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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance. And today we are going to talk about agile. And scrum that's right. This is the sixth part, the sixth instalment of my favorite tools for making better products. And today. The specific tool we're going to get into is this sprint plan.

And this is at the cornerstone of doing agile, scrum work, working in an agile way. And  the sprint plan is like the go-to place.  If you want to work in an agile way, it really starts with a sprint plan. And I'm going to explain what this is. It's a fundamental tool  for you to work in a really. New way it's pretty simple and straightforward and what I would propose to you, it's how [00:01:00] we can  you know, get our agile projects being  closer to deadline.

It's how we can be on time. But more importantly, my experience has been that I made a lot of executives who understand agile at a very kind of top level.  Maybe just some of the principles and so forth. However, what is fascinating to me is how once you get into all right, well, let's do agile. There's a number of things that  I see.

Real confusion around or people just haven't had the chance to really dig in. I can tell you I've been digging in to working in an agile way for, for quite a quite a while. And the spring plan is something that I'm really delighted to share with you today. So we're going to get right into it. Now I'm going to do a little bit of laying down some foundation here.

I'll do it super quick. And then we're gonna get [00:02:00] to this sprint plan. First of all, we need to get this underlying idea of agile re super-clear agile itself. Agile software development itself is a set of principles.  All guided to helping a product team be incredibly productive and work fast.  I often say it's the nimble  and much more iterative alternative to working in the traditional waterfall way, which was how we worked in software maybe 20 years ago.

Now the problem with that.  Is that it's new? The problem with agile is there's lots of different flavors. So that's why I want to kind of cut to the core of it. Get to the sprint plan, get to defining some of the flavors of agile. Now this is an, a really important build. So agile is a set of principles.

There is then a lot of different methodologies [00:03:00] and practices that come out of those principles. So the power. Of agile is that I think why it will be around for so long. Is there, there are these fundamental, almost like first principal  kind of notions that support this idea of agile and. Then you get, you know, it's commonly considered there's about 40 different  versions of agile.

And probably now that I've said this 40 there's probably 41 or 42. So  there's a set of values and principles that underline agile.  It's all about  Focusing on bringing people together and the quality of the individuals interacting.  It really prioritizes work our working product overall, the comprehensive documentation.

Whereas, you know, waterfall was all about a very strict process well-documented but often the product [00:04:00] sucked, the software didn't work well. So that's why agile came about. So those are some of the values of the principles.  You know, There's a lot of them.  I would say it's, there's a lot of thinking around sustainability  empowerment of small teams  taking big challenges, putting them into a small component parts that there's a lot there, a lot of good stuff that kind of sets you up for the different flavors.

That I was talking about. So you've got many different  flavors you could argue. Lean startup is a flavor of agile then.  There's a lot of the Japanese inspired flavors  continuous  just in time delivery, that kind of thing, Macado method, or you could string right across to like decentralized management and governance.

You've got like Holacracy.  You might've heard of that  beyond budgeting  begin with the end in mind, some of those [00:05:00] practices, but the one I'm going to focus on is scrum. Scrum is by far the biggest and most popular version method  of agile software development. You've seen companies like Atlassian who produced JIRA and confluence, you know?

Right. They're like it's a big nod towards the world of agile. Okay. So we've established number one, agile methodology is, you know, agile at its highest form it's principles and values. There's many different flavors that bring it to life. That's the stuff we do. And in terms of doing stuff, we're going to talk about a flavor of agile called scrum.

Scrum  is very different to  canvas. In one essential way. So Kanban's also a very, very popular  way of doing agile. The difference with scrum is it's time-bound so it really respects timelines. [00:06:00] This in some respects creates a tension, but I think it deals with that tension quite well. So I'm going to explain what your sprint plan should look like.

Some of the key parts of it. We're gonna describe some of the pieces.  Some of the, the key tools and practices and hope fully, what I can do for those of you who are a bit newer to agile, I can introduce you into the practical, real, tangible things that you'll actually do do with agile and scrum. And for those of you who are trained, tried and true, hopefully I'm giving you a little reminder, a little update  just to get you back into some of those foundational lines.

Okay. Sprint plan for agile scrum way of working. Now, the first construct is the sprint itself. Traditionally, I'm a big fan of two weeks sprints. So [00:07:00] in cross those two weeks, you will plan do and review the work. And then you'll start a new sprint after that I've traditionally found that most good first-generation products are a good six to 10 sprints.

And the big part of that to recognize is that it takes a team some time to. Storm and norm  and come together and get productive. So I, you know, big Baton I see at work is that the second half of  of a project. So if it was five sprints to start and five additional ones to getting us to 10, the second five are way more productive than the first five.

So if you understand that that's natural, then you can be a bit more patient at the beginning. As people kind of come together and take ownership for, for their, for their work. Okay. So the sprint it's traditionally, it's two weeks. Some people do for  I [00:08:00] love a good two weeks sprint. You're going to expect five to 10 of these  particularly for a first-generation  project or product.

And there's nothing to say that you couldn't stay  keep working in sprints after your product goes live. In fact, I'd highly recommended. We do it at quality once all the time. And I find this idea of, to experience is just a really good way. Not only to organize your product, but it's a pretty damn good way to organize.

An organization. So more and more, I find myself trying to design more parts of our organization to get like our 250 people working on a, on a structured sprint basis, whether they're building product or whether they're in. Strategy where they're in the finance support, HR. It doesn't really matter if we can kind of create that rhythm.

I think it's kind of a nice  integrated way of working and it feels very responsive to the changing demands of business. [00:09:00] Okay. So what's inside of your, your two week sprint plan. Well, the first thing is you need to nominate a product owner, a team, and a scrum master. These are three key roles, scrum master.

All about  you know, helping people deliver their work in the sprint.  I mean, it's, it's the ultimate constantly area support a helper, unblock her, if you will, for the team, there's the team itself, designers, developers, strategists, BAS all that kind of good stuff, building products. And then you have that key role of product owner.

Product owner number one, most important thing, because if you don't have someone totally dedicated to owning the product, the quality of the works, aren't going to be good. So where do we see the work? Well  the work is. In a sprint backlog that is a set of tasks and activities that you've all agreed to do over the course of the two weeks.

You will. Then now we're starting to get into some of the things [00:10:00]  some of the events that you have, you have a sprint planning meeting you will have at the end, a sprint review meeting, or what is often called a retrospective. And every single day you'll have a stand-up or a scrum. All of this takes context.

This sprint is everyone is working towards ticking off things in the back. That's for the spring bat log, but there is another meta version of this backlog, which is the full product backlog. And that starts to become a bit more like a roadmap as to what might come in the future. But the good news is at the end of every sprint, you decide what's next as a team and as a group and every think is captured.

Single source of truth. And you generally like to have at least one, if not two of those one manages the backlog that's JIRA. Secondly, the other one conference that is actually managing the documentation, the knowledge, all of that collaboration to decide what's in a user story, [00:11:00] what's in an epic, a theme.

What is actually. The knowledge that informs the definition of the user story is all in confluence. Now, if you have these two really centralized JIRA, what are we doing? Confluence, how are we doing it? What's the background? What's the content. What's the feature list? What is the content list? What are the assumptions as the user logged in, logged out, et cetera, et cetera, all those sorts of things, all of that  becomes embodied together.

The tasks and the knowledge or the tasks and the data jobs to be done. And the data, all of that is centralized. So in the sprint  and the daily scrum you'll be talking about, are you on track and know, are there any blockers for your backlog, for your tasks and you might discuss the search for more information in a tool like confluence, of course, at the [00:12:00] end you deliver your finished work.

And everybody comes together to review and decide what's next. And this is the rhythm that you get into. This is the sprint plan. So two weeks. Some key roles, such as product owner, you make sure you have a black cloud. You make sure that at the beginning of the entire sprint, you meet and at the end to review and throughout the day, the thing that keeps you on track is your daily scrum.

