BottomUp - Skills for Innovators

Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcasts I might pass in as I'm the CEO of quality wins, and we are three quarters of the way through our journey, into the toughest product management challenges. And today we're asking the question, what's the best way to launch a product. And boy, if you've made it this far in the journey, this means you've got problem solution fit.

You've got. Product market fit. Like, you know, your early adopters are satisfied with the product. Now you really want to launch this thing. And I want to propose to you a rather, uh, controversial way of thinking about launching and the background has, I've seen so many people waste time, money, and effort doing spectacular product.

Oh, business launches. I mean, I've seen people go to town and it just creates so much noise. [00:01:00] They get the celebrities in the hype, in the media and the Instagram influences, and there's so much noise and you should really be focused on your product and its users and you get carried away with everything else.

And often people say the, the, the startups that get the most hype often fail the most. Um, I'm not sure if that's true, but it feels. Like it could be a real truth of the product world. So let's look at the key word when you want to launch your product. The key word is small. That's right. I want you to launch.

Small, uh, I launched a product way back in, Oh gee. When was it? 2009. That, um, was so big that the, the, the server crash too much demand we had over a million uses in the first hour. And I think we were probably ready for 10,000, not a [00:02:00] million. Um, Yeah, it just got too big, too much. And look, let's take a leaf out of Facebook's book.

They started small, they went from campus to campus launching Facebook and well, I don't need to tell you how big Facebook is. So here's the thing. There are lots of different ways to go small. In fact, there's roughly five ways to go small that you can build up with before number six, which is the full launch.

So first of all, if you take. Uh, lean startup thinking, uh, to a tires form. I mean, You can start your, your, your launch strategy be you can be the pre-order. Um, now you could struggle to get enough interest in your pre-order and that would actually challenge the notion of whether you have product market fit.

You may not even have problem solution fit. So pre-ordering is a great launch strategy because you can do it well in advance and it helps you understand, do you really [00:03:00] have something that people want, because if you're selling this amazing solution and nobody's up for that. Then you have quite the problem.

Okay. So you've got, pre-order going. What's another way to launch small and this is another good one. Don't see this nearly enough family and friends now. Granted family and friends usually, always want to say, yeah, the product's great, even when it's not because they, they feel compelled, but launching with family and friends can certainly get some bugs out of, uh, new products.

And it's such a safe way to have sort of, um, you know, a small group of people, uh, test your product and no harm, no foul. Um, if things don't go right, but look. Let's be honest. Um, if they can come on as sort of, I dunno, be the test is in, in some respect, that's really, really helpful and certainly saves you a lot of grief versus, you know, the classic big launch.

And [00:04:00] then, um, you know, nobody can access the product cause it's full of bugs. So number one, launching small could be start with a pre-order number two family and friends. The third one could be is that you may have identified. Uh, a small group of early adopter users who would be keen to test your product and you can do what we call a closed user group.

So invite only, you know, maybe a hundred or so people can come use your product and, you know, you might make it free for life for them. Um, and it can be contingent on them providing some feedback and being available for maybe a couple of questions or an interview. So that's the third one closed user group, really smart way to get expert advice on your product.

So that's the first three ways that you could go small instead of making the huge mistake of going big. Remember my pitch to you is Facebook went from [00:05:00] college campus to college campus. There was a white list. It took a long time. But that's how they scaled the program. And if you compare to Twitter, when Twitter first launch, I remember it was full of bugs.

You, we used to have that whale. I think they used to have on the web page, it was always down because there's too many people using it. So starting small is really crucial, but I still got more ideas for it. Another startup and launching small idea is start with some influences. So you might reach out to some folks that are real experts in your category or your industry, and say, look, we'd love your feedback and we'll give you some preview materials.

Um, there might be some, uh, deal that you can make there, but you really want to get their feedback. You will be amazed that when you say to someone, Hey, I think you're an expert and I'd love your feedback. People are pretty willing to give you feedback, um, because it's a, it's a bit of a compliment. So that's the fourth, the other three, just to [00:06:00] remind you of those closed user groups, family, and friends, or the pre-order great ways to launch your product because you can start small getting re grip on the product, make sure it's doing the job.

Make sure it's satisfying your users and make any refinements. Now the fifth way to launch small is to launch with a partner. So you might have a strategic partner in a similar area. Um, that could be a really good partner. So if you're a gym, you might partner with someone that makes gym gear, um, and you might make your product or service available only to the customers of this partner.

This is a good way to restrict volume. It would be a fairly good way to get some early adopters into your product. And what you can see with these five is all of them are deliberately starting with a smaller funnel and then working your way out. So pre-order is going to be the smallest partner launch is probably the biggest [00:07:00] in terms of, um, user volume that you can expect.

Now, have you try one, two, or all of these as ways to start small? You'll save yourself a lot of grief because you know, really when you do those big launches, there's a lot of distraction, particularly if you're pretty early on and you're not really sure if you have problem solution fit are, um, better, still a product market fit, then you need to be really focused on the product and the user.

So you don't all these big fancy launches that a lot of distraction there. But let's say you got solid product market fit and you there's, this there's launch is almost the start of your distribution, conversion fit. Um, and your big push, then you can go. Part six, the full launch national URL. You want to get the press there.

You want to get all the right people there. You want to have promotions at the go paid advertising the whole enchilada. Um, but you should really only do that after. You've really challenged yourself to look at those other [00:08:00] five ways of launching small. I know, I know it's so exciting to go to those big launches, but I can only tell you it's a whole lot of distraction.

Okay. So there we have it. How do we launch? And I hope those, those five ideas, the pre-order family and friends, close user group influencer, only partner launch. I hope they all really give you some inspiration. Now you might be able to launch in a smarter way. Well, th...

Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass ins I'm the CEO of  and we are talking. Product market fit. This is a big one in the journey of our product full of challenges. And that's why it's featuring on our series that we call unstuck, which is the guide for product managers on how they can tackle the toughest things in the world of product management.

Now, product market fit. Is a huge step, a huge milestone, uh, in the life of your product. And, um, there's lots of different ways to make sure you've got it. And today we're going to dig into a couple of ways you can use it. Um, this is the, the product market fit and all sorts of tools that you can use to kind of unlock it.

And to answer that question. So I want to discuss with you. Sort of the three pillars [00:01:00] of getting that product market fit. Some of these you may have in fact done when you've got your problem solution fit, but the reason I'm bringing them back is it's really important to double check that you've got all of these done in order to say you have product market fit.

And sometimes for example, I'm working on a product right now and I. I think we've been testing with users, uh, for six months across problem solution fit and product market fit. And we just keep testing. So it's not like you only do surveys at the start. You can do them right throughout. And it's really important too, to always be testing and learning through the journey of building a product.

