How to Build Products Users Love part 1

Kevin Hale, Founder, Wufoo and Partner, Y Combinator talks about how to build products that users love from the perspective of his startup Wufoo.

Notes

• gap between conversion and churn is growth
• growth in terms of human scale and how we build our product
• the best way to get to $1 billion is focus on the values to acquire that first $1
• wufoo database app with “fisher-price” ui, meaning it was easy to use and attracted wide customer base
• wufoo Y Combinator funded, located in Tampa Bay FL, 10 employees, no office, acquired by SurveyMonkey
• used dating and marriage as model for dealing with customers
• 4m26s # First Impressions
• human beings are relationship manufacturing beings
• pass/fail threshold for first-time interactions so much lower than after long-term relationship
• software first impressions: homepage, landing pages, plans/ pricing, login, signup
• other firsts: first email, account creation, blank/ starting interface, login link, ad link, first support
• 6m56s taken for granted quality (atarimae hinshitsu); enchanting quality (miryokuteki hinshitsu)
• samples: fun login screen, beautiful user guides, etc.
• http://littlebigdetails.com
• John Gottman: insight into personal relationships related to business
• 15m50s Software engineers/ designers are often divorced from the consequences of their actions
• before launch 100% create software
• after launch crap gets added: customer support, fix crap, business crap, hiring crap, crap
• 15m50s SDD (support driven development) inject software development with responsibility, accountability, humility
• 17m10s SDD = make everyone do customer support
• 17m30s # 1 support responsible developers and designers Give the Best Support
• the four horsemen (reasons we break up with each other): criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling
• Joe Gebbia of airbnb also doing phone support all the time
• asking user’s emotional state made for nicer customers
• 23m05s # 2 support responsible developers and designers Create Better Software
• direct exposure to users to get better software (not reports or graphs), minimum every 6 weeks, at least 2 hours
• knowledge gap: distance between target amount of knowledge required to use software and user’s current knowledge level
• 25m48s when everyone responsible for support every week… growth
• 27m08s Relationship Atrophy
• blogs and newletters for user benefits but only small portion using them, instead…
• since you’ve been gone: wufoo alerts to show new features timeline since last time user was logged on
• wufoo made everyone say thank you with hand-written thank you cards
• 31m41s Discipline of Market Leaders 1. best price, 2. best product, 3. best overall solution (customer intimate)
• best overall solution – almost no money, little bit of humility and manners
• 33m00s Q&A
• what if you have customers with differing preferences: start 1 at a time with most passionate users
• balance focus on product and getting customers: make really interesting product
• how to make product decision and communicate with team: see what users ask for and figure out why then build quickly to test change
• king for a day: once a year a random engineer would get entire company to work on their wish list for 48 hour “hackathon”
• remote working: respect people’s time, 1/2 friday for meetings, 1 day customer support, during week max discussion 15 minutes between employees regarding problem (then bring up on Friday, but typically it would get solved on own)
• remote working takes lots of discipline in a different fashion
• 42m20s how to set up accountability for employees: profit sharing, to do lists – every updates text file with what they plan to do for week, then what they actually did, discuss at meeting if difference
• how do you hire people that can work remotely: hire as contractor on month long project, monitor customer support ability, ask people in interview to write by hand a breakup letter
• something that didn’t work: crunch mode contest

Additional Reading

• Your App Makes Me Fat by Kathy Sierra
• What Makes a Design Intuitive by Jared Spool
• Creative mornings with Ben Chestnut; (user-provided transcript)
• What Makes Marriages Work by John Gottman, Nan Silver
• BJ Fogg’s Behavior Model
• Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciplines, Harvard Business Review
• The Sanctity of Marriage, This American Life
• Creating Passionate Users
• Transcript

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