And all of this is captured and managed through tools like JIRA and confluence, plenty of other options as well. That's just a best practice  advice from my side. So there you have it. This is the very heart of agile scrum. It's the split. Plan. And if you, if you adopt these sprint plans, if you define these key roles, you will have to unlock the para of agile, agile.

Is a great way to work [00:13:00] together when you're building software, but only works. If everybody gets on board, if only works, if everybody lets go of waterfall, you can't be half in the game. You're either in or you're out and you have to trust the process. And that's why the sprint plan is so essential. If you're gonna trust the process, you need to know what is building up.

Where are the lines where the goalposts, what game you playing? It's all in that sprint plan. I hope that's helped you if you want to go deep, but we have a whole masterclass on that job. You can get that@up.io. In fact, you can get over 20 different courses, all free at bottom-up dot PIO. I hope you've enjoyed it.

This is the bottom of skills podcast. That's a wrap. 

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. And I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance. We are continuing to dive into my favorite frameworks and tools for product strategy and product design. And today we're talking about the user journey and at the heart of design thinking. Is the user journey. It's a challenging tool because it really is a forcing factor.

It makes you empathize with your user and it's not just at the start of their journey, but right through the middle and the end too. And this user journey is an essential tool for any designer, developer and entrepreneur. And the reason why it's so essential is after years and years of designing products and working on so many different projects, it is amazing to me how important literally projects I'm working on right now that often the key question [00:01:00] is what does the real end to end the aid is out of the user journey.

Look like, how does it start? How do we keep it going? And how do we wrap it up with a bow on the top? So this user journey is essential to understand, and the tool of creating a user journey is a true art form and it looks real neat.  But you know, there's a lot of work that goes into a good user journey.

And I think if you can make a great user journey. I mean, it's so powerful because it'll give you millions of ideas for what should be inside of your product. Inside of your product inside of your business, but it also gives you the chance to look at the full scope of what you need to bill. And it kind of comes at it totally from the user's point of view.

So it also is really making sure that you're in touch, how your user thinks, how they [00:02:00] feel and how they behave. So let's dive in to use a journalist. If you're interested in more about user journeys and design thinking, head over to bottom-up dot IO, where we have a free master class on design thinking and user journeys, dig into that.

It's all free and you'll get not only a lots on user journey, but way, way more too. So when we think about a user journey, I want you to imagine. A line that runs from the left to the right-hand side of your screen. It's like a align with an arrow at the end. And what we do is we mark at the start middle and end of that different moments that make up the user's journey.

This is  not just, oh, they're inside the app. And then they start doing this. What's interesting about a user journey is it really should start from the very, very first moment  of the journey when they think to themselves, huh? [00:03:00] I need a solution to this problem. Why should I go now? That is where you start and where you end is how they talk about it.

And share your product with others after a great experience. So that is the real scope of it. And sometimes those start to create loops and continuums of consistent return usage, which is really cool. But let's look at this as a linear process. Let's make it really simple. Let's start at a, and we're going to finish it Z, but what I really want to stress is it to really comprehend.

So you should be starting at that moment, which we might call awareness. So I will give some general best practice categories for each of the steps in a user journey. The one I'm going to give you is  like a path to purchase. Paths to [00:04:00] subscription, perhaps.  Obviously if it's an existing user  they already are aware of you, but let's pretend this customer doesn't even know us.

So it really does start with awareness. And so what this might bring up for you as a product, let's say you're a SAS service software as a, as a service, you have a website and you know, if people are thinking, how do I solve  Getting my car serviced. Okay. Let's say that's their problem. And they're thinking about ways to get their car service.

Well, then the first thing they're going to do is either ask a friend or they're going to ask Google, which would lead you to think about, okay, what is the awareness of my service? When people go to do that, have they given people a reason to talk about me? Do I show up? On the right search queries inside of Google.

So this is really an awareness thing sometimes  for bigger brands in highly competitive markets, like their [00:05:00] general baseline of unaided awareness requires them to be pumping out a lot of messages to remain what we call top of mind.  That's sort of. The world of big brands, but in this case, let's, let's focus on folks hit Google.

Do you show up? So let's say they come in through a blog post  through your website that was listed well on Google because you optimize it for SEO and then they get some great content on your website. Now what's key. Here is the content  is what they came for, but they might. Come for the content, but they might take some other things.

Maybe there's a free consultation. Maybe there is a download. Those things might have a reason to return to the website. In that point were really starting to shift from awareness into this very active form of consideration. Maybe you as a user in this journey, you're starting to create like a [00:06:00] shortlist of three different options for servicing.

Yeah. Now there'll be some really important things here at this moment of truth. As we transition from consideration into purchase  this is really, really important. So you've had the awareness, you've got them to your site for the first time you've introduced yourself. You've built the trust with the content you've made the barrier to the first transaction.

Very low boom in they come. Purchasing or at least some form of transaction registration, so on and so forth, then it really becomes  okay, you're now becoming maybe you're in a trial or maybe you've even booked your car for a service. So then it's all about all those magic touch points that you want your user to.

To map the confirmation. Oh, that's great. Yeah. They've confirmed me. They even confirmed via text, which is great, which makes me super confident. They sent me a reminder the day before they sent me the address. So I can just click it in Google maps. For example, these are all things that you want to capture in your user [00:07:00] journey and where you can start to see here is we've gone from awareness into consideration and you have to do that work to build the trust.

Then maybe they need to look at three articles before they moved towards purchase. So the user journey starts with awareness, goes into consideration and this path to purchase. This is the really essential bit. It's what we often call the moment of truth. This is where they buy something from you. And it's really critical.

This is really an emotional thing to making them feel confident, being super fast and transparent are all the characteristics of a great product experience. Okay, so you purchase your product.  Obviously knowing when you can take hold of your product or your, of your take out of your product or your service  sometimes it's instant or done online.

If you've got to take your car in for service, that's all part of it too, making that experience while you wait. Great. The delivery, the big moment that  the reveal, the big reveal of Wila  This [00:08:00] is also a great moment that you can map on your user journeys, but also for other sorts of experiences, like let's say I'm    I've bought a subscription to a service, an online service  maybe there's a community forum or an FAQ knowledge base where people share experiences.

That can be a really great way to build your user journey.  You might even have whole user journeys just around the support. Maybe there's like three.  Primary tasks that people tend to do in service. Then that's what you map out and you use a journey. Lastly, let's assume that, you know, it's been a great experience.

People are engaged paying one time, a subscription, doesn't matter, then it's all about advocacy and you use a journey. You got to give them a reason to become advocates and. This is the most cost-effective way to grow your business is if your existing customers are your biggest fans, your biggest [00:09:00] promoters.

So you need to map that. And again, I've given you this sort of broad five step user journey, awareness, consideration, purchase retention, advocacy. This is sort of a very little  User journey.  What you could see is you might even choose to break down a number of these into their own user journeys, particularly for more complex products and services that certainly a go to.

So this is the journey we started with awareness. We ended in advocacy that's the aid is ed mapping. This and those critical moments is really important. So now I want to go to a little bit more of an advanced. I want you to imagine we have those five main sections, five steps, awareness, consideration, purchase retention, advocacy.

You might call them slightly different things. They might vary  first-time customers versus return customers. But the BA the main thinking remains the same. Here, if you [00:10:00] want to take it to the next level, if you really want to have this deep empathy for your users, what you can map on the, these events that happen throughout this year user journey, and you might have 15, 20 or so really major events it's in your product or service is you.

Don't just name the event. Here's what you can do is you can actually break it down into three parts. Every event has an action from the user. It has what the user is thinking. And thirdly, it can have what the user is feeling. Now, this is fantastic. This is really good stuff, because this is where you are totally compelled  to understanding and empathizing with your user.

