4 ms·

You can save minutes of talking to folks through Months of work and tens of thousands of people-hours building something people don't want or need. You can sav

by gortok 2y ago

You can save minutes of talking to folks through Months of work and tens of thousands of people-hours building something people don't want or need. You can save months of research by spending years of work and hundreds of thousands of people-hours building something that doesn't work.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> You can save minutes of talking to folks You're describing focus groups. They have a mixed history in product development.
- ohwellhere 2y ago
  I think they're probably talking about something closer to lean startup methodology.
- iancmceachern 2y ago
  It's exactly the opposite, they're essential and certainly do not have a "mixed history". Every product you interact with at the grocery store, every movie, most music, and most products in our modern life go through this process. It's called user focused design.
  - FredPret 2y ago
    The best way to do a completely unbiased focus group is to come up with an MVP and try to sell it to them. There's no more honest endorsement than someone handing you money to solve their problem. If they buy, you're on the right track and are ready to scale up to a larger focus group. This is called a startup though!
    - iancmceachern 2y ago
      Yes, what most people don't realize though is that the MVP doesn't have to be a functional product. It can be a cartoon, a drawing, a mock up, a video, whatever. Get good feedback early & often
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > It's exactly the opposite, they're essential and certainly do not have a "mixed history" Focus groups are good for refining. They're absolutely terrible for new product development. If there is an OG playbook for start-ups defeating incumbents, it's in exploiting the committee-based designed process that large companies tend towards. (Owning a product decision is hard. Outsourcing it to a marketing consultant isn't.) Where you and I probably agree is in the importance of finding the shortest path to a sale. > It's called user focused design You're quoting this guy [1]. He also did marketing consulting [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Norman#Nielsen_Norman_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Norman#Nielsen_Norman_Grou... [2] https://www.nngroup.com https://www.nngroup.com
    - iancmceachern 2y ago
      I wasn't quoting him. It's not really that way anymore. The vision of a loan visionary coming up with a new product or invention like being hit by a lightning bolt and then getting rich by building a factory that builds it is just a fairy tale. In reality it looks more like a series of focus groups. They may not be focus groups per se, but showing your idea to potential customers, getting feedback, refining and showing again is how it's done. That's how startups that are successful do so.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > wasn't quoting him Norman coined the term user focused design. > may not be focus groups per se, but showing your idea to potential customers, getting feedback, refining and showing again is how it's done Sure. I’d argue both focus groups and the lone visionary are myths. But in order to show an idea properly, you have to start thinking about building it. And to start thinking about building it properly, you have to start building it. For every Juicero there are teams iterating around a local optimum.
Ma8ee 2y ago
That reminds me of a note on the door I saw in a research department: “A month in the lab saves you an hour in the library.”
vintermann 2y ago
Yes, many business ideas I see are of the type "That would be a great idea if you could make it work, but given how much easier it is to fool people into thinking you have made it work, than to actually make it work, the odds aren't good". And if you're a rich investor willing to bet on a lot of such things hoping to make it back on of the few that work, well, you just made that ratio even more lopsided.
- godelski 2y ago
  > but given how much easier it is to fool people into thinking you have made it work, than to actually make it work One thing that has often surprised me about HN is how people routinely upvote and boast about how they faked a demo. Idk why we refuse to call that what it is: a lie. IDK if Jobs did it, it is still a lie. It's one thing to say that this is what we imagine a technology will be like, but to call it a demo and act like it is the actual tool and that its capabilities generalize to the tasks being shown is theater. Are tech bros just theater kids?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

by gortok 2y ago

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> You can save minutes of talking to folks You're describing focus groups. They have a mixed history in product development.

ohwellhere 2y ago
I think they're probably talking about something closer to lean startup methodology.
iancmceachern 2y ago
It's exactly the opposite, they're essential and certainly do not have a "mixed history". Every product you interact with at the grocery store, every movie, most music, and most products in our modern life go through this process. It's called user focused design.
- FredPret 2y ago
  The best way to do a completely unbiased focus group is to come up with an MVP and try to sell it to them. There's no more honest endorsement than someone handing you money to solve their problem. If they buy, you're on the right track and are ready to scale up to a larger focus group. This is called a startup though!
  - iancmceachern 2y ago
    Yes, what most people don't realize though is that the MVP doesn't have to be a functional product. It can be a cartoon, a drawing, a mock up, a video, whatever. Get good feedback early & often
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > It's exactly the opposite, they're essential and certainly do not have a "mixed history" Focus groups are good for refining. They're absolutely terrible for new product development. If there is an OG playbook for start-ups defeating incumbents, it's in exploiting the committee-based designed process that large companies tend towards. (Owning a product decision is hard. Outsourcing it to a marketing consultant isn't.) Where you and I probably agree is in the importance of finding the shortest path to a sale. > It's called user focused design You're quoting this guy [1]. He also did marketing consulting [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Norman#Nielsen_Norman_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Norman#Nielsen_Norman_Grou... [2] https://www.nngroup.com https://www.nngroup.com
  - iancmceachern 2y ago
    I wasn't quoting him. It's not really that way anymore. The vision of a loan visionary coming up with a new product or invention like being hit by a lightning bolt and then getting rich by building a factory that builds it is just a fairy tale. In reality it looks more like a series of focus groups. They may not be focus groups per se, but showing your idea to potential customers, getting feedback, refining and showing again is how it's done. That's how startups that are successful do so.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > wasn't quoting him Norman coined the term user focused design. > may not be focus groups per se, but showing your idea to potential customers, getting feedback, refining and showing again is how it's done Sure. I’d argue both focus groups and the lone visionary are myths. But in order to show an idea properly, you have to start thinking about building it. And to start thinking about building it properly, you have to start building it. For every Juicero there are teams iterating around a local optimum.

Ma8ee 2y ago

That reminds me of a note on the door I saw in a research department: “A month in the lab saves you an hour in the library.”

vintermann 2y ago

Yes, many business ideas I see are of the type "That would be a great idea if you could make it work, but given how much easier it is to fool people into thinking you have made it work, than to actually make it work, the odds aren't good". And if you're a rich investor willing to bet on a lot of such things hoping to make it back on of the few that work, well, you just made that ratio even more lopsided.

godelski 2y ago
> but given how much easier it is to fool people into thinking you have made it work, than to actually make it work One thing that has often surprised me about HN is how people routinely upvote and boast about how they faked a demo. Idk why we refuse to call that what it is: a lie. IDK if Jobs did it, it is still a lie. It's one thing to say that this is what we imagine a technology will be like, but to call it a demo and act like it is the actual tool and that its capabilities generalize to the tasks being shown is theater. Are tech bros just theater kids?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]