Okay. So there's three big areas. There's surveys and interviews. Number one rapid prototyping. That's number two, and then a feature driven minimum viable product. That's the third and final one, the biggest one in terms of workload. So I'm just going to break all of these down. [00:02:00] And share with you. You know, some of the things that I look to do always just to feel confident about the product, I'm always building product on behalf of others.

So when I'm working with my clients, it's really important for me to feel that I've got the job done here, whether you're working for clients or working for investors, or you're doing it all yourself for your own new product, these are the essential things you need to do to have product market fit. Now I'm assuming at the beginning, you will have.

Tested out the problem and the solution a little bit with some interviews and, um, some surveys and, um, what I would definitely be looking to do in terms of best practices here, just to make sure you're on track is to have really good screening questions, um, that really identified the different segments of your users, because you will often find that.

The audience that you perceive as your customer is made up of [00:03:00] different parts and the sooner you find out those different parts, the better, because often one of those is the real customer, not all of them. So if I was building a new podcasting app, by the way, which I feel that we're in desperate need of, um, I think.

Podcasting is booming, but the way we listened to them as in the dark ages, um, anyway, that's a different topic. Let's say we're building a brand new product, a podcasting app, and I was doing a survey. I would be looking for my screen and to try and, um, pull apart the different segments. So it's most likely going to be on a usage.

And if it was my screen, a question would be. What this describes your current podcast usage, and there might be four options here. Then they might say I'm hooked. I'm like listening every day. I like podcasts. And you know, I remember when you know, I listen fairly regularly when I remember, um, [00:04:00] a third option might be, I've listened to a few, but nothing on a regular basis.

And the fourth one might be. Put what, and might not even know what we're talking about now, to give you an example of why this is so important for product market fit. It might turn out that the heavy users are not your target market. Maybe it's in the middle somewhere. Maybe it's those that like podcasts or those that have listened to a few, you might discover that the reason that they're not using podcasting more regularly is they find.

Uh, they experienced the discovery of new podcasts really hard, and that they actually only have one that they listen to. So if you can solve discovery for the, uh, lower usage segment, that might be a bigger market opportunity than the heavy early adopter. That's why surveys and interviews are really, really important.

Now, if you want to [00:05:00] feel really confident in your problem, solution fit and get some early indications on it, you can actually make like a poster or a landing page for your product idea, and actually test that really early on through the form of a survey. And this is all, uh, quant, uh, kind of research or quantitative research.

The qual side of this is face-to-face interviews where you ask. Lots of questions, but you tend to get more into asking them. Why, why do you want any of us in occasionally? Why do you have any, uh, do this or that? Tell me more. That can be very revealing. Okay. So that's the quantum qual research to effectively surveys in interviews.

Very good way of confirming that your product as problem solution fit and really gets you on the way to product market fit. Now, before we jumped into MVP, we need to talk about rapid prototyping. This is where you might have a video. A demo of [00:06:00] your product, totally non clickable. Um, you might even try like crowdfunding an app.

Um, you might try, um, some, uh, showing bits and features from your product or the big two are the concierge MVP or the wizard of Oz. These MVPs. Either, uh, create the customer experience and it looks like, uh, it's been all done automatically, but actually, um, it's all happening manually in the backend. And a classic example of this was zap Zappos.

They created a web shop for shoes and, um, they had no inventory. They would actually only go and buy the shoes once the user placed the order. Um, so. The reason that this is, um, so good, this sort of concierge to NVP is you don't have any cost of inventory. Um, you're not making any [00:07:00] money, but that doesn't really matter because what happened in the case of Zappos.

So many people ordered that. They said, Hey, we better get some inventory. Cause there's really high demand here. So that's rapid prototyping. Now the biggest one I want to get into here is MVP. And I call it feature-driven MVP because sometimes, you know, these, um, fake or manual or the wizard or the concierge MVP, they're kind of closer to rapid prototyping in my book.

Um, I think a feature driven MVP is defined by. You're writing code, uh, or someone's writing code, even if it's like a no-code or low-code app, but this really closes the discussion on product market fit. Now, in this case, you want your core user to be able to complete a task on the app. It could be with InVision, but most likely it's going to be with code and.

It's gotta be good [00:08:00] enough in a sort of a rough form. It's going to be good enough to satisfy the user when trying to do the task. Now, if you have a feature driven MVP that does that, then you can put on all the bells and whistles and go. To market with a fully built product. But the whole point here is you're trying to actually do as little of the product, um, as possible.

And you only build when it's been Falla dated and this task completion through an MVP is an essential, uh, I would not advise skipping this part. This part can give you so much more because you might find that in the real world, You just are not able to help users get the task done. So don't go building a startup like Eric Reese ...

Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass on his own, the CEO of quality tents, and we are talking about problem solution fit today. This is all part of our product management series called unstuck, where we actually dig into the toughest challenges that product managers face. And today we're going to talk about the problem solution fit now.

Um, there is a very, very good way of testing, uh, problem, solution fit. And, uh, before we get to testing it, For real, and I'm talking in the best way possible. You're going to need to have got one thing done. And we covered this in an earlier episode where we had the value proposition, canvas, and we were using that as a tool to frame the problem and the solution.

So if you're not familiar with that, I strongly suggest you jump over there and have your problem solution Matt, or said [00:01:00] differently your value proposition, canvas. All right. So you've got a world of the customer. You've got a world of your product. You're really convinced that the customer has a problem.

You've got a solution, but you want to make sure that they fit together. You may have tested some of these in isolation. You may have used some interviews and surveys to get the big picture together, but you kind of want to. Test that this all comes together and I'm going to propose the way that is the most effective high fidelity way of validating.

And the answer is rapid prototyping. That's right. Rapid prototyping is all about creating some sort of light sketch. Or model of the full product, but the, the beauty of rapid prototyping is you don't have to build the full product, because if you think about the spirit of lean startup, it's all about build and write as little code as possible.

Um, and [00:02:00] you don't want to build anything that hasn't been tested. So rapid prototyping is. Bang on absolutely bang on. So it's a really powerful way to do that. Testing and validating I was talking about. So. Step one here is that you don't want to fall into the trap of building the entire product until you've really tested it until you're actually experiencing a high degree of confidence in this product.

And so rapid prototyping will give you that. So it's all based in. You want to build like just enough of a model or a sketch of the product and the way, you know, you've got enough, is that whether it's a whiteboard or a sketch on some paper or some digital tool, like sketch Figma, Adobe XD envision that it.

Stimulates sufficient amount of your, your, your [00:03:00] senses. And it really kind of suggests the product now. You know, you might be using paper. I mean, I've seen this work with paper, I've even seen it work with hula hoops. Ah, it's crazy. The point here is that you will be amazed that when you give customers the context of the task or the job to be done, that they will go along with you when you say, okay, I want you to imagine it's nine 30 in the morning and you want to order some groceries and.

You have them sitting in a studio, um, downtown. But if you give them the context and say, you want to order on your phone and you just pass them the prototype on the app, or you ask them to click on the paper and say, imagine this is an app, and I want you to click on the sketch. Where would you click?

