tech. Here’s what I recommend:
- Read Hacker News – make this your source of news on the world. It has great content (usually) and you’ll begin to understand the tech world ‘hive mind’ and lingo
- Learn a few languages / frameworks – start with Ruby on Rails. There are a few excellent (free) resources out there that will literally teach you the entire technology stack to have a functioning web application. Check out Michael Hartl’s Ruby on Rails Tutorial. If you finish with rails, check out Angular JS next, it’s an awesome new front-end framework that will teach you about Javascript and the power of client-side applications
- Read a few books on tech – check out my books page for some suggestions
- Read the essays of Paul Graham – generally interesting thoughts on life, but also some very specific, insightful analysis of technology dating back to the mid 90’s
Doing the above will get you down the learning curve in a few months. You’ll start to think and feel like you’re ‘plugged in’ to tech if you make each of the above part of your daily routine in some way.
Sometimes you go back to go forward
I alluded to this above, but prepare to become a nobody. Your previous experience will be worthless. In some cases, it will actually be worse than worthless, it will be a liability. There are countless articles on how an MBA is sometimes a negative hiring factor for tech and startup companies. Experience from the world of consulting or finance has no currency in the world of tech. Nobody cares that you helped some faceless corporation save $200M, or that you helped some financial services giant chart their strategy for the next five years. They only care about what you’ve done in the past (in tech) and what you can do right now. Software and tech is big on meritocracy. This is a double edge sword. It will kick your ass for the first few years while you’re learning the ropes, but eventually it should work to your advantage. It means that if you’re smart and motivated, you’ll move up fast and make waves.
Also, if you’re still using a Windows machine, invest in a Macbook. Get over the learning curve, you’ll be better for it.
Getting a job
There’s no clear path to a job in tech. The mega companies are always hiring, so it’s more about finding the right department and role. Smaller startups are always growing too, so if there isn’t an opening today, there should be one soon if they’re a company worth joining. Personal introductions will go a long way to getting you in the door somewhere, but to be perfectly frank,the best thing you can do is find a company / role you want, find out who the hiring manager is, read up about them and the role, then write a killer cover letter to them explaining why you want to get into tech and why you’ll be an awesome addition to their team. Nobody does this. I’m completely serious, most applicants send in a resume and form cover letter. That’s bullshit. If you want to stand out, write a compelling cover letter explaining yourself and why you’re awesome. It’s super hard to find good talent these days, so if you can show you’re star talent from the start, people will want to speak to you. I am telling you this as a potential employer – I’m trying to grow my team right now, but the hardest thing is finding people with raw intelligence and a genuine interest in what we’re doing. I would hire as many of those type of people as I can find. It’s hard.
Also, don’t worry about rejection. Not every tech company will be right for you, each has a unique culture and style. Furthermore, not every application you send in will get to the right people or get the right amount of attention. Shit happens. Move on.
Living like a billionaire
As I was looking into the daily rituals and routines of a few silicon valley icons, I realized how similar my life is to theirs. They might have a slightly nicer place to live, marginally better view and more expensive car, but beyond that our lives looked pretty similar. We ate at the same places, had similar daily rituals, enjoyed playing the same games like settlers or bridge, and made the most of the many activities afforded by living in San Francisco. Pretty standard stuff.
Even in the realm of work, we were doing similar things – planning business and product strategy, helping with the design and development of new ideas, executing on initiatives to move our company forward. Perhaps the only substantial difference is the level of impact and exposure they have on the world as a function of the role they play at their respective companies. They’re higher up, have control of more resources and ultimately make a bigger dent in the universe, but their day to day life looked shockingly similar to mine.
In effect, I’m living a life similar to the billionaires of my time. Zuckerberg, Mayer, Brin, Dorsey etc.
With this realization, it helps to crystallize what’s important in life. If I’ve already got more than I need and I’m living as well as people with way more than they need, then I probably shouldn’t be focused exclusively on the accumulation of more money. Instead the focus should be on expanding my ability, connections and impact to make a bigger dent in the universe. In silicon valley, the currency is power and potential impact on the world. That’s what people care about. After the first few million, the money doesn’t matter as much, it’s more about what assets and ideas you control and how you wield that to make a dent in the universe.
Pretty cool stuff, and a great realization to have at this relatively early juncture in life.
