"The problem hypothesis is a way to think about the viability of your product in a concrete, testable way. It works by reframing your idea for a product as a very specific problem.”—Hiten Shah
". Finding a Niche market allows you fulfill the needs of businesses that are currently not being tended to. Look for customer groups that have a need, go fulfill it, and then protect it. This is creating a new market space, which is the ultimate goal for products."
"Knowing that people are conditioned to repeat behaviors the brain views as positive, it is possible to associate a desired behavior with positive incentive, Pavlov demonstrated this through his famous Pavlov’s Dog experiment."
"Cause and effect in products are the result of systems connected by positive and negative feedback loops."— Brandon Chu
"A simple but often underrated model which is useful when working with others, it can be simply summarized as; “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect”. It means that more often than not when a team member does something wrong, it isn’t for personal reasons to spite you so it shouldn’t be misconstrued as such. "
AARRR (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue) is a framework for customer lifecycle.
" In times of uncertainty, human beings look to others to know what to do or how to behave — this stems from an innate desire to fit into a group rather than stand out, and is the basis for the psychological concept known as social proof, or safety in numbers."
"When building a product, don’t bank on a second version ever shipping. Make sure the first version is a complete product because it may be out there forever."— Brandon Chu
"Human beings like to be consistent and committed to their words, actions, and more. The idea that once we start doing something, we have to keep at it for various reasons — positive self-image, to gain trust, rationality, honesty — is very rampant."
“A product with just enough features to gather validated learning about the product and its continued development.” (related: perfect is the enemy of good; de-risking; Customer Development, “Get out of the building.”) - Gabriel Weinberg
" The idea that as additional units of a product/service are consumed, utility increases up to a critical point, where any more additional units have the inverse effect of diminishing utility."
"Product market fit is when you’re in a good market and the product you’re working on satisfies the market. Getting to PMF is crucial because the biggest company killer is a lack of market."
"Pairing your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with metrics you don’t want to see go in a certain direction, to ensure you’re focused on healthy growth."— Brandon Chu
"All systems are sensitive to scale, and products are no exception, as they exhibit different behaviors when scaled up or down. This model applies to all complex systems but may often be missed, due to the fact that it is implicit."
"I knew that when I was 80 I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried." — Jeff Bezos (on his decision whether or not to leave his cushy job to start Amazon)
“A company is defined by the schleps it will undertake. And schleps should be dealt with the same way you’d deal with a cold swimming pool: just jump in.” — Paul Graham
"This model represents a spectrum which a system can move through — it is a check on how a system responds as negative variables are introduced. Fragility at the lower end is where the system can handle little to no negative variability, robustness is the center where it can handle additional negative variation, while antifragility is at the higher end where the system is not impacted by additional negative variables. "
"The reversible vs. irreversible decision model splits every decision along the binary of whether it not it is able to be undone. For example, making a purchase is reversible (ex: you can return it) whereas firing someone is irreversible (you cannot un-fire someone)."
"A finance concept: for every dollar you invest, how much are you getting back? In product, think of the resources you have (time, money, people) as what you’re “investing”, and the return as impact to customers." — Brandon Chu
“Now what do those two triangles make together? A box. They make a box. You can’t make that shit up. ”— Jack Barker
“Anchoring” is a good example of a user-focused mental model. Anchoring explains the human tendency to rely heavily on the first piece of information it receives to make subsequent assumptions.
"The cost/benefit model is a scale that weighs every decision between the “cost” (usually fiscal, but can be flexible) and “benefit” of the proposed solution."
"Fundamentally, human relationships are built on trust. If established early, there are manifold rewards that can be reaped from users who trust a product. So, you will want to find avenues to establish trust very quickly when speaking to users, and you can use the narrative instinct here to help bridge gaps and establish familiarity."
"Whenever we spend our money – or time – on one thing, we’re implicitly giving up our ability to spend that same money or time on something else – an “opportunity cost” or “tradeoff.”"
"Thought experiments are focused on the outcomes of concepts, ideas, or potential solutions prior to coming to a decision on it. It’s essentially applying the scientific method to concepts or ideas."
" By default, human beings are drawn to storytelling and narratives — as a result, we seek to construct, and find meaning in them. "
"Customer experiences don’t end at the interface. What happens before and after using the product are just as important to design for."— Brandon Chu
"When faced with multiple explanations or solutions, often the most simple solution is the best. This is because the simple solution is easier to understand, and more likely on average to be correct."
"There are three types of product development: Experiments, Features, and Platforms. Each have their own goal and optimal way to trade-off speed and quality."— Brandon Chu
“A good founder is capable of anticipating which turns lead to treasure and which lead to certain death. A bad founder is just running to the entrance of (say) the “movies/music/filesharing/P2P” maze or the “photosharing” maze without any sense for the history of the industry, the players in the maze, the casualties of the past, and the technologies that are likely to move walls and change assumptions.” — Balaji S. Srinivasan
"Related to the Time Value of Shipping, the right investment decision changes based on the time period you are optimizing for. "Choosing to ask “How can we create the most impact in the next 3 months?” or “How can we create the most impact in the next 3 years?” will result in dramatically different decisions for your team." — Brandon Chu
"The product that first addresses an issue in the marketplace has a leg up on the competition. This is likely from a combination of multiple cognitive biases that humans have. Cognitive biases are thought to be the result of evolution where our brains conserve energy."