Where would you tap to get going? Now, this really sounds a little bit ridiculous, as I say it. But the crazy thing here is it works so [00:04:00] well. So users only require sometimes as little as 20% of the actual full product of the full stimulus to evoke what we call. The direct response. And once they have a direct response, they using it and it feels like the real thing feels like is the key key here that, and then the, if they have that, you can judge their ability to complete the task and then you can get some amazing feedback.

And the reason the feedback is amazing is this is completely different to focus groups, focus groups, invariably will ask people, um, I want you to imagine you've got a grocery ordering app. Would you be interested in this, that or the other? And what happens is, you know, you've got five people in a room with a facilitator and they have to imagine, well, the quality of that feedback is far less than if you say, okay, I want you to [00:05:00] actually conduct the task of ordering the groceries because once you see it, Like that you get a direct response, not an indirect response, like a guess or imagination, you actually put them in the situation.

And this is so powerful. So you can use a whiteboard. You can use paper. Or as I mentioned, there's lots of digital tools. You're trying to avoid building the whole product because you only want to do that once. You're really, really confident that the product is the right product and it's worth building.

And so many times we see products that get built that were not worth building. In fact, this idea of rapid prototyping, it's used a lot with design thinkers and folks in lean startup. Think about lean startup. The guy that wrote the book, Eric Reese spent five years, $40 million on a failed startup. And that's why he wrote lean startup.

He was like, I built a [00:06:00] product that nobody wanted. They raised $40 million for a product that nobody wanted. And he was like, I want to stop. That from happening for other people. So he wrote lean startup all around the idea of test and learn in small bite size pieces, rather than do the big, outrageous, huge investment, big product, no testing only to realize nobody wants the product.

So. What are the different types of prototyping? Well, you can do a very light diagnostic prototyping. This is almost role-play if you will. So you can do, uh, an exercise of, um, mystery shopping, or you can play it out at customer support diagnostic solution. This is how you find out the rule pains and problems they have in the current alternative, um, that they kind of use to get the job done.

So that's diagnostic prototyping. Now before we get to using some light [00:07:00] digital prototyping tools. There's another important step you can take, which is you can create moments or journeys that describe your solution. You could have like a journey on a whiteboard or with post-its, um, or with posters, you know, so sort of the, the proposition, if you will, um, and you can take these moments and validate, would this be.

Fantastic. Would this create sufficient value for you as a user? And this intermediate step is really good because maybe you see that the user journey is made up of five parts, which would really inform how you might go and build some of the digital prototypes. Now the key thing with digital prototypes is there they're sort of faking the experience.

So the trickier is it looks and feels a lot like a finished app, but actually in the backend, there's no database. It's so fake data and it's. Pretty restricted in what it can do and where you can click. But these sort of digital prototypes are great because if you've done the proceeding steps in [00:08:00] the rapid prototyping, what you've really done is you've created something that looks and feels quite finished and can give you a lot of important.

High quality customer feedback, because you really propose to them. I want you to try ordering bananas with our new grocery app and you would, they would be able to click and order those bananas. And then on the basis of this, you can find out. Did it get the job done? Is it a product that they would pay for?

And the biggest test is would they recommend it to a friend and you can do all of this and no code got written. And that's the beauty because it means it was quick. It was efficient. And let's say you get really po...

Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality tenants and it is great to be back. We're kind of at the midpoint of our adventure. Into getting unstuck that's right. The toughest challenges you're going to face as a product manager and we're right in the heart of all of the people stuff.

That's right. Today's question is how do I build a product team now in the previous show, we asked ourselves, how do we recruit a product team? So we're assuming you've got the people it's now about making things work and, um, You know, the funny thing is this, you know, you're kind of exhausted. You just managed to recruit a bunch of people, but actually now you've got to go build that product.

So the adventure has just begun. And I think that there are, um, a couple of things, uh, that Patrick Lencioni wrote about in a [00:01:00] book called five dysfunctions of a team that I see are the, really are the greatest challenges of teamwork. And every single country I've lived in, it doesn't matter. Australia, the Netherlands United Kingdom, the United States of America, the dysfunctions of a team are all pretty similar.

So let's look at what it takes using Patrick Lindsay and his model to build a high performance team. And these product teams are dealing with really complex matters. Particularly if it's a first-generation product, there's nothing there, nothing exists. You're you're building. Something out of thin air, which personally is super exciting, creating something out of nothing.

But, um, it's challenging because everything needs to be built, wait for it for the first time. And that add is some hard stuff. Um, so you've got to have some foundational [00:02:00] ways of working together because both work and life overall. It's a team sport. So it doesn't really matter how sharp their product design skills are.

If people are not working as a team, then you ain't got nothing. So let's ask ourselves, what does it take to create a high performing team and what are the signals of a dysfunction in a team? Okay. So. Number one, the foundational idea for a high performance team is trust. And when there's an absence of trust, people, really fear being open and vulnerable with each other.

And if you're not trusting of each other, pretty much nothing is going to happen because people are airing those sort of. Fight or flight modes and that's really poor for it, for a team. So, um, yeah. [00:03:00] How do you, how do you get over this sort of absence of trust and it starts with you, the leader, it starts with you being vulnerable enough to share the challenges that you face in the limitations that you have.

Now, this is quite contradictory to how a lot of people think. They should lead, but actually when you show that you're not perfect. When you show that you're prepared to take a risk and to be open, um, this will make people feel so much safer. They'll breathe a sigh of relief because they've probably got things that they're working on, that they find stressful or challenging.

And it really is wonderful when you can lead the way and say, Hey, you know what? I'm working on some stuff too. So that's how you create the trust amongst a team. Now another thing, uh, that will challenge a team is the second part. And that's the fear of conflict, [00:04:00] you know? What you'll see in some teams is they'll kind of pretend to be all getting along, but underneath all that, there's all sorts of passive aggressive stuff going on.

And people can't embrace diversity. They can't be that productive because there's this artificial harmony. Um, and you know, People have to have that safety to argue the merits of ideas and, and PR uh, insights and facts. And you should encourage different points of view, because if you can agree to disagree and still respect each other, then this is the healthiest thing for a team, because maybe the direction of the product's not quite right.

And if people feel safe enough, To challenge and to argue, uh, the direction of the product. Well, that's, you're going to be so much healthier for it. So I would challenge you to [00:05:00] encourage all of your team members to have a say and really, I mean, don't have a meeting where people contribute zero to the entire meeting because then they shouldn't be in the room.

So everybody should have a say when you're talking about the big challenging topics of the day. So those are the first two. You've got to increase the trust and, you know, get rid of this fear of conflict and, and get people to argue the merits of things in a, in a safe and respectful way. Okay. But there's three more, three more things you can do to have a high-performance product team part.