And if you can map that well, that's great. That's good for a start, but what you will also find is mapping the, the thinking  the actions and the feeling of your customer is something that it's not like a set and forget these things change over time because your [00:11:00] product, your service changes over time.

The mood, the social context of any given product will change over time. So it should be returned to constantly this. Is the absolute key thing. If you can do these maps well and accurately, then what this is a proxy for is you get it, you understand your customer. And frankly, if you understand your customer, it's sorta becomes a lot easier to build solutions to their problem.

Otherwise, it's just a lottery. You're just guessing. And we don't want to be in the guessing business. The business we want to be in is building products that matter. So I hope you've enjoyed this little journey into the user journey. It's a proxy for the bigger practice of design thinking, and you can find out everything you need to know about design thinking.

A bottom-up dot IO. We have a bunch of free courses there. Go there, just grab it all. It's all open source. Download it, use it  convince your [00:12:00] colleagues to have more empathy for their customers to do great user journeys. Okay. That's it. For the bottom up skills podcast. That's a wrap. 

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Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast and Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance. And today we're continuing. Our series on my favorite frameworks, my favorite tools for creating new products. And actually I have to say this one's all about rapid prototyping in this framework is actually by me.

Now I am a huge fan of rapid prototyping. It's so good in those early moments of creating something new, it can be so insightful to actually yeah. Create a prototype test that we'd use as get some very early stage feedback, so helpful. And this is kind of an emerging process and there's actually not a lot  on rapid prototyping.

In fact, the guy that taught me to actually do rapid prototyping is Tom cheek. And he's like a guru, but outside of. Tom's work. There's [00:01:00] not a lot of documentation on how to do rapid prototyping and how to innovate through this process of rapid prototyping. So today I thought like let's add a little bit more into the universe about rapid prototyping, and we're going to dive into this five-step guide that I have for when you actually are prototyping.

And this framework is so powerful because I often find that people. Get super lost when they're prototyping.  So I tried to create a little bit of a guide so that you can get the most out of what can be such a powerful process. So before we dive into this, a five step plan that I have, let's set the scene, let's define rapid prototyping, kind of get it into our minds a little bit.

And then we can look at this tool. So rapid prototyping is an amazingly good way to test and validate. Yeah. Idea a notion. It could be a product, a service, a business is a great way [00:02:00] to test it before you actually have to build it. And that's the big aha. Here. You don't have to build an entire product before you test.

You can test from day one and it's particularly good way to learn. That's using rapid prototyping. That is, it's a really good way to learn. And I would say the kind of foundation of rapid prototyping is to solve a problem that your user has. And it becomes a very clear almost binary black and white perspective.

You know, where are we able to relieve the pain for the user create gains for the user super clear it's sort of did we, or didn't we. You can argue a little bit in the middle there, but does the product, does the service get the job done? And here's the key thing I want to come back to. Rapid prototyping enables you to get really good feedback, really high quality, because you're not guessing.

You're not saying to people, Hey, I want you to imagine that you're using [00:03:00] a particular product or service. You go right to the moment. Say here's a product, here's a task. I want you to complete and see if they can get it. It's quick and it's easy. It's super straight forward. Now the, the art to rapid prototyping is making it feel like it's kind of close to a finished product, but it's actually not to put it in software terms.

How can you get good software feedback without writing code? That's like a really good way to think about it because as soon as you have to write code for it, As soon as you think about an analog product, as soon as you have to actually get the materials, get all the engineering, the bill of materials together.

Like once you have to get it all together, it starts to become slow, a lot of effort, time, money, resources. So here's the thing you only want to deploy time and resources into a software or an analog product. If you know, it's worth building. [00:04:00] And how do you know if it's in the earlier days? Like you're only guessing, right.

So how do we get out of this guessing how do we get into knowing? And that is by creating an experience that feels like it's sort of a model, a prototype  an example of a product and how it might work. And what you want to do is you want to test it super early on and actually. If you're bold enough, you should test all the time with your users because that means you'll be learning.

And the more you learn, the more you understand your users, it's like, it's like magnetism. You just can't help, but going towards the right path. And too often, people sit there and guess a product deploy all these resources only to work out. It kind of sucks. Nobody likes it. Well, you don't have to do it like that.

You can just prototype your way to a great product. And sometimes in fact, [00:05:00] all of the time you'll have to change your idea, but you're not changing because you feel like you're changing because you're learning something from your users. You're getting this feedback, you're getting this data, you're getting them to truly test something.

Complete a task and Hey, maybe they complete the task and you realize there's more tasks in the overall user journey. Great tests. Those maybe you realize you're trying to solve the wrong problem. Also. Good. I mean, think about it. If you realize your product is not right, which is guaranteed by the way, it's going to happen.

Wouldn't you rather work it out when it's just a lightweight prototype. Rather than like the full finished thing. I mean, think about the pain suffering of a year or two years of work to build a project only to realize, well, ain't nobody liking that we don't want to be there so we can use rapid prototyping to create these light models.

[00:06:00] And here's the critical thing. You must test it with users. Don't go guessing don't go guessing. Don't assume people will want it. You need to know that they want. Okay. Now, before we get to this five step plan, then I'm going to give you for rapid prototyping. I want to set the scene. I want you to imagine you've said yes to rapid prototyping and yes.

To doing it with your real users. Okay. Not just family and friends, but come on, let's get the real users, people who might pay for this product. Okay. So you've got them, you've got the users in a room. You got a cool bunch of smart people who want to build something. Really good. We're in a good place right now.

So what do we need to do? I'm going to take you through each of these five steps, and now if you're interested in them, you can head over to bottom-up dot IO, where we have a full master class  on rapid prototyping. We will even have this very five-step plan in that masterclass. It's all yours. You can [00:07:00] download it, use it, go for it.

So what I want you to imagine right now is you're in the room and you're like, okay. Wow. What happens now, we're a bunch of makers and creators, and we're a bunch of customers. What are we going to do? Well, you sit your customers over to the side. And as a group, you need to start by understanding what. Is the real pains that your customers experience when trying to get a particular job done that job might be to study effectively.

It could be to save money while shopping. These are all jobs that people are trying to get done and they experienced pains and gains along the way. And new products and services offered. Relieve pains and create new gains. And so what you need to find out is, Hey customer, what's on your mind. What are the pains that you're experiencing with a [00:08:00] particular job that you're trying to get done?

Now what's essential here is to make sure. That you actually go to your customer to understand their pains. You do not guess them now in a perfect world. If you're doing a rapid prototyping session, you may have done some pre-research before that day in order to understand the customer. However, that's cool.

If you haven't done that, you can even prototype this a moment to get to know the customer's pains and gains. So this is step one of the plan. This is understanding and. What I want you to do is free yourself of all your bias and just be very open-minded about what you might hear from your customers. In fact, I would also add to that be a little bit curious, like really, I really want you to kind of  Be like Sherlock Holmes, you know, try and work out.

What's bothering them. So how do you do that? Okay. So this part, [00:09:00] one of understanding is you can do things like mystery shopping or what we call fly on the wall. You could just interview. Or go next level. Why don't you role play a scenario that they encounter? Maybe it's like  let's say trying to optimize the service experience at an automotive  dealer.

Okay. Well, imagine that you're bringing your car in for the service. I'm the agent and you're the customer. Let's go. You can do card sorting activities you can do is fun. Exercise called heaven and hell what's heaven. These are all ways for you to go, huh? The customer, Hey, we've actually engaged our customer to understand their problems and what their pains are.

That's all you're trying to do. You don't have to get the answer to the problem yet. Okay. So what you might then do is go to this next. So you've done your understanding. Now you can go to your Ida. [00:10:00] You can ask yourself, okay. What's quite clear. They have this massive problem. When they go to the car dealer that once they put the car in, I'm just coming up with an example here.