"Defining a circle of competence is simply acknowledging what you know as a professional, by especially focusing on areas in which you have deep subject matter expertise, i.e. specialist knowledge. In product development, this needs to be defined for all the individuals on a team. On the flip side, it is also very important to agree on what each person does not know."
"If you really want to dig to the heart of a problem, ask “why” five times. This mental model was developed by Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyota. He saw every problem as an opportunity for learning and improvement and encouraged his team to explore the root causes of problems by asking why something was happening without any preconceptions about the reasons behind it."
"Loss aversion is a psychological principle that states that people prefer avoiding losses to making an equivalent gain."
"Economically, this is the ability of a nation to produce a good or service at a lower opportunity cost than another, which establishes the basis for international trade. This can be applied to a competitor analysis when establishing the strengths and weaknesses of competitors using a matrix or some other model."
"The Jobs To Be Done mental model, developed by a Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen, says that one of the most effective ways to improve a product is to understand the job the user is trying to accomplish."
"You're asking the same question and getting the same answers, over and over again. Instead, flip the problem on its head. Ask the opposite question and figure out what you should not be doing. This breaks your repetitive thought loops. By considering what would cause things to go wrong—instead of what would cause them to go right—you may start to identify areas of your process that are leading to these kinds of negative outcomes."
"A state where a positive or negative feedback loop is feeding on itself and accelerating from its own momentum. (...) The flywheel is the phenomenon where more app users attract more app developers (because there is more opportunity to sell), which in turn attract more app users (because there are more apps to buy), which in turn attract more app developers, and so on."— Brandon Chu
"When the brain determines something as a good behavior (something that historically increases our chances of survival), it releases dopamine, which in turn makes us feel good. This is the basis of motivation. We want to feel good, so we continue good behavior."
"The strong viewpoint weakly held model is a way of challenging ideas by taking a “strong” viewpoint (one that can be reasonably supported) and holding it “weakly” (allowing it to be challenged and seeking out more information on it)."
"The design pattern model is a way to recycle things that work as common solutions to common problems."
"Disruptive innovation is when your product or service starts out as a simple solution at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing the established competitors and redefining the industry."
"The theory is that entrepreneurs are driven by incentives to constantly one up each other. These incentives can range from money to the desire to be the best. This is what leads to innovation."
"The Pareto efficiency model is an economic model of resource allocation that says you can’t improve one thing without worsening another."
"The confidence you have in i) the importance of the problem your solving, and ii) the correctness of the solution you’re building, should determine how much you’re willing to trade off speed and quality in a product build.”— Brandon Chu
"The representativeness heuristic is what our brain often uses as a mental shortcut, to make decisions about the probability of an event under uncertainty. Specifically, the tendency to stereotype is when we broadly generalize and categorize events, rather than looking for specific nuances. "
"Pioneers, settlers, and town planners all help to build a city, but they contribute different types of thinking at different times. Understanding the right time to build, sustain, or scale helps you become more efficient with your time and capital."
"Originally a military tactic, this is the habit of observing what’s in front of oneself before making decisions, rather than relying solely on advice, research, and reports. The main reason is to minimize and potentially avoid biases which could come from individuals."
"Churn is based on the Red Queen effect, the same Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland who said, “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” Typically spending grows in parallel with customer growth, and to stay one step ahead of the competition. As you grow your profit margins will stay relatively similar."
"A situation where there is little to lose and lots of gain by shipping something fast. HOW IT'S USEFUL Freerolls typically emerge in product when the current user experience is so bad that by making any reasonable change based on intuition is likely to make it much better. They are different than fixing bugs because bugs refer to something that’s not working as designed." — Brandon Chu
"A bottleneck is a point at which flow stops. Depending on how close this is to the critical path of the production of a good or service, it can negatively impact or ultimately halt production. This could potentially be a goldmine of untapped opportunities when analyzing an existing market. Identifying bottlenecks in the supply chain is usually a good way to determine the point of entry into the market, that is both unexpected and solves a key problem."
“When using small samples, we tend to take the results from this subset of data as absolute truth, especially when they show positive output. While it is necessary to use samples as an abstract to test, we need to be able to guard against a potential bias.”
“Typically, when taking an action, we consider only one layer of consequence and mitigate the risk of that single layer. However, there are often multiple layers of effects that occur after an action, and second-order thinking means uncovering multiple layers of effects on actions we take, in order to help us avoid unintended side effects.”
"These are visual maps that identify positive and negative correlations. Thinking about the positive and negative correlations between events helps prevent you from being blind-sided by unintended consequences. This mental model can also help you explain and justify your decisions to different teams, who might not directly see the benefits of certain decisions."
“You will learn the most about the customer after you launch the product, don’t waste the opportunity to build on those learnings.”— Brandon Chu
"To Steve’s surprise, Warren responded sternly, “No. You’ve got it wrong Steve. Everything you didn’t circle just became your ‘avoid at all cost list’. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.”
”In Physics, this refers to the concept of resistance to changes in motion. As individuals, this idea manifests in our minds through what is known as cognitive inertia, and results in us being lazy, idle, unable to move, or resistant to change. Teams also exhibit this by choosing to operate based on what they currently know or believe, and being closed to new ideas or ways of doing things.”
“The more users that are using your product, the more use it is for the individual. The telephone is the best example, if only one person has a telephone it is not very useful. But as more people begin to use a telephone, it becomes exponentially useful.”
“Product shipped earlier is worth more to customers than product shipped at a later time.” —Brandon Chu