Number three is all about commitment. And often you can see teams don't really buy in to the idea, right? There's a lack of clarity or a lack of support. Um, and they're just not really sticking with major decisions or directions that are in [00:06:00] the company. So you got to get everybody on board. It's not only creating clarity, uh, in where we're going, but.

Communicate your expectations of what each and every individual is expected to do, and to invite them to sign up for that, because if they don't sign up, then I don't know how you're going to get the results. If they're not signed up, it's just going to be a bit of theater. So that's number three commitment.

So that comes off to the fear of conflict and the absence of trust. So if you've got trust, good conflict, good commitment, know. Three out of five does just to, to go. The next thing you've got to go for is accountability. This is number four. We need to, you know, a lot of people like to be in a comfortable place, right.

And not have difficult decisions or stretch goals, but you got to have tough conversations when people don't deliver [00:07:00] and do the big advice here is have them early and be consistent in them. Okay, so this is the fourth one accountability. And lastly, we need to pay attention to the results. Now the big blocker here is ego and politics.

People like to claim their individual goals and not really support the overall team's goals. But actually, if you want the team to succeed, you need to talk about the goals that we have as a team and to bring them into focus. Okay. So attention to results, accountability, commitment, conflict, and trust.

These are the big things it takes to have a high performing team. I know this one's a lot. This is heavy duty stuff. It is all born of a framework that comes from Patrick Lensioni who wrote five dysfunctions of a team. And whether you're using agile, scrum, or Kanban or whatever, These team [00:08:00] characteristics, these high team, high performance team characteristics come true.

So if you are really interested in this, you can check out our managing people, masterclass it's all free, and you can find that on bottom-up dot IO. So there you have it. Uh, this is all about getting the team working in concert with each other and building a product that worth is worth building. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the bottom-up skills podcast.

That's a wrap.

Hello, and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality tents and we continue our journey in getting unstuck. That's right. We are getting into product management and asking ourselves what are the toughest questions and what may be the answers of. Building creating and managing a product.

And today we are at the stage where we think about team. And the question for us today is how do I recruit a product team? And I can tell you that it's not the easiest thing in the world. Even if you're quite well-known for your product work. It actually still remains really hard. And I want to tell you.

The story, uh, of trying to recruit a team and my advice that after all these years, it's still a challenge for me. And I've got, I think three [00:01:00] steps, uh, is perhaps the best way to describe this on how you might build a team. Now, before we get into those steps, the, the rule case I want to make too is, you know what?

I will talk a lot about the different skills that you need. Design thinking, lean, agile, rapid prototyping, and all of that good stuff. You need to be able to do analysis strategy, write code design, use Adobe XD use envision. Dev ops Java, you name it. All of those are great skills to have. Um, but really the thing that creates the magic in the team is the culture.

It's the way we talk and behave with each other. Um, it's the vibe, you know, it's how it feels to be together. And, um, So because of that, I think it's really important to remind [00:02:00] ourselves of starting with step number one, which is the vision. So if you're going to recruit a team, you need to have a vision of the product that you want to build and why it matters.

And if you need any help in framing, your why statement definitely go. And read a guy called Simon Sinek and it starts with why, because people do not buy what you do, they buy how and why you do it. And so the big thing to start with, if you want to recruit a team, do not start with, we are using angular and Java to build a great new application, to process more data for users.

That is not going to get people excited. You need to have a vision of how you're going to do it and why it matters. Why will this product matter in the world? You need to answer questions, like where is [00:03:00] the value? Why would I give up a weekend to work on this product? What is the impact that this product is going to have?

And. This might sound a little lofty, but the real truth here is that it's all fine and good times, and everyone can have the right skills. But when you hit those challenges, those barriers, the speed humps said differently. When you reach the Valley of darkness, when things are not going right, if your product team.

Buys the vision of what they're finding for the positive impact that they're trying to have with this product, then they'll stick around. They'll go the extra mile. They will go above and beyond when they build the product. And then I certainly just won't abandon you and quit that's for sure. Vision first, this is step one.

You have to have a vision, [00:04:00] the big picture of answering the question. Why does this product matter? Because if you don't have that, then you're going to recruit people that at the first sign of hardship, that'll be gone because they're not finding for anything. It's too hard. There's lots of jobs for product people out there.

So. Yeah, you're toast. So you need to have a great articulation of your vision. And I think the way you get to vision said differently, it's having a purpose, um, or said differently. Again, us being able to answer the question, why does the product matter? So this is step number one. If you want to recruit a team, start with vision and be able to talk about it and demonstrate this vision.

Bring it to life. So this is number one, the second step. And again, this isn't going to be the skills thing. This isn't going to be like, you need to know Java or you need to know Figma. No step number two is to [00:05:00] outline the behaviors that you want your team to have, because. I will tell you that let's take Java.

For example, let's say your project needs Java developers, which a lot of projects do. The thing is if your Java developers or even your designers, if they cannot do two things above all others, then it doesn't matter how good they are at their professional skill because their behaviors are out of whack.

The first skill is communication. People have to be able to communicate. And the second skill is collaboration working together. Now these two words are often bandied about, but really they are essential. So let's break them down and ask what they look like. So you know how to actually grab and recruit the right people and ask the right questions [00:06:00] when you're in the interview about how they communicate and collaborate.

Okay. For me, the essence of communication is a couple of key things that you're looking for them to do. Number one, do they listen? Now, a lot of people just want to do the talking. They just want to be right. And actually what you really want to hire for is people that love to listen so they can get a sense of what the person on the other side of the table is actually talking about.

So listening is a critical communication skill. Secondly, you need to see them choosing the right model of communication. Is it verbal? Is it written, is it a call? Is it a face-to-face that they're choosing those channels. Right. And lastly, in terms of communication, and this one is the big dark secret of communication that they confirm.

[00:07:00] That they have been understood. So products are very complex and often very abstract in the beginning. So there's a lot of, uh, you know, packet loss when people are communicating people, uh, uh, not really getting it or, uh, people are telling something, explaining the product in the way they perceive it, but they're not thinking about how the person on the other side needs to hear on sand, see a witness, the pro the product now.

When they're communicating, you can have a little checks and balances here by making sure the person understands what you've said and the way you do that is ask them to tell it back to you. Ask, tell me, okay. What, tell me back what you just heard. And that's a really good way of making sure you've got the right people in your team.

So those are the kinds of things you want to see in good communicators and good collaborators. I think that you want to see people who are unselfish, people who are quite empathetic to the [00:08:00] people around them, and that love to build on ideas to shoot them down. You don't want people holding on to things, polishing them up, not sharing and kind of working in silos by default.

You want collaborators, people who are prepared to share, they don't always have to be right, but they're really open to good feedback. From their peers and from their colleagues. So big vision, full of purpose and why. And then these two key behaviors, communication and collaboration, you really start to get a good team.