They have three hours of dead time. What do they do? Yeah, it's not like the shop. No, it takes me two going together. I don't have my car. So like, there's a really big problem. They have, they have this dead time when they've put their car in for a service. Okay. Well, what if we could make it instant instead of three hours?

Or you might say something like, how might we make those three hours? Great. What would we, what needs to be true for that to be a delight, something that they look forward to. Okay. So I'm now just using this car dealership exercise, just as a simple way to show you how you might ideate. So you break out in, into group, do some ideation.

Now you get to stage three. So you've done understanding and ideation. You need to decide which of these scenarios you're actually going to prototype [00:11:00] and you might look for, and this is where you're getting a little bit more critical. You're getting a little bit more practical now and you're saying, okay, what might be the quickest to make, or what might be the most impactful for you?

Okay. Now there's lots of suggestions in, in our chart that you can get at bottom-up dot IO. Just go to the rapid prototyping masterclass. I'm just giving you some of my fives. Okay. So we're kind of three steps in here. We've understood the customer. We know their pains. We've ideated how we might relieve them.

Now we've had, we've got like a whole bunch of ideas up on the board. Okay. We've got to pick. Be critical. Be practical. Okay. Then you need to build it. You might build, this is step four. You might build a poster storyboard, a user journey map. You might bring up some content, maybe one or two little features.

If it's the first time it's probably in paper.  You certainly don't want to be writing any code. And what you need to think of. Okay. What's the task. And  what is the experience that we're going to build and you need to match them all up. [00:12:00] So you gotta be productive. You need to often have create some really clear roles here like who's doing, because the key thing here is you want to do this as quick as possible.

So you can test hundreds of times because actually this is like the 10,000 hour rule. You just got to test a lot and you'll start to see all the patterns. Okay, so step four is building. Okay. So you've built a prototype of transforming the car dealership. So this experience you're super excited. What do you do now?

Step five, you test it and you go to the customer and you create a scenario. Hey, it's 10 o'clock Saturday morning. You're at your local Ford dealer. You're bringing your car in for a service. Okay. What we want to do is we want you to really enjoy the next. Period is three hours of the service experience.

And we're going to create a, your goal is to pick an experience that you'd like to do for three hours. So you give them a clear set of context and a scenario and a task, and [00:13:00] you test it. I mean, I've tested crazy things, algorithms  the finish line of a marathon, race banking experiences, and everything in between.

So you can really, you really can't. Everything. And once you've done it a lot, you can even say to users, Hey, well, you enjoyed this experience. The next customer that comes in, rather than me, the prototype, I explain it to you. You're a customer. I want you to advocate to this customer that's coming. I want you to advocate to them the experience, and I'm going to learn how you perceive the experience, super powerful stuff.

So then you have a five steps for rapid prototyping. You understand? Then you ideate and you've got to decide which idea you're going to try and solve. You, build it. Step four and step five, you test it with real users, get their feedback, set the scenario, set the task and watch it play out, listen and learn from your customers.

It's all about empathy, which is a cornerstone of prototype. And design thinking and those all come together to kind of be this system that we've created [00:14:00] called bottom up innovation. And you can use it too. So if you're interested in bottom up innovation, if you're interested in rapid prototyping, head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can do the masterclass on rapid prototyping, where you can unlock the power of your creative.

All right. That's it for the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap. 

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance and we are now in our second installment of this series where I highlight. My favorite product strategy tools. And this one we're going to use the full marketing funnel sometimes called the growth marketing funnel.

It has all sorts of nicknames, but you get the gist is all about the marketing funnel done completely a to Z. Now, the reason that this matters so much is that traditional marketing is often obsessed with just the very top of the funnel, you know, sort of customer acquisition. So. The key thing that traditional marketing is all about is reach and frequency, blasting the message to as many people as many times as possible.

However, what we've seen the emergence of is a fully integrated  entire funnel approach, which has been really brought by this [00:01:00] kind of movement around growth hacking growth marketing. And what it does is it follows the whole user journey. Completely. And what it does is it focuses on the conversion between the steps.

So not only are you looking big picture, very broad, but then you also go deep, which is what's so great about for marketing funnel. As a tool is you get really into the nitty-gritty of conversion optimization, testing and validation. So. The reason this growth marketing funnel matters so much, is it really helps you go way beyond traditional marketing to ensure that marketing is contributing to a healthy business.

It really dives in and tackles. The question of is it cost effective the way we're acquiring customers right through to the viral coefficient. That is how many [00:02:00] times your existing customers. Refer to new customers. How many times they share the experience and become your greatest advocates. So what at the heart of this is going to happen at the very heart of a growth marketing funnel will mean that marketing people not only get the customers in the door, but they can make a dramatic contribution to the very product.

Itself. And I think this is enormously powerful because let's be honest, the marketing people and the product people haven't traditionally hung out  throughout the entire industrial age, it tends to be marketing, build the product and they knock on the marketing door and said, Hey, you better go launch this quickly.

Go find me a customer for this problem. This solution. So what I want you to do imagine that this growth marketing funnel really steps up the game for them marketing. This is how marketing can really contribute way beyond customers and [00:03:00] actually really be a central hub of a thriving product, service or business.

Okay. I've set the bar pretty high haven't I, well, let's go through the six main parts of the funnel, and then let's look at this as sort of the thinking behind each. So  the funnel starts with three A's and ends with three R's. This is when you put it all together, it sounds like are. And that's why it is sometimes called pirate metrics, which was a name famously given by David McCullough.

Let's have a look at these three A's and then these three RS at the very top of the funnel is awareness. How many people recall no are familiar with your name and brand, then there's acquisition. That's actually having some meaningful, inter direct interaction with them. Then you need to activate them, which is all about getting them activated in the door of your store.

Trialing [00:04:00] testing. Experiencing some product or service. And then there's a question of revenue and retention, pretty self-explanatory. And one of the key ones, one of the most neglected ones is referral. How often they go out into the world and say, you must try this product. Okay. So awareness acquisition activation, top half of the retention revenue referral, bottom half of the funnel, we're in a good place.

Okay. Let's look at it. Questions that fundamentally get to the essence of each of these. This is the question that leads to the source of improving your conversion rate. So again, what is the fundamental question here? How many people do we reach? Are we getting just is the top of the funnel wide enough?

How many people know us? How many times did we show up when we're indexed on Google, against our given practice? Yes. Acquisition. How many people actually let's use a website as an example? How many people actually come to [00:05:00] our website? So if it gives zillion, people know about us, but our website traffic's really low.

We got some improvement. In acquisition to do. There you go. That's the model starting to work here. Let's go to activation. How many people take the first important step in the relationship with us?  Providing an email address right through to a trial or a money back guarantee, starter package, whatever it is now, if you're hugely famous, getting a ton of people to the website, but very few people are activating.

There becomes your focus, elegantly simple, super clear, and really a great way to ask yourself, are we maximizing our opportunity? Then we kind of shift into the thinking the three R's about, are we taking full advantage of the customers that we're acquiring and the customers that we're activating. So, first of [00:06:00] all, it's like how many people are using our product as second or third time?

I mean, this is a key and a lot of startups might do a great job at that top of that funnel. A lot of enterprises could be the same here, but actually very few actually become very active, ongoing customers. You know, that you look at the classic  example of this is  you work really hard to get people to download your native mobile app from let's say the iOS app store.

You use it once. And then within a couple of months, it hasn't been using gets deleted. This is a very common paradigm in actually the native app universe that after 30 days, app usage decline  to essentially a dozen or so key apps. And beyond that, people are not using very much at all. So are you retaining your customers?

Are they staying active then? There's the big Chestnut. How many people stopped paying and how much did they pay? [00:07:00] There's all sorts of great acronyms items you can use here.  Cost per customer revenue per customer revenue per user. I mean, it there's a lot here. Key thing here is you could have a lot of customers using the free version of your product, but you're actually getting very few into revenue or you might have people locked in revenue, but the revenue is not growing.

