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3 Different Methods to Define amp; Build Awesome Products

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Saved by Dave Nielsen
on March 25, 2012 at 4:38:09 pm
 

*3 Methods to Define & Build Awesome Products* 

Session 1 - 10 AM

Presenter: Mike Harding http://re.vu/MikeHarding follow: @mah1
NoteTaker: Kyle Warneck (@KyleWarneck)

Standing room only - And tons of folks pouring out the door into the hallway.
Note to firemarshall: that's not true
Not to everyone else: No really, it's packed

h3. Why are there so many bad products?
     * Microsoft's BOB
     * The ISmell (Smell the internet!)
     * Xervac
     * Chest hair toupee
     * Edsel
     * New coke
     * color.com (great team- no actual product idea)
     * Santa Dreidel (Facepalm!)
     * Serious thought, money and PM methodology went into these products*

h2. 3 approaches for building products

h3. Approach 1: Best imaginable product
     * Peter Wilton (Haas lecturer)
          ** satisfied customers irrelevant. Loyal customers invaluable
     * *Start with a blank sheet of paper and imagine the best imaginable experience*

ex. Airtravel for business
          ** trips suck
          ** jetBlue tries to adress has emphasized in seat entertainment as a way to improve the experience But are they best imaginable???
          ** but what ae travelers trying to accomplish?  best imaginable experience is probably not to have to travel at all!

ex. PowerPoint
     * the tool is a big distraction (crashed on Mike last night)
     * but the goal is communication and that's important

h3. Approach 2: Design as a product

Book: Design is How It Works by Jay Green
recommended read by Mike
Example: the *Ace Hotel*
     * identified segment that is cost sensistive and community motivated
     * heard people complain about the lack of options in downtown seattle
     * Came up with the feel for the hotel. Took photos of other hotels as inspiration and treated hotel as a movie
     * each room is distinct and furnished with vintage stuff (lean!)
          ** room w/ bunkbed and no restroom for $75 - perfect for the kids
          ** put record player and records in room - customers loved it - began bidding up price of those rooms

But Ace had some failures too
     * Ace bought a vintage work table and had a furniture maker mass produce replicas
          ** the resutl was not awesome- hugely expensive fail
          ** They scrapped all the tables and then reassembled tables from the scraps

Question from audience: Is this design driving or really knowing a demographic?
Mike's answer:
     * yes, but they started with a purpose and then came up with the look/feel
     * and they're pulling customers from outside their demographic

 

Question: what about apple? don't they do this? Answer: Highlighted apple brand loyalists in the room

Question: what was their process?
We don't know

Question: wasn't this really price point driven? Vintage is cheap?
     * but got to price by going in a different direction
      *Ace outfit's hotel for $15,000 per room vs industry standard $40,000 per room*

Question: but what about the labor cost of finding cool buildings and old vintage stuff?
     * definite question about scalability

Audience member notes: NYC rooms start at $300 - $400
Mike says the Seattle one was <$100, but somewhat minimalist

h3. Self as a customer

example: Mike's time leading a business unit at Juniper during reorg in 2011 and started looking for new gig looking at his resume - thought the format felt archaic

     *As a hiring manager, what do I want to see?*
          ** treat resumes as a chronological list of lies
          ** used only to disqualify people- not to pick who he wants
     * looks for 3 things:
          ** skills
          ** passion
          ** fit w/ culture
     *and traditional resume doesn'tanswer those questions*

Mike partners with a designer and makes a personal infographic and he got a gig and a positive response met with Stephen Years to do this without a designer and create re.vu

Survey of HR pro's: Yuck, breaks my tools! (but I'd contact anyway)
     * lots of feedback like this
     * disintermediates HR - connects candidate with hiring manager
Candidates: say "when can I get it"
Hiring managers: " a breath of fresh air"

Entered 59 days of code comp- and they won!
Launched Re.Vu in Sept 2011.
tens of thousands of users today (in 6 months!)
Between Jan 2012 - March 2012 increased users 2.5 times

more examples of self as customer:
     * Mint.com
          ** design as product approach
          ** 1/10th of quicken features - but Mint does the work for you
     * Electric power production - internoch (sp?)
          ** Rewards clients for conservation- as if they were producing the power, but without having to build a plant
     * Angie's list
     * experiment to clean salton sea
               *** used shrimp famring as test procedure
               *** became a successful shrimp farming business
     * Jazzercise
     * nest - thermostat
          ** honeywell explored years ago and decided not to pursue
          ** nest is selling like crazy

h3. conclusion
     *Escape* from normal mode
     get *perspective*
     *experiment*
     *Succeed* - create awesome projects

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