And then step three is make sure they have the skills. Now, whether it is a designer developer, new business customer, customer support, doesn't matter. The key thing here is make sure. That you check that they really, they didn't, the vision doesn't have to be their life's, uh, mission. Right. But they have to be engaged and compelled by [00:09:00] the purpose behind the product or the company.

And then they have to display some of these key behaviors and of course have the right skills. Now, if you make sure that when you're recruiting, you have the vision, the behaviors and the skills, I'm abs...

Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO of  and we continue with adventures in product management, we're tackling the biggest, most challenging questions that will come up as you create, build and manage your product. And today we are tackling the big old question is.

Do I have a solution to the user's problem. Now, prior to this, we looked at what are the problems our users face. So should definitely check that one out, but this time we're going to the other side of the value proposition canvas, we are asking ourselves, what do we propose? Are we actually solving something here?

Because really in the end of the day, if you understand the jobs that your customer is trying to get done and. Pains they experienced in the gains. They're looking for, if you know all of that, then what you can actually do is map your [00:01:00] product or service to those and that mapping exercise. If you're really objective about it can ensure that you have a really good product.

So I want you to check out the value proposition canvas. You can do that over a bottom up.io. We have a free masterclass on lean, so you can check that out. And on this value proposition canvas, I described for you earlier, what the world of the customer is pains, gains and jobs. But on this side is where we actually map the solution.

And there are three things that we map. The first thing is the pain relievers. What are the things your product had doing that addresses? The pains of the customer and actually relieves those pains. The second thing you need to have is your gain creators. And this is a strict argument for how you're creating the benefits that your customer is looking for.

And these should correlate directly to features within your product or service [00:02:00] so that therefore when you zoom out. You have a proposition. And when you can connect that and balance this with your customer needs, then you will actually be on the way to having problem solution fit, which is a critical first stage of your journey in your product.

Because if you've got a solution to a problem, then you can go out in the world and build a product for a market. But before we get to all that, I want to take us back to the example that we're using. And we were talking about Airbnb and what we were doing when we mapped the customer side is we saw, you know, yes, it's great, uh, to, to use Airbnb because I can meet.

Ah, interesting people get a local experience. That's pretty cool stuff. And, um, the pains though is like, Oh, I'm not really sure it doesn't come with a big guarantee of a hotel. Who am I staying with? Where is it? And this is all part of having. Um, you know, a [00:03:00] wonderful vacation or getting some affordable accommodation.

Um, so that's the customer world. So let's have a look at what the product does on the other side. How's it relieving those pains? Well, first of all, they vet both hosts and guests. So this goes a long way to mapping against some of that uncertainty that people feel and also sharing space with, uh, Uh, dang, uh, strangers.

You know, the other thing that they do is they give a really strong guarantee on the quality of the, uh, the accommodation. And, um, they also kind of back it up with, uh, financial compensation of, uh, your bookings. If they get canceled by the host now, Part of the, the specific thing about staying with people you don't know, they'll even give you the, um, the guarantee that if, if people are not good hosts, they'll be taken off the platform.

So what you can see here, this is like a good description of, um, [00:04:00] pain relievers. Okay. And those pain relievers need to map to the customer pains, or you don't want to be relieving pains for some other user group that is not your customer. Make sure that you can really literally draw a line between the pain relievers and the pains, because that's a bridge from the product to the customer.

Okay, but let's not stop there because, you know, we talked about all these wonderful things people are looking for when they use the Airbnb hap. Well, um, how do we meet those needs? Well, first of all, there's some pretty wacky, exotic homes, so you certainly can get some unusual things on Airbnb. Um, You know, there is some really, um, um, affordable options.

Maybe they're not the nicest of places, but if you really need to watch your wallet, then actually Airbnb will come in, particularly in off-peak times, way cheaper than a hotel. Um, [00:05:00] now the other thing that they do is that they create all sorts of flexibility, um, through their pricing and feature. Lists. So you can say, look, if I need wifi or a swimming pool, whatever you want, you can filter the criteria that way.

And it's, um, really powerful. And if you think about it, uh, very few hotels, even today in 2020 offer you that sort of filtering and range and assault and for you to get the most out of your vacation. So what you can see here is. These are the pain relievers in the gain creators of Airbnb. They do a lot to make it feel safer and certain, and they certainly give you lots of flexibility and some, some really wonderfully novel places that you'd never get from a hotel.

So you can kind of see the picture coming together here. And this comes back to two essential parts of the overall service of Airbnb. [00:06:00] One is that they create a marketplace for renting out short-term living. And two, they aggregate, uh, on their platform, all the activities you can do in a city. So beyond what they started with, you can now get all sorts of wonderful city experiences that really help you meet interesting people and get a real flavor of the local happenings in a town or city.

So they have it. So this is how, you know, how you map solving the problem for your user. Now, this should be done in conjunction. This whole proposition should be done with the customer profile. So the gain creators must directly map. To the gains that you understood your users are looking for. And just in the same way, you're paying the leave as much directly correlate with what is in the pain's area.

And if you have a big pain on the customer side, that's not being addressed, this is a huge flag that [00:07:00] you need to consider this in your prototyping as to whether you can create a service that doesn't address that. So this mapping exercise is what we pulled together as a value proposition canvas. So good.

I've been using this for years and years and the beauty of it. Is its simplicity. It's so simple. And you can have a couple of tips here. If you have different segments, you can have different value proposition canvases for different segments. So obviously in the case of Airbnb, they have a host and they have a guest.

Each of those would have a value proposition cameras. Cause they're quite different. One's B2B, one's B to C, right? So. Interesting thing is you can have a lot of variations based on your segments and these should grow and change over time. And it's such a good way to start your journey of building a great product.

And just a quick note here, if you are really getting into this, this is a subset of a wider canvas called the lean [00:08:00] business canvas. You should check out the lean business canvas because that goes beyond the problem solution and gets into all the customer channels. It gets into. Uh, the costs, the revenues, the unique value proposition, the unfair advantage, all sorts of good stuff.

And that is probably closer to the full venture. Um, mapping that on the canvas. This is really cool too, to the product itself, but it's another great part of the lean startup methodology. All right. ...

Hello, and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality tents. And today we are talking about what is the problem that our users have some more out there in the world of product management, whether we're creating a first-time product or make any existing problem, our product better.

We have to ask ourselves, what is the problem? Our users face now. The interesting thing here is this can change over time. And in terms of first-generation products, I see a lot of people guessing what problem they're solving. So do not underestimate the need to ask this question, not only in product creation, but to continuously remind yourself, test and learn what problem you're really solving.

Because too often, I see people guessing. And if you're guessing the problem you're [00:01:00] solving well, if you think about it, everything else that comes downstream of the problem, I, the solution, the product features, the service, everything will be built on, I guess, and chances are, that's not going to be a great product.

So let's visit this question. What really is the problem that our users face and how do we. How do we frame that? Like what's the checklist? Well, the good news is that Eric Reese and the lean startup team created a really powerful, yet simple tool called the value proposition canvas. And I can't tell you how useful this is.

