11 ms·

Opinionated products breed passionate customers

pigtailgirl 4y ago
-- what is everyone using to collect product feedback? - been giving canny.io a try - curious what others are using --
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
  nothing. im mostly clueless about what my users want but they call and email my business partner. squeaky wheel gets the features. not saying this is a good approach btw. if there's good software for middle aged non tech users.. LMK
  - pigtailgirl 4y ago
    -- uservoice and canny are the 2 I've tried --
aschearer 4y ago
Always impressed by people who have strong opinions about calendaring software. Personally, I can't get excited about that stuff. That being said, I think this is reasonable advice. Reminds me of Seth Godin's Purple Cow. In my opinion, people want something authentic, and being opinionated is one way to come across as such. It also reminds me of Subnautica's (and Klei's) idea of being a "spikey bubble"[1]. You've got to have some spikes/opinions if you want to stand out. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkjY_R7zQsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkjY_R7zQsM PS. It's strange to have "About the Author" but no name, don't you think?
- wking 4y ago
  I heard someone phrase it as "Your user wants to be the hero of the story" and if the opinions you have chosen align that is a good shortcut to getting there. Thanks for those other references. Going to go check them out.
- brntsllvn 4y ago
  I agree. "Makes scheduling collaborative instead of a nuisance." Isn't really a strong opinion. Here's a strong opinion (though not a purple cow): "All scheduling should be done by phone with a physical person." Which is pretty much true for every medical office everywhere. Here's a purple cow and strong opinion: "All scheduling should be done via blockchain." Since what we really need is an immutable record of meetings... There's no reason for this, but I'm sure it'll get attention (and funding). I'm being cynical, but altogether agree with you. It's worth being different.
  - wking 4y ago
    Eh maybe cynical, but I would say you're right. There is a lot more nuance and detail to positioning yourself as a competitor to a company that already has huge market share. Sometimes having a small but important opinion is all you need, but sometimes you really have make a bet like your reference and really differentiate.
  - innomatics 4y ago
    The examples of strong opinions are really poor in the article. The one you've quoted isn't an opinion at all - nobody would prefer a nuisance over collaborative scheduling! It's a shame because I do agree with the premise. Opinionated software is easy to use and therefore quickly carves out a niche with like-minded users. We often hear about unpopular opinionated product decisions, but would love to read some good real examples where the PM has gone out on limb and it paid off.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    > Which is pretty much true for every medical office everywhere. Less and less so in Germany. And I love it, online appointment systems are far superior.
  - hooby 4y ago
    I think you misunderstood... The way I understood the article, the mentioned calendar software `Makes scheduling collaborative instead of a nuisance.` by having strong opinions about how a calendar should work, and building those into the product. The quote "Makes scheduling collaborative instead of a nuisance." is not supposed to be an example of an opinion.
YVoyiatzis 4y ago
I agree that creating products that are tailored to a specific group of users can lead to a more passionate customer base. By focusing on the needs of a particular group, you can create a product that is designed to meet their specific needs and preferences. This can lead to a better user experience and more satisfied customers. Additionally, by building products that are not intended to appeal to everyone, you can differentiate your product from competitors and create a unique selling point.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
  this annoys me so much about certain big companies that only build for "everyone", they alienate power users. sure, maybe they're accessible and work for 98% of people and use cases which is lovely, but they vehemently refuse to give the user control over anything because it looks bad for their stats. and there's a maintenance cost and yada yada, i don't care about the reasons, just saying that there's a market for serving these special use cases even if its a smaller market, its probably enough for a small business
  - quacked 4y ago
    > sure, maybe they're accessible and work for 98% of people and use cases which is lovel... After experiencing many different proprietary apps, working professionally on both Windows and Mac systems, and studying the principles of intuitive design, I have come to the conclusion that nearly any organization who "designs for 98% of users" is actually just terrible at design and couldn't design for the 2% of power users if they tried. Either they lack the talent, or they lack the organizational flexibility to hand the reins over to the actually talented people.
  - zzo38computer 4y ago
    It annoys me too, I often find such things to be the case. Too many programs don't give the user control over anything; especially modern programs. There are many other things difference too, than how I thought they should be. So, often I write my own software, but sometimes I cannot. Many of my ideas are different from many programs. Better design is you have enough ropes to hang yourself and also a few more just in case (that is UNIX philosophy). (I also hate UEFI, USB, HDMI, WWW, PDF, Unicode, and some other things, so I try to make my own designs to avoid them as much as possible. I also think that any good program should need good documentation; without documentation it is not understandable.)
causality0 4y ago
Of the things I own, the ones that appeal to the fewest people are the things I like the most. Sure, not everyone wants a laptop that's over an inch thick, but I love having five USB ports and two card slots.
- grishka 4y ago
  If only someone made an Android phone with a 4" screen and actual bezels... It won't be very "niche" either, I know many people who, like myself, would really like one.
  - thefz 4y ago
    And a large battery, and an sdcard reader, and a 3.5mm jack. Yesh, we found out why being strongly opinionated does not work most of the times.
    - kaetemi 4y ago
      Not even a large battery. Just standard replaceable batteries that don't have mysterious risks of exploding.
      - grishka 4y ago
        I basically want an HTC Desire S with a modern SoC (i.e. one that came out in the last 5 years) and a non-potato camera. That's all. The thing is reasonably sized, has a kinda genius sliding battery cover, and is so sturdy that whenever I dropped it I was worried about the floor more than about the phone.
  - causality0 4y ago
    I want a phone with a screen that slides up to reveal game controls, aka a modern Xperia Play.