As a, as a gross amount. If you look at on a per individual amount, you might. Have delivered one valuable feature product or service to a customer, but it may have, let's say is 10  10 euros a month, but maybe it's been 10 years a month for weeks, months, maybe years. That's the point that you say, Hey, do we need to like, you know, increase our revenue per user?

Do we need to like, Try getting them to upsell, cross sell. And lastly, [00:08:00] this is the final ask. So the other two eyes retention and revenue, now we get to referral and referral is all about your viral coefficient, the best companies on the planet take Revolut. You're probably seen them close to every customer.

They acquire those customers, acquire refer an advocate to another customer. So. Six big concepts, awareness, acquisition, and activation at the top of the full marketing funnel, retention revenue and referral at the bottom half of the funnel. If you focus on maximizing your conversion rates between all of these steps, you'll have a great thriving business.

You'll be on your way to some. Really good times and viability. Now, if you want to learn not only about viability, feasibility, or making your product extremely desirable, you can go to bottom-up God IO and you'll find everything you need as a product person, whether it's free courses on lean [00:09:00] design, thinking agile so much, we've made it all open source.

So jump into bottom up. You'll get everything you need to build a great product. All right. That's it for the bottom up skills podcast. That's a wrap. 

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Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance and we continue the journey into my favorite product strategy tools. Today we're getting into the five dysfunction. Other team pyramid, a bit of a mouthful, but this tool, I, I cannot tell you, I come back to this day after day, no matter whether I'm working with a big enterprise or a startup, the five dysfunctions of a team is some groundbreaking work from Patrick Lindsay.

Yeah. And it is the perfect guide on how your team should behave when they're going about creating an idea or whether they're building a product or anywhere in between. This tool is in dispensable. Now you might be thinking to your mind to yourself like Mike, you know, we've talked about growth, marketing funnel, great product to been talking about the lean hypothesis, the [00:01:00] value proposition, canvas, you know, that teamwork.

How is that so relevant to product? Well, what I would propose to you is that if you don't have a great team, if you don't have a tool that you can look at. That can provoke you and nudge you to think about the best design of your team. Not only on the work that they do, but how they do it, then it doesn't matter.

What other great design thinking or agile or lean frameworks they use. It doesn't matter if the team is no good. So this has been the huge breakthrough in the work that I've done over the last. Year or so is that you cannot really entertain product development, product discovery without looking at team design simultaneously the way in which we collaborate is a huge dependency of any good thinking.

You must have the right alignment connection.  Trust [00:02:00] you must be cohesive. You have to be like a dream team. If you want to tackle big problems in the world and create solutions to it. So this is why we're going to look at the pyramid of the five dysfunctions of a team. Now, this is groundbreaking work that you can jump over to bottom-up dot IO and get a free copy of this.

Have a look at our agility in the digital age course, it's totally free.  You can get a complete breakdown of the five dysfunctions of a team pyramid. I'm so. Delighted to share with you right now on the podcast, this tool, because I think it's informed not only how I build teams, but how I lead a company of over 250 people.

These themes come back time and time again. This is the key go-to tool that I use when I want to crack how to improve a team. When I want to support them to be the best versions of themselves and to do some great work. [00:03:00] All right. So let's do two things together today. We're going to talk about what the problems are and the good news is I've got solutions too.

So I'll give you the antidote as well, but we have to get a little dark here. We have to go into the valley of darkness. We have to look at some of the things that we've all seen throughout our career that happen on teams. All right. So teams that aren't doing well. Teams that are not producing the results.

They will have five common factors. Now this is built around the enterprise, this work  frankly, you could easily apply this to sports teams and far beyond, but let's kind of cast our minds to our experience in the office at work. What would be the five things we could commonly use as a checklist, as the likely culprits of an underperforming team?

Well, [00:04:00] the, the first and foremost thing I would say to you is you've probably got an absence of trust. This is when you know, the politics are ruling the business. When it becomes a little dog eat dog, when people feel that there are members of their team. That are being selfish that are looking for personal advancement and putting themselves before the team.

That's what happens when you have an absence of trust, because to use a sporting metaphor. You've got to, you've got to believe that your teammates are going to be there when you're going to make the pass. When you're going to make the tackle, you've got to really just instinctively know, think about Michael Jordan and the bulls.

When they're at their peak, they were so good that Jordan could just pass it off to his teammate. And these teammates would make the shot because he trusted in them. That was the difference. [00:05:00] Well, it's just the same at work. And if there's an absence of trust, if your direct manager. Doesn't have your back.

If your peers are not wholly and heartedly supporting you, if you cannot be open, if you cannot have all of the kind of right conversations, it's often the central problem. Two teams. The one that occurs the most is this app  absence of trust people, not being direct people, not being honest people. Not sharing what's really on their mind.

And as a result, they get a little defensive, you know, the ego kicks in. And so it's fight or flight. You see this classically in the tension between departments in companies, particularly large companies. So absence of trust, number one on this pyramid of five dysfunctions of a team. So what [00:06:00] happens if we've got this checklist teams underperforming, there's probably an absence of trust.

What else could there be? Well, for sure. Fear of conflict. That's right. People not saying  not people not being able to give constructive feedback.  People are not talking about the tough. Issues. So what happens is when there are not tough, but respectful competition conversations, when those conversations are not happening, it's what we call as a fear of conflict.

And the great problem with that is if you're not able to talk about biggest problems of the company, the biggest problems of your product or your team, then how on earth do you expect them to get solved? I mean, it's not magic, doesn't exist. So it's pretty wishful thinking if you're not going to have the conversation about the big problem, there's just [00:07:00] no way it's getting solved.

So that's the checklist. Number one, absence of trust. Number two, also very likely and very common, a fear of conflict, just not having the right conversations. Now let's get up into if those are the two big underlying ones, there's three other characteristics of the low performing teams. And I'll tell you what, they're probably, as a result of the first two, let's look at it.

Lack of commitment, number three. So let's say you've got a trusting team. That's having tough conversations, but they're not really aligned around a common go initiative. Desire outcome result, whatever it is, it's a lack of commitment. And if we don't know what's expected of us, if we don't know what we're trying to get done well, how, I mean, it would be a lottery to think that we're going to hit target if we're not even really committed to it.

Number [00:08:00] four avoidance of accountability. This one really comes if you're not committed to a target, if you're not having the, the, the, the really tough discussions, fear of conflict. If you're not trusting each other, I like, I don't know how anyone can be accountable with any of those underlying, so avoidance of accountability, if people are not prepared to say.

I dropped the ball. I missed that one. That's on me. Here's what I'm doing to fix it. Here's what  I need your help to fix it. That would be great accountability. But often we see the fourth part of this pyramid is underperforming teams have an avoidance of accountability. What happens in the sporting field?

Classic blame the referee for a bad call? Well, what a great coach will tell you is if you lost by a point and let's say it was a bad call. It was your fault for letting the score be that close, or if do you use that's a common [00:09:00]  mantra from bill Belichick, the coach of the  new England Patriots, another great guy.

Charlie Munger talks about accountability saying don't be a victim, take responsibility for everything it's on. You. Because being a victim and saying, oh, it was somebody else. So judging somebody else, nothing good comes of there. And lastly, number five  in these reasons teams, underperform and dysfunction is the inattention to results.

And this is a big one because as you can see, it's at the highest form, if you've set a big annual target or a big launch target, Whatever it might be. If you're not obsessed about achieving those results  chances are, you're not gonna be totally going in a right direction. It's a bit hit or miss. So they have five big, big dysfunctions of a [00:10:00] team.

Let me give you just briefly what those answers are. How do you solve the absence of trust you as a leader need to be vulnerable. You need to show that it is safe. To be open and to be vulnerable, to say things like I screwed up, I messed up. I don't know the answer. That's vulnerability. That's how you build trust.

