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People really don't have any passion for talking about your solution because they don't really care about you and you should take any discussion of solutions wi

People really don't have any passion for talking about your solution because they don't really care about you and you should take any discussion of solutions with a large grain of salt because customers are not PMs. But people are passionate about talking about their problems and that's where you should orient your discussions on. Don't ask about your product at all during PM interviews, simply try to understand the problems users are facing and figure out what ways your product is or is not addressing those problems. The biggest mistake I see PMs make is coming in with an over optimism bias and assuming that your product must be top of mind for all users when the reality is that the most often scenario you discover from user interviews is that the problem you're trying to solve is of relatively minor importance to most people.

matt_the_bass 5y ago
Yeah they’d buy magic wands if they solved their problem. They don’t care about your solution. They care about their solution.
- djbusby 4y ago
  One frequent market research question starts with: if you had magic wand ... I've see it at Lays, P&G, Google, Mars and others. It seems a great trick to get humans to cast off the current status quo.
scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
Harsh but very true.
bspear 5y ago
Ya your product is your entire world. But it's just a small thing for customers (esp. before you find traction) Helps to know exactly what type of feedback you're looking for. Frame any ask as a way to help them [save time / money etc]. And come up with open-ended questions. Some good templates here: https://giddy-amusement-c74.notion.site/Interview-customers-with-purpose-afb6a66de80d4bc0b20f773aa8f9ad57 https://giddy-amusement-c74.notion.site/Interview-customers-...
brimble 5y ago
> The biggest mistake I see PMs make is coming in with an over optimism bias and assuming that your product must be top of mind for all users when the reality is that the most often scenario you discover from user interviews is that the problem you're trying to solve is of relatively minor importance to most people. You see this come through in products all. The. Damn. Time. Some PM, and probably one or more designers who were on their side, wanted an "experience". The user just wants to get in and out of your thing as fast as possible and in a way that requires minimal attention. I just wanted to pay my fucking water bill. A barely-formatted HTML form with nothing else on the page would have been better than almost anything they might come up with. Anything but expert and extremely tasteful efforts to improve on that, will just make it worse. But no. The PM wanted an "experience". And don't get me started on people in software who complain about users complaining about redesigns. Those users just wanted to do the three clicks they do every morning to do the one thing they do with your software, then forget about it again until tomorrow. You surprised them with a full screen "LOOK WHAT'S NEW" they didn't want and had to figure out how to get rid of, then made them waste some time playing "Where's Waldo" for the element they usually click, and maybe even made it so they couldn't figure out how to do that one thing at all. Of course they're not happy.
- Shared404 5y ago
  > Anything but expert and extremely tasteful efforts to improve on that, will just make it worse. This is very important in my mind. Frequently when people talk about mfing website or similar philosophies, you get response like "Well you can improve that in this very specific way". Yes. You can improve it. But think twice first, not everything is broken just because it hasn't been touched. And a lot is broken because it has.
- stackbutterflow 4y ago
  The users just wanted to do three clicks. The same they do every morning. The one thing they do with with the program. But each user does three different clicks, to each do one different thing.
jseban 4y ago
> But people are passionate about talking about their problems and that's where you should orient your discussions on. Don't ask about your product at all during PM interviews, simply try to understand the problems users are facing and figure out what ways your product is or is not addressing those problems. Yeah you need to understand the whole process that the user is part of, and then design a better overall process. You can't ask the customer to design the product for you, they don't have the overview it requires and they also don't have any incentives to help you with your job, unless you give them something for their time. Product managers make their job way too easy for themselves by expecting the users to provide complete requirements for them. You could never have done any user research that would show you that people wanted to have a phone without buttons, before the iphone came out.

matt_the_bass 5y ago

Yeah they’d buy magic wands if they solved their problem. They don’t care about your solution. They care about their solution.

djbusby 4y ago
One frequent market research question starts with: if you had magic wand ... I've see it at Lays, P&G, Google, Mars and others. It seems a great trick to get humans to cast off the current status quo.

scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago

Harsh but very true.

bspear 5y ago

Ya your product is your entire world. But it's just a small thing for customers (esp. before you find traction) Helps to know exactly what type of feedback you're looking for. Frame any ask as a way to help them [save time / money etc]. And come up with open-ended questions. Some good templates here: https://giddy-amusement-c74.notion.site/Interview-customers-with-purpose-afb6a66de80d4bc0b20f773aa8f9ad57 https://giddy-amusement-c74.notion.site/Interview-customers-...

brimble 5y ago

> The biggest mistake I see PMs make is coming in with an over optimism bias and assuming that your product must be top of mind for all users when the reality is that the most often scenario you discover from user interviews is that the problem you're trying to solve is of relatively minor importance to most people. You see this come through in products all. The. Damn. Time. Some PM, and probably one or more designers who were on their side, wanted an "experience". The user just wants to get in and out of your thing as fast as possible and in a way that requires minimal attention. I just wanted to pay my fucking water bill. A barely-formatted HTML form with nothing else on the page would have been better than almost anything they might come up with. Anything but expert and extremely tasteful efforts to improve on that, will just make it worse. But no. The PM wanted an "experience". And don't get me started on people in software who complain about users complaining about redesigns. Those users just wanted to do the three clicks they do every morning to do the one thing they do with your software, then forget about it again until tomorrow. You surprised them with a full screen "LOOK WHAT'S NEW" they didn't want and had to figure out how to get rid of, then made them waste some time playing "Where's Waldo" for the element they usually click, and maybe even made it so they couldn't figure out how to do that one thing at all. Of course they're not happy.

Shared404 5y ago
> Anything but expert and extremely tasteful efforts to improve on that, will just make it worse. This is very important in my mind. Frequently when people talk about mfing website or similar philosophies, you get response like "Well you can improve that in this very specific way". Yes. You can improve it. But think twice first, not everything is broken just because it hasn't been touched. And a lot is broken because it has.
stackbutterflow 4y ago
The users just wanted to do three clicks. The same they do every morning. The one thing they do with with the program. But each user does three different clicks, to each do one different thing.

jseban 4y ago

> But people are passionate about talking about their problems and that's where you should orient your discussions on. Don't ask about your product at all during PM interviews, simply try to understand the problems users are facing and figure out what ways your product is or is not addressing those problems. Yeah you need to understand the whole process that the user is part of, and then design a better overall process. You can't ask the customer to design the product for you, they don't have the overview it requires and they also don't have any incentives to help you with your job, unless you give them something for their time. Product managers make their job way too easy for themselves by expecting the users to provide complete requirements for them. You could never have done any user research that would show you that people wanted to have a phone without buttons, before the iphone came out.