I've used it a lot of different times. And what it essentially does is it weighs up two things. What is our customer? And what is our proposition so differently? What we do is we get into some real details that help us frame problem solution. Now, if we think about the world of the [00:02:00] customer, they experienced pains when they're trying to get things done in life.

And they're also looking for some gains as well. So these pains and gains are all part of the jobs. To be done. And if you can frame the jobs that your customer is trying to get done, the pains that they experienced and the gains they're looking for, then you've really done a great job of framing the world of a customer.

Now what's really interesting here is that, you know, this idea of a value proposition canvas, it's not a fixed object. In fact, it should be changing. Uh, all the time, it should be very iterative. So it's a bit like your lean hypothesis that we mentioned in an earlier episode of this series, where we talk about the fact that as you test and learn, whether it's your hypothesis, your value prop, canvas, or your business canvas, these things [00:03:00] should be updating all of the time.

So. We're talking a lot about pains and gains in the jobs to be done of our customer. Let's just take an example. Um, so Airbnb, um, what are the pains people experience? Well, if, if you think about it, people are not sure if the, if the. Property, um, that they're going to be a guessing, they're not sure of the quality of it.

Will they be sharing a space for strangers? I mean, stranger danger is a huge problem for Airbnb. And then there's safety concerns. Those are the pains that you experience now. What are the gains that your customer is looking for? If they're trying to, you know, Rent an Airbnb. Well, it's probably a bit cheaper than a hotel.

Meet some interesting people, get local experience. Something's a bit more flexible than a hotel, something that fits them better. So they've got lots of options. Those are the, some of the gains that [00:04:00] they're looking for. And. What you could do is frame those against the, these main jobs to be done, which is hassle-free and safe booking of accommodation.

When you're on a holiday, a cheap accommodation, or if you are a host making additional money by renting out one of your rooms. So this is what you actually put on your canvas. And this is a really good snapshot of. The challenges and the mission that your customers aren't. So let's, let's remind ourselves of what it is jobs to be done.

And those tend to be the bigger themes of the user. And then as the customer goes to achieve those jobs, to complete those jobs, they bump into all these blockers and barriers. Sometimes they might be very practical or they might be. Uh, sort of emotional sort of like, um, you know, stranger danger, for example, for, for Airbnb.

[00:05:00] So then the last thing is the gains, and these are sort of the benefits or the reasons why people are doing this job. And in the case of Airbnb, it's like have a great, authentic local experience, meet some interesting people and lots of other reasons as well. But this is really good because when you play in this world, you're going to find that, um, this will change and grow.

And some of these. Well actually emerge as the big value drivers for your customer. So it could be primarily, there is one job to be done, and there's just only a couple of really key pains and gains. And if you capture all of those and by capture, I mean, you do interviews. You do surveys, you actually do some research into emerging needs of users, consumers, market trends, industry trends.

Like [00:06:00] we're not guessing here, like this, this stuff really has to be validated by all sorts of forms of research. Then you've got like the perfect snapshot of the problems that you'll use a faces or their needs analysis is to which it is sometimes called as well. Now this that I've described to you is the customer side of the proposition.

What we're going to do in the next shows. We're going to talk about the other side. Of this, which is really the proposition that comes from you as a product manager, as a product creator, a builder, a designer, we're going to get into how you answer that Cole, but what's really important here is that you accurately map.

These pains, gains and jobs to be done. I, I deeply call upon you not to guess these go out test and learn what are the problems that their users really face. And for example, if you're going to do a [00:07:00] survey minimum, a hundred people, if you're going to do user interviews, a minimum of 10 people, that's the bare minimum.

You need to have some certainty. Because your sample size has been significant enough. If you want to put things beyond that, then, you know, interview, you know, 30, 40, 50 people. And the patterns will become very clear on what they need. Likewise, if you do a survey, once you get up to 500 or a thousand, I mean, that that's great for like a national.

Product, if you're going to launch it and then you'll have this map of what customers need. And importantly, because you've put the hard work into that, the next step will be to map the other side, the proposition. And if you put equal work into that, then what you will get is what we call the problem solution fit.

That means you have. The problem that the customer faces in the solution that you propose and what we call this is a value [00:08:00] proposition canvas. Now, if you are interested in learning about the value proposition canvas, um, you should definitely check out our lean master class it's totally free. And you can find that at bottom-up dot IO.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the bottom up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm my passengers. I'm the CEO of Qualitas and we are flying through. How product management series called on stuck. That's right. We're tackling the biggest challenges that you're going to face as you build, create, develop, and manage your product. And today we're talking about who is the user of your product.

Now in the previous show, we talked about what's the idea. Now we're going to really drill into things and ask ourselves who is the customer, the user of this product or service. Now, again, I don't want you to dismiss this and think, well, this is all pretty simple, straightforward stuff, because it's not, frankly, you can never over obsess about who is your customer.

This question is [00:01:00] so powerful and you should keep coming back to it time and time again. And the reason is the more that you understand and the more you empathize with your customer, the easier it will become to serve their needs. And frankly, if you're solving a problem for them, then you've got a product that's worth building.

So just. Keep on obsessing. Who's our customer. What do they need now? I want to say that the biggest thing that I noticed in people, when we talk about who's the customer is how, uh, general, uh, they tend to be when describing their customer. I will often find that a lot of people describe their customers or their prospective customers as.

I dunno, just a very simple demographic description males, 18 to 24. Okay. And what else? They like gaming. Uh, huh, is that it? And that kind of tends [00:02:00] to be it. Maybe they can tell me what country they're in and what I want to present to you is in search of the answer to the question who is our customer. You can go so much more deeper because frankly.

There are four key buckets that you should be filling in, um, on your checklist for understanding who your user is, and I'm going to take you through them. And if you do this well, I think in the two less discussed. Uh, areas of customer profiling. I think you're going to find a lot of clues to developing a great product, but first let's get the two basic foundational, uh, areas of understanding our customer really down.

The first one is demographics. Now you can talk about aging, gender. Males 18 to 24, but let's talk about their annual income, their education, uh, or ethnicity. [00:03:00] They are, um, let's really kind of get into some more demographic profiling of them. Okay. So it's not just age and gender, which tends to be where most people stop.

So that's bucket number one, that's demographic, um, profiling. Now the other part that is an essential one is the geography now, um, what's really important here is that you can go beyond just saying they're in the us or they're in San Francisco. You can get down to, uh, establishing. Is it an urban or rural setting or suburban setting?

You can look at, um, what sort of climate, um, affects them in that geography. Um, you can even look at, um, what you define as being the regional, uh, radius. Um, are you looking at a town city, uh, County state level? There's all sorts of different, um, uh, permutations there. The key thing here is that, you know, for example, the [00:04:00] insight of whether someone is rural urban can create a lot of contexts to the way in which they might use a product or a service.