Because if you do it then your other teammates will follow with you. Fear of conflict actively go and consider every single idea from everyone do not shy away from inviting everyone to participate in the discussion of problems and solutions. Next one lack of commitment, be clear, set their expectations.

How are you going to reach the results? Be very clear. Get people on board. Number four, avoidance of accountability, have the tough conversations. [00:11:00] Lastly, inattention to results. It's all about talking about communicating the team goals and particularly in these last three. Tough conversations, setting expectations and goals.

Everybody needs to get on board and agree to a challenge to discuss and to finally own those results. Don't just tell people the goals. Don't tell people the expectations, invite them to be part of it too. So there you have it. Patrick, Lencioni's five dysfunctions of a team. It's a beautiful pyramid. You can get a copy of that at bottom-up dot IO.

Just take the agility in the digital age masterclass, and you'll be able to enjoy that. And hopefully like me, you will be able to refer to it all the time and you need to be looking at this from day one. From when you have that original idea, you need to grab it, hold it. Check it go back to this time and time again, and you'll be on your way to making a great [00:12:00] product.

The other thing you can do, if you want to make great products, head of it, a bottom-up dot IO, you can check out all our free courses, design thinking, agile, lean, you name it. It's all there. So you can make the very best products possible. All right, that's a wrap of the bottom-up skills podcast. We'll catch you next time. 

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Hello. Hi and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast I'm Mike Parsons. And I'm the CEO of Qualitance and we are starting a brand new series today. We are going to focus on my six favorite product strategy tools. And today we're going to talk about using lean hypothesis for better product strategies. Now the lean hypothesis is one of, many of the goodies that come from the lean up lean startup practice.

So  immortalized by Eric Reese. Now the hypothesis that comes with the lean practice is a concise product ideas statement that can actually be separated into individual parts. And those parts can be tested. I find this a great way. To be clear about a product idea. You know, when you're got that famous question from someone, Hey, what's, what's this idea you have for a product.

It's a great [00:01:00] way of being very disciplined and concise about the idea, because, you know, we can tend to rattle on a bit. But furthermore, what the hypothesis actually does is create these very discrete testable factors inside of the statement. So you can actually test each and every one of them. And a great way to kind of populate a lean hypothesis is to use another great tool from the lean startup practice, which is the value proposition canvas.

But because that one is so famous and yet I think the lean hypothesis is not used nearly enough. I would really like to focus on one of my favorite tools, which is this lean hypothesis. I really want to share with you how this is a great way of communicating your productivity, but furthermore, it is an insanely good way to tear it apart to test it, to validate it so that we can actually make a product.

Worth making. We can make a product that is not only desirable  to its [00:02:00] uses, but it's technically viable and financially feasible. This is what we can do. So let's break down the universe of the lean hypothesis. So a formal scientific hypothesis. Is a precise testable statement of what you, the entrepreneur, the designer, the researcher predict will be the outcome.

And, you know, it's your best guess. But the real point here is that it's testable. So what you will find is that your hypothesis changes over time and it's the perfect way to enter into product development when you've actually validated your lean hypothesis. But in these early stages, it's like, there are so many possibilities with our products.

They could go many different ways, but for many different things, the hypothesis is a great, simple, [00:03:00] relatable way for us to all, to come back to this underlying premise, to test it and to make sure that it is truly validated wholly completely and totally. So the benefit of having a lean hypothesis is that it minimizes the risk because if you've done it properly, you've not only written your hypothesis, but as you probably starting to realize you've tested it too.

So therefore, if your development and design team start from a validated hypothesis, you've effectively got. Product, well, not product market fit. I would say problem solution fit  on the way. So this means that the development can go faster. You can really hone towards product market fit because you've essentially defined problem solution fit, and you can get on with some of that fun stuff, building an MVP for the very first time.

Now, at this point, you're probably thinking.  [00:04:00]Mike, what exactly is the hypothesis? Can you give us an example? How's it structured? Well, here's the good news. What I'm going to do is I'm going to break it down for you. And if you are interested to learn more about the lean hypothesis, you can go to bottom-up dot IO and you'll find that we have a whole course on the lean hypothesis, so you can become a master at it too.

All right, let's break it down. Now there's essentially, you know, some variations of a lean hypothesis that different people use. I'm going to take you through what I consider to be my go-to structure of a lean hypothesis. Okay. So. Let's establish the starting point. You have the desire to create a product or service brand new business, and you have an idea, a hunch, a notion about what it's going to be.

Here's a really good way [00:05:00] to structure it. The first part of a venture hypothesis should be to define a persona who is the user, who is the customer. And what problem do they face? That's the second part. Now that's really important because many different types of customers, many different types of problems.

So define a particular type of customer, that particular problem that they experience. I don't worry. I will come back to these, give you examples and some nuances on how you should do this, but let's go through the complete structure first. So we have the persona and we have the problem that they face. I find it very instructive today.

Then on the third point of your hypothesis is to define the current alternative, the current solution that they have to trying to solve this problem. And then the fourth part will be what we are [00:06:00] going to propose. What is our value proposition to that customer who are currently doing it a way, hopefully that way sucks.

We've got a much better way of doing it while our opportunity. And the last part, the fifth part is defining what we'll observe in terms of success metrics. Again, it should be specific. It should be relevant to this type of product. Okay. So we define a persona, a problem that they face current alternative, our value proposition and then success metrics.

So let me hit you with an example of that and we'll break down how you actually validate some of those particular testable items. So I'm just going to come up with an idea of like a lemonade stand and I'll explain it through that metaphor. So here we go. I'll read it all to your first and then we'll break it down.

We believe families are [00:07:00] thirsty when they come to the beach on a summer weekend. Right now they can only get coffee from a cafe. We will offer our refreshing artismal lemonade from our drink track. We expect to sell 500 units per day. That's it? That's the lean hypothesis, but what you will notice is.

Episona is families. Okay. We've even qualified that they have a certain problem in particular on hot  weekend, summer days. And right now there's only a cafe offering hot coffee. Okay. Sounds like there's a big opportunity here. So we think that not only are we going to offer a refreshing drink, it's going to be specifically lemonade.

And I even threw in the autism. And will not only  go beyond that. We'll say that it's going to be from a big drink truck. We're not going to go for a fixed store. And lastly, we've nominated 500 units. Now, each of these are testable items. You [00:08:00] could do quantum call surveys and interviews to determine where the families are.

In fact, the best segment persona. Is it weekends? Is it summer or testable? Now we say that the current alternative is getting coffee from a cafe. Well, what you would do is you go onsite, do surveys, do some observation to make sure that is in fact, the case, because you would want to go down there on the weekend and just check that there's not an ice cream truck.

That also has refreshments. So now you're starting to see each of these needs to be validated. Okay. Artismal lemonade from a drink truck. Well, what you might do is you might go down there with just a hundred units. From the back of the van and try and sell those. Can you sell regular lemonade or does it have to be artisinal do you, can you use a drink truck or maybe you use a trolley or a car who knows all [00:09:00] of these things can be tested through prototyping.

And lastly, we predict 500 units per day. Well, is that realistic? Is there 500 people? 500 families in this case, even at the beach that day, the point here is this hypothesis is extremely clear in what we hope the product or service or business to do. And what's so great about it is it's specific and then testable.

So you can use all sorts of yeah.

Customer interviews, prototyping. Pilot projects to test this before you actually build your big drink truck before you build the factory for autism lemonade. And as you can see that. It's very likely that you'll get different results. You might need to change it from families to young couples. You might need to change it from artisinal lemonade to Coca-Cola.

The point here is that I come [00:10:00] back to the lean hypothesis time. After time, I recently did the huge pot project for a global beverage manufacturer and at the heart of the practice for months and months. We continue to iterate and refine the lean hypothesis. This was the way we could all rally around essential idea.