- LAC-Tech 4y ago
  Judging by all the comments I read on HN complaining about how "heavy" laptops are, you must be completely shredded and have trouble fitting through doorways.
mdznr 4y ago
> Strong opinion: Makes scheduling collaborative instead of a nuisance. I’m not sure how this is a strong opinion. Are there really a lot of people that prefer to schedule things with inconvenience? > Strong opinion: We provide cleanly designed forms that are easy to use for people who build digital products. Does anyone want messy and difficult to use forms? Here’s my strong opinion: the author’s examples don’t help to make an argument as to why opinionated products breed passionate customers.
- endgame 4y ago
  They're like business strategies that boil down to "our strategy is to win". An opinionated product and an actual business strategy involve very deliberate decisions about what gets left on the table.
- wking 4y ago
  Fair points! For the second one, the point was actually they didn't have strong enough opinions so they are going to try strengthening them. That being said you make a good argument. Will try and add in more detail to each example!
- LudwigNagasena 4y ago
  Yeah, that’s just benign statements that act as a veil to an actually strong opinion: “I know what a nuisance looks like, and you don’t.”
klntsky 4y ago
> Opinionated products breed passionate customers ...Passionate customers promote lame products Lame products breed indifferent customers Indifferent customers subscribe to using opinionated products Sorry.
joelrunyon 4y ago
I spent way too much time in the calendaring space. > Makes scheduling collaborative instead of a nuisance. This is not a strong opinion (sorry Derrick, I love you) Every calendar/scheduler thinks they do this. Most are just variations of calendly (which no one loves, but does it's job). Calendars (imo) need to stop getting enamored with scheduling and more enamored with helping people use their time wisely. Stronger opinion: scheduling sucks - do less of it. Stronger opinion: you should schedule your calendar exactly this way (https://www.nirandfar.com/schedule-maker/ https://www.nirandfar.com/schedule-maker/) Stronger opinion: a full calendar doesn't make you productive. Making sure you've scheduled the things that matter to you first before you let any other events is, is the only thing that matter. Tying the way someone calendars to a specific workflow is what matters. You saw Superhuman do this with "inbox zero." They convinced you that inbox zero means you're productive. It's the wrong metric IMO, but that's how they built out their fan base. If someone is trying to get a calendar off the ground, they should just hire Nir as an advisor, make his workflow the default calendaring experience and start from there. That would do worlds of work for differentiating in this space where everyone largely does the same minor improvements in different colorways.
wtallis 4y ago
The idea of "opinionated" software to me seems to have an unfortunate connotation that the user should always adapt their workflow to the one true path favored by the developer. The benign core of that idea is that your project should have a clear sense of purpose, and knowledge of what uses it is and is not suited for—that's praiseworthy. But the idea of the software being opinionated—and pushing those opinions on the user—sometimes leads developers to ruthlessly strip out any affordances for using it in a way the developer did not intend or anticipate. Developers should be careful to retain at least some degree of humility and not forget that they cannot possibly foresee every practical or interesting use for a product. When you're being "opinionated", you're not just shutting out the users and use cases you're consciously forgoing, you're also shutting out some that are in your blind spots.
- atoav 4y ago
  Think about tools. An opinionated tool is one, where the designer/maker thought about every corner, nook and cranny of the object and decidedly took the decisions that served the higher goal they envisioned for this tool. "Opinionated" does not automatically mean radical, it means that you have that higher goal about what makes a good tool and you are willing to go to certain lengths in reaching it. Sacrificing everything for that higher goal would again be radical, sacrificing nothing for that higher goal (or not having one to start with) is unopinionated. A text editior like vim for example is opinionated – it does not want to be everything to everyone, but it wants to do the things it was intended to do well. Even something simple like Notepad.exe might be opinionated. Just a bare bones simple texteditor, not intended to do anything fancy. Something like Microsoft Word would be less opinionated, it tries to be a lot of things and is only good in very few of them. A good screwdriver is opinionated, a weird multitool that is bad at most things while also being clunky is not. A swiss pocket knife is opinionated again. Punk music is opinionated, so is jazz or drum and bass. A certain type of pop music that tries to please everybody is not. And that punk band doesn't automatically get unopinionated, because they add a little dub flavour into their music as long as they still know what they want and why. In my eyes being opinionated is a good starting point, you then just have to decide whether the thing you decided for is the right opinion for what you are willing to achieve.
sph 4y ago
Good premise, then they threw it all away with those examples. "Makes scheduling collaborative instead of a nuisance" is not a strong opinion, it's a run-of-the-mill tag line. My enjoyment of this article peaked early.
- wking 4y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! I thing that section could definitely use a re-focus on what they specifically do to differentiate.
The_Colonel 4y ago
Unopinionated products - those that allow their users to bend the product to exactly their needs - also breed passionate customers. Admittedly, it's much more difficult to build a high quality unopinionated software than a high quality opinionated one.
- wking 4y ago
  Oooo good counter point. That is definitely the case. It makes for a fun challenge to take that on. If you're not funded though that can be a risk that is too dangerous.
sebastianconcpt 4y ago
This is the approach I'd take in attempting a product. There is something I'd add, it has to be a product for who behave as extrovert when using the product.
thenerdhead 4y ago
An opinion usually includes who it is for. Some of these examples do not clearly define who the product is for, but the point gets across. For example many creator or developer tools are created by the very people who want to be using them. They are opinionated by design because these people have an opinion on how they prefer to work with them. This also creates a unique value proposition in the expert space given that you'd trust a tool created "by" your profession rather than a tool created "for" your profession.