So go deeper on demographic and geographic areas. But what we're doing here is we're trying to go deeper into the question and to find the answer to who is Aero customer and beyond the first two, which are sort of foundational ones. There's two other areas that you should explore and that's their attitudes and their behaviors or so differently how they think and how they do.

And, um, we formally call this psychographic. And behavioral market segmentation. So let's have a look at psychographics. This is attitudes, values, interests, lifestyle, personality traits, and really big one. What motivates them. If you get into this, you get into a higher order of, um, understanding your customer and you can get to that big one that I mentioned.

[00:05:00] Motivations because the more you understand what motivates them, the more you'll be able to understand what happens in the other area. That I mentioned, which is behavioral. So behavioral segmentation of your user is how do they spend money? How do they purchase, how did they use products and services?

What do they think and do with brands now in these two areas, there's lots and lots of clues with behavioral segmentation. You can map. How your customer behaves with a similar brand product or service, you can look at how they spend with them when they spend with them. What influences their habits. Now that's really, really good because if you want to introduce a new habit to your customer or use it, you've got to fight for their attention.

And you've got to work out how to create enough value that they're going to stick with this new behavior. So that can all come from this idea of behavioral [00:06:00] segmentation, how they spend, how they purchase, uh, what sort of status they look to have, um, in, uh, the various products and services. So behavioral segmentation.

So, so far we've got demographics, segmentation, geographic, and behavioral. Um, and then this last one, psychographic. This is great because inside of this, as a lot of clues, um, to how they think what informs, um, their, um, choices for new new products and services or how they might use, uh, your existing products or service and an insight of understanding their attitudes, you can really come to terms with all sorts of issues that you might be able to solve for the customer.

So. Whether you come in through that behavioral window or through their attitudes, there's actually a lot to learn. So there's [00:07:00] so much in this customer or this user universe, when you're thinking about who is the user of our product, you've got their age and their gender and so much more in demographic.

And you've got those other three segments, geographic, behavioral, and psychographic. Now a great way to tell that story because you could run the risk. I'm getting a little overwhelmed with lots of data. What I would really recommend is to draw up some user. Personas. Okay. And user personas are just archetypes of who your classic users are.

You might have a couple of segments of customer and, um, you know, the key thing, uh, with these different segments is that you can express them as a user story. And when you do express them as a. Okay, so now let's talk about user personas. These are great ways of introducing the user. [00:08:00] And your segmentation in the form of a story, you can actually actually write a little bio, describe their personality, how they live their life, what motivates them goals and frustrations and all of that good stuff.

You can even talk about what brands they have affinity for, what services, and these really just bring to life, the characteristics of your different segments. So you might have a. Sort of advanced early adopter user versus like a, like a late majority user, two very different types of users of your service.

And you can tell them their story through a user persona, and this will be very good. At bringing to life that data, because you don't want to get buried in all of that data. Now, if you are interested in learning more about finding out who is your customer, you can get a ton of free master classes and courses [email protected].

And remember, we've got a [00:09:00] great design thinking must cost, which is totally free. So jump on over to Baltimore dyer.io and you get to know your customer even better. Well, that's it f...

Hello, welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast I might pass and say, I'm the CEO of  and we continue the getting unstuck series, where we dive into some of the greatest product challenges. And today we're starting with this question. What's the product idea. Now I know you're thinking that sounds like a pretty simple question, Mike, but actually the real truth of things is that a lot of time people really struggled to explain their product.

They often will talk about it in terms of what other people are doing. Um, they might talk about it in terms of some of the technology behind it. But really what you see is that [00:01:00] if you can't start the conversation with a clear and let's hopefully guess that it's going to be a bit inspiring and it's going to have some value in it.

If you can't share the product idea, pretty much everything else that comes after that, it's a bit of a mess. So, um, having traveled the world of marketing and product. I believe that there is a really. Powerful best way to describe your product. And I would recommend the lean hypothesis. That's right. So from lean startup, there's this idea called the lean hypothesis and it's really simple structure, and it's a really great way to share your.

Product idea. So I'm going to talk about how to do this, and then I'm going to put this into context, show you some of the variations of how to share your product idea and I'll make the case for why this is so important, [00:02:00] but let's get into telling a product story, like telling the idea, and there's a three part formula to the lean hypothesis and here's how it works.

So what you do is you frame it as a problem. Then a solution and then the results that we would expect, and you can actually add a few things to it. If it's a full venture hypothesis, it's a full business explanation, but at its core, if you've got a product, you need to go out into the world and say, here's the problem.

Here's my solution. And here's the expected results. So let me throw one at you and let's see if this all makes sense. So classic example, here is a lemonade stand because we know our customers prefer colder lemonade in warmer weather. If we add ice to each cup of lemonade, we sell, we can expect higher customer [00:03:00] satisfaction and more sales.

Okay. So let's just break that down. So you've got this idea in this case, you're actually improving a product. So let's, uh, break it down. The problem was because we know our customers prefer colder lemonade in warmer weather. It's hot. People need something to refresh them. Well, good job that we have a solution.

We're going to add ice to each cup of lemonade we sell, and that's the solution part. So now we've got this simple structure of problem solution, and then we can propose the result. We expect, higher customer satisfaction and more sales. Now this is a great way to. Present your product idea in a really clear way.

What I'll do is I'll also, uh, in a moment I'll go on and extend that into a full venture hypothesis. So it's beyond the product itself, but the entire venture, but there's a key thing. If you've written your hypothesis, the good news is you're on track for going out into the world and [00:04:00] testing and learning and validating.

If this hypothesis is in fact, correct. And, um, I want to do a little build on this so that you can, um, be one step ahead. So if you have your hypothesis, it's a great way of explaining your idea. And if everybody says, well, look, what's next. It's, you know, it's early stages. It sounds like a good idea. Well, you would say something like this, and this is where you start thinking about what you're going to learn.

What you're going to test. You'd say if we are correct, we'd also expect that customer surveys. Would validate a preference for us that we might be able to run tests, to find them quantity of ice that maximize sales and that our net promoter score crease. So that was if we were correct, but if we're wrong, it might indicate that customer preference for cold lemonade might be influenced by other factors, such as the precise ratio of ice to lemonade.

The exact temperature outside the quantity of sugar, lemon juice and water in our recipe, or the price of the [00:05:00] trip. I think from your competitor down the street, who knew that lemonade could get so complex, but the point here is this is how you would take your hypothesis into next step. So you say, Hey, listen, I don't have all the answers.

I've got this idea. And what's really good is that you are now presenting. Your hypothesis, you have a vision, but you also have sort of the next steps as well. Now, if we expand this approach and we think about it from a venture perspective, what we do is we actually just kind of frame the context a little bit more.

We've talked about problem solution result. So now what we do is we talk about, um, a formula that presents the. The customer or the persona or the segment that's part one, and then their problem situation. That's part two. Now what's really interesting is you then propose the current [00:06:00] alternatives that people look to to solve the problem.