So hop over to bottom-up dot IO, where you will find everything you need. About the lean hypothesis. We've got a great master class on that. And what I encourage you to do is to explore all the other free courses that we have there too on design thinking and agile and so much more. All right. That's it for the bottom-up skills podcast, that's a wrap. 

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance and we are coming to the fourth installment. Of our Revolut series here on the bottom-up skills podcast. And it is all about the brand Revolut. It's about how they promote and what is happening exactly in 2021.

So what's really fascinating is rivulets. Success in marketing really begins with the product itself. So together we're going to break that down and then they do great stuff throughout the journey. And it's really, uh, an invitation to participate in the Revolut experience. That's what all the customers receive.

It really does feel like a, uh, an invitation. So let's see what's next for the brand. And [00:01:00] let's see if they can conquer the good old us of a. So, as I said, it starts with product. When you think about marketing, when you think about this brand Revolut, it all begins in the product itself, and they have had this huge focus on transparency and speed.

And that's why customers love it. They get the basics right now. It is very hard. To kind of market your way out of the bad product, but if you have a good product, you'll be amazed at the share-ability the advocacy and the referral that you can get and Revolut have worked that out. So they definitely have this, um, Science, which is straddling both product and marketing thinking.

And what they do is every time you have an experience in app, they are using emails, real-time notifications and a whole assortment of [00:02:00] triggers to not only. Confirm what you've just done. So you know exactly your balance, the state of your transfer, but they're also triggering you to come back into the experience.

I mean, sometimes they're even offering you like, uh, games to play. I mean, whatever it takes, they're getting you in out and back into the product regularly and beyond just the digital app. When you go to the card. Particularly the metal card. It's beautiful. But when you go, even beyond that, the unboxing moment in the analog world is even a shareable moment too.

And I think this is the first cluster of ideas, great product. They've got some really good behavioral loops inside of the product and anything that is adjacent to the core digital product. They've really thought about cards, the packaging as being shareable moments. [00:03:00] And I would only challenge you to go, go back in life 10 years ago, and then, and still for many, the receipt of banking cards is a non event.

And Revolut simply challenged this idea and said, let's make it a shareable moment too, because it comes with status and delight and all those good things. What do we do? We get on the old Instagram, get on the Facebook, we share it. And that of course starts the marketing process. Now there's another thing that they've done brilliantly, which is they've created a lot of shared features in the product.

Think there volts split the bill, some of the travel experiences. These are. By default shared experiences. So what happens is you are not only inviting your friends that have the product into the Revolut experience, then naturally you're inviting those that are not customers to come. And [00:04:00] eventually they become customers too.

So once you're in and this is this big, um, sort of. Community experience that they drive for is they really involve the customer in many ways that traditional banks would not have even thought of. For example, you can participate in the naming of a feature. You can actually go to their offices and go to one of these things.

They call a rev rally. You can hear what they're doing. You can actually meet the people behind the company. Now, when was the last time you saw a traditional legacy bank behaving like that? Even better, they actually published their roadmap. So it's quite agile. So they've got like their, their agile roadmap and it's a Trello board.

You can go and view it, comment on it and make suggestions. And throughout your journey as a customer, you can participate in what they call their rev academy. So they are [00:05:00] delighting their customers, entertaining their customers. They're educating their customers. They're saying, come on, help us build this together.

And that's all off the back of a, of a great product. That's ruthlessly quick and transparent. They do this on the back of their great, a metal card on the back of their great packaging. So you can start to see how things compound and we'll talk in a little bit about, um, the kind of network effects that they enjoy.

The other interesting thing is the really recent news just in April. Is it, they launched a particular, uh, metal card with Anthony Joshua famous, uh, world champion heavyweight boxer. So this is a real step into big boy marketing. This is what you'd expect from global brands. This is what you would expect, maybe from some larger traditional banks.

So we'll return to that later in the show, but I want to get to this last. [00:06:00] Notion of how they do their marketing. They are definitely marketing throughout the funnel, because if you think of the top of the funnel is awareness at the bottom of the funnel is referral. And all of those steps in between, they are really optimizing conversion and particularly spending very few paid media dollars to get the job done.

That's what you can do when you have a great product. That's what you can do when your product by design puts the marketing inside. So customers go get more customers for you. So, if you look at one of their successful, um, starts, they actually said in the UK that they spent zero paid media dollars to get their first 1.5 million customers.

I mean, this has got to have anyone in the marketing world drooling and it's because they invite you into the product. And it's because that product is in fact great. That gives them the permission to do this. Now, if you were to use some more formal thinking around this, this [00:07:00] is what we call their viral coefficient.

This means how many customers does your existing customer recruit on your behalf? Now, many customers, um, Would think, man, I won't do this, but what Revolut does is it incentivizes you? So if you want to get a metal card, you can actually get a year for free. If you get five of your friends to sign up, it's a great example of how they incentivize that.

So if you look right now from 2017 to today, we're looking at a company that has generated 15 million customers. And that's a lot. And if you think about how little they pay for paid media, in fact, they've definitely had some times where growth hasn't been that quick. Like if you look from 2017 through to 2019, it's not particularly quick, but after a little bit of a plateau in 2019, things really took [00:08:00] off, then COVID hit and they had a few flat months, but actually this is really interesting.

As per sort of mid to late, uh, 20, 20 things got going and actually coming into 2021, here we are in May, 2021. And their growth is accelerating too. I think it might be the fastest growth they've ever experienced. Naturally big part of that is the fact that they are expanding globally, but this is, um, But they commonly refer to as their viral loops.

This is how they do it. I use all of these, uh, tactics that I mentioned from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel and it compounds. And I think you're going to find that net net, this could be a global company that can say their viral coefficient is one for one, every customer, they win brings a [00:09:00] new customer.

What a fascinating. Study what I mean so much to learn from this approach. Remember it starts with product, but however, there's still work to do, um, this Anthony Joshua Revolut X card, uh, they launched that, uh, well over a month ago now. And you know, I'm looking here at the YouTube channel, it's got 14,000 views, their formal announcement clip.

That same clip has 5,000 views on Instagram. So. I'm thinking those numbers don't look so crash hot and I'm not seeing much conversation about it. So it tells you getting into some of this traditional branding, um, influencer celebrity partnership. Doesn't look like the biggest success for them. So, Hey, look, work to do, but when you've got a great product and you've got marketing baked in, you can afford some time to learn how to get your branding, [00:10:00] right.

So Dave, you've got it. We've broken down the very heart of how Revolut has built a brand, how they are building and marketing a global financial services, super app. That's what they're all about. It starts with that great product. Then inviting the customer to participate the entire journey through, and then you can get some pretty amazing viral coefficients going.

Now, if you want to learn how to build a great product is one place. You can go bottom-up dot AI, and there you're going to learn everything. You need to build a great product to build a great credit team, to learn about design thinking and agile, all of those things. Bottom-up dot IO. And there you'll find.

Every think you could dream of all right. That's it for the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap. [00:11:00]

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Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance. And today we're continuing with Revolut. Yes, the FinTech giant, the neobank nemesis. We're you going to discuss Revolut people and culture approach here in 2021. Now the people and culture area for Revolut is probably the most significant area.

Of improvement. I'm afraid to say that the key executives keep on leaving and employee satisfaction is not tracking upwards. It's kind of down. So let's see if some of the new hybrid working and remote working and working abroad programs will give that employee culture that much needed [00:01:00] boost. Okay. So the very recent news from Revolut is that they're going to allow its employees to work abroad for up to 60 days.

And they've totally embraced, uh, hybrid working. Um, think about this, uh, over 50% of their staff would like to work in a hybrid way. 36% actually want to work entirely remote and wait for this only 2% want to come into the office every day. And this is getting to be a big deal cause it's over 2000 people worldwide.