-- what is everyone using to collect product feedback? - been giving canny.io a try - curious what others are using --

8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
nothing. im mostly clueless about what my users want but they call and email my business partner. squeaky wheel gets the features. not saying this is a good approach btw. if there's good software for middle aged non tech users.. LMK
- pigtailgirl 4y ago
  -- uservoice and canny are the 2 I've tried --

Always impressed by people who have strong opinions about calendaring software. Personally, I can't get excited about that stuff. That being said, I think this is reasonable advice. Reminds me of Seth Godin's Purple Cow. In my opinion, people want something authentic, and being opinionated is one way to come across as such. It also reminds me of Subnautica's (and Klei's) idea of being a "spikey bubble"[1]. You've got to have some spikes/opinions if you want to stand out. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkjY_R7zQsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkjY_R7zQsM PS. It's strange to have "About the Author" but no name, don't you think?

wking 4y ago
I heard someone phrase it as "Your user wants to be the hero of the story" and if the opinions you have chosen align that is a good shortcut to getting there. Thanks for those other references. Going to go check them out.
brntsllvn 4y ago
I agree. "Makes scheduling collaborative instead of a nuisance." Isn't really a strong opinion. Here's a strong opinion (though not a purple cow): "All scheduling should be done by phone with a physical person." Which is pretty much true for every medical office everywhere. Here's a purple cow and strong opinion: "All scheduling should be done via blockchain." Since what we really need is an immutable record of meetings... There's no reason for this, but I'm sure it'll get attention (and funding). I'm being cynical, but altogether agree with you. It's worth being different.
- wking 4y ago
  Eh maybe cynical, but I would say you're right. There is a lot more nuance and detail to positioning yourself as a competitor to a company that already has huge market share. Sometimes having a small but important opinion is all you need, but sometimes you really have make a bet like your reference and really differentiate.
- innomatics 4y ago
  The examples of strong opinions are really poor in the article. The one you've quoted isn't an opinion at all - nobody would prefer a nuisance over collaborative scheduling! It's a shame because I do agree with the premise. Opinionated software is easy to use and therefore quickly carves out a niche with like-minded users. We often hear about unpopular opinionated product decisions, but would love to read some good real examples where the PM has gone out on limb and it paid off.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  > Which is pretty much true for every medical office everywhere. Less and less so in Germany. And I love it, online appointment systems are far superior.
- hooby 4y ago
  I think you misunderstood... The way I understood the article, the mentioned calendar software `Makes scheduling collaborative instead of a nuisance.` by having strong opinions about how a calendar should work, and building those into the product. The quote "Makes scheduling collaborative instead of a nuisance." is not supposed to be an example of an opinion.