And this is really important with the venture, because then you can ask yourself, Hmm. Yeah. When I go to get refreshing drinks in warmer weather, that that option is not really there best. I can see some problems with it. So this adds a little bit more validity to a full venture hypothesis and also indicates some of the market possibilities as well.

Then you obviously have your value proposition. So we propose to offer this solution to solve this problem. And then we'll observe particular metrics in the product. So what's really fun about having these ideas framed this way is they can become the simplest way of tracking the growth and the learning that you have.

With your product or venture, because any good product or business is the sum of its learning. So this idea, or in this case, there's a lean hypothesis that you have at the start. It should change a lot. So over time you should [00:07:00] iterate in iterate because you're learning. And so maybe one part of your hypothesis, hypothesis, perhaps the problem or the solution or the customer segment.

That's actually proven to be incorrect, but that's okay. You've learned and then you've tweaked it. So here's another idea for a podcasting service that I think would be really useful. Here's the first variation and we're going to use the venture hypothesis, which just has that bit more context. Here we go.

So here is an idea for a podcast service. Podcast fans find it hard to discover new podcasts. Currently they talk to friends, you search and randomly sample shows. But if we offer the Google of podcasts, we'll observe success through metrics such as virality and referral conversions. Okay. So people are finding it hard to find new podcasts.

Now let's just play with a variation of this. What we're going to do [00:08:00] is we're going to change up the problem solution. Um, and we're going to keep the other variables the same. So he is variation. Number two, podcast fans, find it hard to review and share their favorite podcasts. Currently they use messaging or Apple podcasts app, but if we offer authority for reviews of podcasts, Like it being the TripAdvisor of podcasts, then we'll observe success through metrics such as user registration and the volume of reviews.

So what you can see here is that we changed the problem solution set, and this might be a great example of how your product idea changes over time. So I really recommend that you use this lean hypothesis because it really not only helps you simply communicate your idea, but actually prese...

 Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality science and we are starting a whole new series. We're going to start talking about some of the essential skills for product creators, for product people. And I'm calling this series unstuck, how do we get unstuck?

How do we. Work in what is a very different world, uh, to 10, 20 years ago. And it's really a bit of a game of catch-up, uh, to be quite honest. And so I want to make the case for the change that is surrounding us as modern knowledge working professionals. I want to really make the case for some cutting edge practices like lean and agile and design thinking.

And I really want to show you, [00:01:00] um, a radically new way of thinking about those skills, uh, and how we might all survive in this crazy world in which we live. All right. Let's get stuck into it. And let's just talk a little bit about the big shift that's happening and without a doubt. Uh, you know, 2020 has only accelerated the shift.

I mean, you might really argue, you know, some people call it the fourth industrial age. I think of this as being a shift out of the industrial age to the digital age. Um, and let's talk about what that means. So in the old way of working people really had a focus on machines, manufacturing, um, stability.

Mass production, uh, listening to your teacher and all that kind of stuff, but were working in a very different world. Instead of machines, we're moving towards a world that's based on data [00:02:00] instead of manufacturing. The key thing is problem solving rather than talking about your own organization. We're really talking about how we integrate from stability to constant change from the factory worker.

To the knowledge worker and here we go. Here's some, here's some fun ones. So from capital being the biggest asset to knowledge for mass production to automated production from teachers to self-learning from top down, To bottom up. In fact, what I want to pitch to you is we've seen a huge acceleration of this shift to the digital age, to the knowledge age, and the only way to survive in this frantic fast-changing world is to in fact, work bottom up.

That's where the whole idea. [00:03:00] For the name of this podcast for the name of all of our e-learning, uh, experiences, it's all about bottom-up skills because you've got to work bottom up. Let's face it, things move too fast to be top down. You know, if someone says to me, write me a big 20 page business plan for this idea.

I'll be like, I'm lucky. If I've got enough time to do a lean business canvas, let alone a business plan. And the crazy thing is these old ways of working, which are very top down by the time you deliver that work, it's out of date. So this is the opportunity we can work in a bottom up Y and that's the most exciting prospect that we have.

So now, I'm making the case that we're working in a digital era in a era of knowledge. So we need new skills and I want to list for you the six skills, and then I'm going to present [00:04:00] you the essence, the core and the starting point of working in a bottom up way. So there are six different skills that I think are essential.

Six different practices, six different methodologies. One is lean startup. Absolutely essential too. Growth marketing three rapid prototyping for design thinking number five, agile software development. And all of that comes down to number six, high performance teams. That's all about culture. So, what I want you to have in mind is that if you do want to work in this new bottom-up way, these are the six areas of practice that you need to master.

You need to be able to build, measure, learn with lean startup. You need to be able to rapid prototype, you know, stimulate the senses of your users. You need to be able to conduct design thinking, [00:05:00] uh, which is all about empathizing with users. You need to then take those ideas and build them with small teams, which is the essence of agile.

Software development. The next thing you do is when your product is ready, it's all about growth marketing, and you've got to test every part of the funnel and it all comes down to those high performance teams that have their core engine is built around trust. Okay. Now, if you want to take all of those different skills and work out, what is the most bottom up starting point, whether you want to promote a product, build a product.

Create a profit model or build a team to do it. It all starts with the pains and gains of your customer of your user. And you have to understand what are the pains that your user experiences and how are you going to relieve those pains? What are the gains they're looking for and what are your gain creators?

And I present to you that if you know [00:06:00] those pains and gains you'll know the use cases for your product, You'll be able to build a hypothesis for your venture. You'll be able to build a team around the right behaviors, systems and symbols, you know, have the right culture. And when it goes to telling your story out in the world to promote it, you'll know exactly how to go and propose this service to the world.

So if you know the pains and gains of the end user, I make a case to you that you can build everything you need in a great business product and enterprise. You can actually deliver against those four PS product, profit people and promotion, and it will all come back to the most bottom, up to the most essential practice that you need right now here in a world that is so agile, nimble, and fast, where it changes the constant.

You need to know. What are the pains and gains of your user? What keeps them up at night and what services do they [00:07:00] need, what products do they need? And what's a product worth creating. So if you go out and do this in the world, you will find enormous success and you'll be able to craft something that delights your users.

You'll be able to find something that brings real joy. Not only to those that use your product. But I reckon you'll have fun as well. So there you go. That's my case for the most essential skills for product creators. It's not only about design thinking and lean and agile and all of that. It's much more than that.

It's about building these great teams, it's that, you know, that full picture that we have in the four PS and all of that comes down to the most essential practice of working in a bottom up way, which is knowing the pains and gains of your customer. Okay. That's the first of our new series of getting unstuck, the essential skills for product creators.

I hope that you've got some inspiration, maybe a [00:08:00] little practical tip along the way I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality tents, and this is the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap.