The Frog in Hot Water

You identify a niche, you build a product.

You talk to a few early customers, they try it out.

As a startup you have a zillion things to do. Out of the many axes of optimisation, you optimise the few that you want to strategically focus on.

Your customers love it, it solves a big problem for them. They are excited about it.

The good word about your product spreads and you attract more customers. Soon you have a healthy growth rate.

And then it happens. What your customers thought were minor inconveniences have snowballed into a major issue stream with your product.

Everything was going well, so what exactly happened?

As your product evolves, your customer set evolves too. The early adopters were more adaptable, because it fixed a pain point for them. As your product becomes mainstream, the customers that you attract, and their expectations are mainstream. They expect things on the axes that you didn’t intentionally optimise for.

What you choose to do when faced with this solution is up to you and your product’s domain. But it helps to be cognisant of the fact that this may happen, and look out for it before it is too late to leap out of the pot.

The Release Rush

I am an avid fan of Masterchef Australia!

I love watching the excellent participants, working on their culinary recipes, race with each other towards the deadline.

I wondered why they all feel so rushed up towards the finishing line often finishing only seconds, before the deadline.

It happens no matter how long the time slot is, or how simple the cuisine is. And it happens to every participant, even the most expert cooks, with a spectacular plan and meticulous execution. Why so? Bad planning?

And then I wonder, how I would feel if a participant finishes 10 minutes before their deadline. They finished alright, but could they have delivered more? Did they take it too easy? Not just for the sake of competition, but for realizing their own potential.

The goal is not just to deliver, in the given time. That is not success.
The goal is to deliver your best, in the given time. That has the potential to be a success.

Fresh Minds == Fresh Ideas

Seems quite obvious but very hard to follow...

Once we are working on something for an extended duration of time, the base assumptions get latched on to our mind. We continue to be actively focused and working towards our targeted milestones, ignoring these along the way. It takes a fresh mind to question these assumptions. Only then do we realise 'Ouch, that is no longer true...'. We have to continue to flush/revisit these base assumption.

That's why we stumble upon debugging clues when we discuss the problem with someone.

That's why we have a deeper understanding of a subject when we teach it to someone.

So if you care about innovation, if you care about questioning the status-quo, ensure you encourage fresh minds to contribute ideas openly. Make it an integral part of your organization's culture. Ensure every idea is evaluated on the merit of the idea than that of the proposer.