YVoyiatzis 4y ago

I agree that creating products that are tailored to a specific group of users can lead to a more passionate customer base. By focusing on the needs of a particular group, you can create a product that is designed to meet their specific needs and preferences. This can lead to a better user experience and more satisfied customers. Additionally, by building products that are not intended to appeal to everyone, you can differentiate your product from competitors and create a unique selling point.

8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
this annoys me so much about certain big companies that only build for "everyone", they alienate power users. sure, maybe they're accessible and work for 98% of people and use cases which is lovely, but they vehemently refuse to give the user control over anything because it looks bad for their stats. and there's a maintenance cost and yada yada, i don't care about the reasons, just saying that there's a market for serving these special use cases even if its a smaller market, its probably enough for a small business
- quacked 4y ago
  > sure, maybe they're accessible and work for 98% of people and use cases which is lovel... After experiencing many different proprietary apps, working professionally on both Windows and Mac systems, and studying the principles of intuitive design, I have come to the conclusion that nearly any organization who "designs for 98% of users" is actually just terrible at design and couldn't design for the 2% of power users if they tried. Either they lack the talent, or they lack the organizational flexibility to hand the reins over to the actually talented people.
- zzo38computer 4y ago
  It annoys me too, I often find such things to be the case. Too many programs don't give the user control over anything; especially modern programs. There are many other things difference too, than how I thought they should be. So, often I write my own software, but sometimes I cannot. Many of my ideas are different from many programs. Better design is you have enough ropes to hang yourself and also a few more just in case (that is UNIX philosophy). (I also hate UEFI, USB, HDMI, WWW, PDF, Unicode, and some other things, so I try to make my own designs to avoid them as much as possible. I also think that any good program should need good documentation; without documentation it is not understandable.)

causality0 4y ago

Of the things I own, the ones that appeal to the fewest people are the things I like the most. Sure, not everyone wants a laptop that's over an inch thick, but I love having five USB ports and two card slots.

grishka 4y ago
If only someone made an Android phone with a 4" screen and actual bezels... It won't be very "niche" either, I know many people who, like myself, would really like one.
- thefz 4y ago
  And a large battery, and an sdcard reader, and a 3.5mm jack. Yesh, we found out why being strongly opinionated does not work most of the times.
  - kaetemi 4y ago
    Not even a large battery. Just standard replaceable batteries that don't have mysterious risks of exploding.
    - grishka 4y ago
      I basically want an HTC Desire S with a modern SoC (i.e. one that came out in the last 5 years) and a non-potato camera. That's all. The thing is reasonably sized, has a kinda genius sliding battery cover, and is so sturdy that whenever I dropped it I was worried about the floor more than about the phone.
- causality0 4y ago
  I want a phone with a screen that slides up to reveal game controls, aka a modern Xperia Play.
LAC-Tech 4y ago
Judging by all the comments I read on HN complaining about how "heavy" laptops are, you must be completely shredded and have trouble fitting through doorways.

mdznr 4y ago

> Strong opinion: Makes scheduling collaborative instead of a nuisance. I’m not sure how this is a strong opinion. Are there really a lot of people that prefer to schedule things with inconvenience? > Strong opinion: We provide cleanly designed forms that are easy to use for people who build digital products. Does anyone want messy and difficult to use forms? Here’s my strong opinion: the author’s examples don’t help to make an argument as to why opinionated products breed passionate customers.

endgame 4y ago
They're like business strategies that boil down to "our strategy is to win". An opinionated product and an actual business strategy involve very deliberate decisions about what gets left on the table.
wking 4y ago
Fair points! For the second one, the point was actually they didn't have strong enough opinions so they are going to try strengthening them. That being said you make a good argument. Will try and add in more detail to each example!
LudwigNagasena 4y ago
Yeah, that’s just benign statements that act as a veil to an actually strong opinion: “I know what a nuisance looks like, and you don’t.”

