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Cedric Chin
@ejames_c
1/ I don’t have an actual specific behaviour, but I have an anti-behaviour (that is, people with this behaviour are probably bad at product thinking): In any given product there are broadly three types of features: game changers, showstoppers and distractions.
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John Cutler
@johncutlefish
What actual, specific, behaviors would we observe if someone was good at product thinking? Specific enough that someone without a lot of tacit knowledge would be able to say “that’s happening”.
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Cedric Chin
@ejames_c
2/ This is originally from defmacro.org/2013/09/26/pro To quickly summarise, game changer features are features users will buy/use you for; showstoppers are features users must have to even consider your product; distractions make no measurable impact.
defmacro.org
How to build great products
If you believe that sales fix everything, it follows that most startups fail because they don’t ship a great product in a growing market before they run out of money. Assuming you’ve picked an...
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Cedric Chin
@ejames_c
3/ What I’ve noticed is that product folk who show off or demo showstopper/distraction features are reliably NOT good product people. An example: I once watched a founder do a 5 minute video showing how his app’s sign-in process was faster than Slack’s. It was amazingly stupid
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Cedric Chin
@ejames_c
4/ I mean, yes, it was faster, but sign-in is a showstopper feature! Nobody cares if your auth/community switching is that much better/easier! This behaviour is a reliable predictor of NON expertise because it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what users care about.
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Cedric Chin
@ejames_c
5/ Of course, to use this inverted test properly, you need to be able to tell what a showstopper or distraction feature is for that particular product, for it’s given user demographics. Which is difficult if you don’t have much familiarity with the product domain.
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Cedric Chin
@ejames_c
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@ejames_c
6/ So this really only works for blatantly obvious showstoppers/distractions — features that very clearly do not matter. But this is surprisingly common amongst product novices, or founders who lack product judgment, so there.
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