klntsky 4y ago

> Opinionated products breed passionate customers ...Passionate customers promote lame products Lame products breed indifferent customers Indifferent customers subscribe to using opinionated products Sorry.

joelrunyon 4y ago

I spent way too much time in the calendaring space. > Makes scheduling collaborative instead of a nuisance. This is not a strong opinion (sorry Derrick, I love you) Every calendar/scheduler thinks they do this. Most are just variations of calendly (which no one loves, but does it's job). Calendars (imo) need to stop getting enamored with scheduling and more enamored with helping people use their time wisely. Stronger opinion: scheduling sucks - do less of it. Stronger opinion: you should schedule your calendar exactly this way (https://www.nirandfar.com/schedule-maker/ https://www.nirandfar.com/schedule-maker/) Stronger opinion: a full calendar doesn't make you productive. Making sure you've scheduled the things that matter to you first before you let any other events is, is the only thing that matter. Tying the way someone calendars to a specific workflow is what matters. You saw Superhuman do this with "inbox zero." They convinced you that inbox zero means you're productive. It's the wrong metric IMO, but that's how they built out their fan base. If someone is trying to get a calendar off the ground, they should just hire Nir as an advisor, make his workflow the default calendaring experience and start from there. That would do worlds of work for differentiating in this space where everyone largely does the same minor improvements in different colorways.

wtallis 4y ago

The idea of "opinionated" software to me seems to have an unfortunate connotation that the user should always adapt their workflow to the one true path favored by the developer. The benign core of that idea is that your project should have a clear sense of purpose, and knowledge of what uses it is and is not suited for—that's praiseworthy. But the idea of the software being opinionated—and pushing those opinions on the user—sometimes leads developers to ruthlessly strip out any affordances for using it in a way the developer did not intend or anticipate. Developers should be careful to retain at least some degree of humility and not forget that they cannot possibly foresee every practical or interesting use for a product. When you're being "opinionated", you're not just shutting out the users and use cases you're consciously forgoing, you're also shutting out some that are in your blind spots.

atoav 4y ago
Think about tools. An opinionated tool is one, where the designer/maker thought about every corner, nook and cranny of the object and decidedly took the decisions that served the higher goal they envisioned for this tool. "Opinionated" does not automatically mean radical, it means that you have that higher goal about what makes a good tool and you are willing to go to certain lengths in reaching it. Sacrificing everything for that higher goal would again be radical, sacrificing nothing for that higher goal (or not having one to start with) is unopinionated. A text editior like vim for example is opinionated – it does not want to be everything to everyone, but it wants to do the things it was intended to do well. Even something simple like Notepad.exe might be opinionated. Just a bare bones simple texteditor, not intended to do anything fancy. Something like Microsoft Word would be less opinionated, it tries to be a lot of things and is only good in very few of them. A good screwdriver is opinionated, a weird multitool that is bad at most things while also being clunky is not. A swiss pocket knife is opinionated again. Punk music is opinionated, so is jazz or drum and bass. A certain type of pop music that tries to please everybody is not. And that punk band doesn't automatically get unopinionated, because they add a little dub flavour into their music as long as they still know what they want and why. In my eyes being opinionated is a good starting point, you then just have to decide whether the thing you decided for is the right opinion for what you are willing to achieve.

sph 4y ago

Good premise, then they threw it all away with those examples. "Makes scheduling collaborative instead of a nuisance" is not a strong opinion, it's a run-of-the-mill tag line. My enjoyment of this article peaked early.

wking 4y ago
Thanks for the feedback! I thing that section could definitely use a re-focus on what they specifically do to differentiate.

The_Colonel 4y ago

Unopinionated products - those that allow their users to bend the product to exactly their needs - also breed passionate customers. Admittedly, it's much more difficult to build a high quality unopinionated software than a high quality opinionated one.

wking 4y ago
Oooo good counter point. That is definitely the case. It makes for a fun challenge to take that on. If you're not funded though that can be a risk that is too dangerous.

sebastianconcpt 4y ago

This is the approach I'd take in attempting a product. There is something I'd add, it has to be a product for who behave as extrovert when using the product.

thenerdhead 4y ago

An opinion usually includes who it is for. Some of these examples do not clearly define who the product is for, but the point gets across. For example many creator or developer tools are created by the very people who want to be using them. They are opinionated by design because these people have an opinion on how they prefer to work with them. This also creates a unique value proposition in the expert space given that you'd trust a tool created "by" your profession rather than a tool created "for" your profession.