And, uh, there's some big things, uh, at stake here for Revolut. I think the working abroad really fits the product and where the company comes from. So I actually love this idea, I think is really, really powerful. Um, they are famous for making travel and international money transfers easy. So it seems only natural that the company would be kind of borderless in how it thinks [00:02:00] about where and how the team can work from.

Not only working from home, but perhaps even working abroad. So I think this is a really interesting thing that could be great for the culture and as well, when you bundle in that hybrid working way, I think there's a chance that this could start to contribute to a higher employee satisfaction, but there's work to do.

Um, so what we have done is. As always, when we do our case studies, we actually dig into glass door and we have a look at seat. Well, what's really happening behind the scenes. Now it's not going to be the. Um, world's best way of reading the pulse and the culture of an organization you'd have to be working inside to truly know, but it's a pretty good indicator.

And I think we can get some directional ideas from this. So I want to take you through the [00:03:00] basic numbers. For Revolut on Glassdoor. This is where all their employees give feedback and to do so I'm actually going to refer to the stats as they are right now. And I'm going to compare them with what they were a year ago.

So we went to glassdoor.com and we had a look at what employees. Past and present. I was saying about the organization and actually it was a pretty decent school. So we got 3.9 out of five stars overall for the company. And 71% would recommend and 81% approved of the CEO Nikolai . Well, let's fast forward to today.

Okay. So those numbers were from a year ago. Let's have a look at today and ouch. It's like all of the numbers are down. So, um, the overall rating of the company is down from 3.9 to 3.3. So that's a 15% drop. [00:04:00] That's pretty big movement. Um, but the movement just gets. Bigger and to the downside recommendations down from 71 to 52%, that's a pretty big decline.

The biggest one is the approval of the CEO has plummeted down to 54% from what was 81% a year ago. This is really, um, surprising and pretty dramatic. Actually, when you think about a company, this size 2000 employees, um, of which there are five, almost 500 reviews. So this is a quarter of the entire sample.

So I think there's some big you're flashing lights here. There's flags, there's smoke signals coming out of here. Um, But let's look at what is it about this culture? That seems so tough. And look, I'm the first to [00:05:00] admit, you know, culture it's really about, um, leadership and vision and how you behave the symbols inside of the company and how you design the systems to serve and empower your people.

That's for sure. I think there's a lot of patterns inside of the data on Glassdoor that reveal what it's like at Revolut super fast paced. This came up in 22 of the reviews and look, lots of smart people, lots of learning. In fact, the reference to smart people came up 18 times in different reviews, but the negative signals are much stronger.

Work-life balance looks really, really. Poor. A lot of people are complaining of working 12 to 15 hour workdays and doing some work on the weekend and these long hours. Um, I think it's starting to create some real doubt in the eyes of the [00:06:00] employees. 20%, sorry, 20 of their reviews in the, um, the current Gusto talk about no one really caring.

And, um, this, this is just. Obviously, um, a call for help. Now you have to think to yourself, well, there were some signals of the pros and cons this time, last year. So nothing really has changed there. The signals are just getting stronger, so that shows a lack of change. So whatever changes have happened thus far I haven't worked.

And what I would offer you is that my deduction is that. With such a particular type of work style, how they think, how they work, the culture. I think their candidate screening is the problem. And what I mean by that is this is a pretty intense workplace and they should screen their candidates.

Accordingly. And so they're obviously [00:07:00] not doing that because people are coming in and turning right back out again. There's a lot of commentary about people staying for a year and then jumping into other jobs. It's sort of a launchpad job. So there's some really big signals here. Um, and, um, whilst no company is perfect, um, it's going to be really interesting to see what Revolut can learn from this employee feedback and whether they can create a more balanced work-life that retains they're good people.

So will this working abroad, will this hybrid working model improve the employee satisfaction? That's what we have to find out. That is the question at hand. And my last thought here is that as the company grows, this challenge will become harder because the group of employees will be larger. The different marketplaces jurisdictions in which people are working will be more so [00:08:00] when you're all, you know, when you're 20, 50 people in one office, ah, that one's pretty straightforward.

You can see everyone, you can just grab everyone and put them in a room. And, and really work on problems, however, this, and this is a great proxy to their overall company challenges. Can they scale, can they go from being really smart, uh, payment solution or really smart, uh, transfer international currency solution to being a proper bank?

Can they go from being big in UK? To being big globally. Can they, uh, have this really strong commitment amongst the founders and can that trickle down throughout the entire organization? Because right now they continue to lose key executives. Their global head of marketing just left their global head of growth, just left.

It keeps on happening. So. Lots of challenges and I'm not betting against Revolut far from it [00:09:00] because we know that they've got a great product. They, we know they're onto something, but if they want to realize their vision, which is to be a global financial app, it's not only the product that needs to be good.

They need to have a viable business model. So they got to make freemium work. They've got to actually have a brand that builds trust and people recognize huge amount of work to do there. And lastly, as we look at all of this, they've got to have a great culture. They've got to nourish their employees and keep that talent, grow that talent.

So. Let's see if they can do it. Meanwhile, if you want to learn how to build great teams or build great products, just head over to bottom-up dot IO, we've got a ton of free masterclasses. Try them, enjoy them. It's all open source. Go for it because we want you to be a better product person. All right.

That's it for the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap. [00:10:00]

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance. And today we continue our journey into the world of Revolut. Yes, the FinTech, the Neo bank that seems to be conquering all. And today we're going to look at the user experience from its product. Are they delighting customers?

I wonder, are they serving each and every user? Are they doing it right? These are the questions we're going to ask. Now, the starting point here. Is that they do indeed  provide a user experience, which is super fast, very snappy interface, easy, and boy, the features they just keep on coming. They are adding features at a prolific rate.

So you and I, we're going to dive into what users actually love about the [00:01:00] Revolut product. And we're going to learn what best practices we can take out from. This banking customer experience. We're going to see what we can use when we build products to now, the first thing I want to do is set some context because the Revolut story is quite simple.

When we come to product, it's just doing the basics right now. That's not particularly revolutionary or earth shattering, but in the context of banking, it most certainly is. Let me give you the proof just to compare what people really think about this product, what the customer experience is really like for Revolut.

I've gotten competitor to one of the better legacy banks in the United Kingdom. Buckeye spank. And what I did is I thought, well, okay, let's go find a really large number [00:02:00] of reviews for both in the same platform. And so I went to Trustpilot very good, a customer review application, and I compared. What over 5,000 people had to say about Barclays and then over 70,000 people, what they had to say with Revolut and the numbers just don't align.

Barclays can only muster our 1.5 stars out of five. So we're talking about an incredibly seasoned, traditional legacy bank. Huge incise. Yeah, customers rate it so poorly that Trustpilot has these different categories for the number of stars that you have. And Barclays with 1.5 stars out of five, they are in the bad category.

[00:03:00] I mean, what a travesty that a bank of their tenure, a bank. That is so institutionalized in the United Kingdom and abroad. Yeah. They can only muster at 1.5 out of five Revolut. On the other hand, I mean, huge number of reviews, 79,000 that already tells you something 4.3 average category. Excellent. And I think I've, I've chosen two reviews that I think expose the story behind, after sifting through them all.

This is what I want to share with you. Here's one. This is by a reviewer in the United Kingdom. His name is Chris packer. He gives Barclays one star out of five and his headline. Is avoid Barclays, if you can. I mean, this is when your customers go into what we call [00:04:00] detract mode. They're not neutral and they're certainly not advocates.

They are detractors. They're advocating against you. He says in his review, avoid Barclays. If you can, I've had numerous problems with Barclays, including having posts sent to the wrong address, access being denied, online banking and infuriating telephone banking system. Well, I mean, sending posts doesn't sound like too, how to thing, sorting out access denials to online banking, you know, with all the passwords and security procedures, that's kind of cost of entry for any bank these days and a telephone banking system.

Like, come on guys, telephone's been around a century now think we might be able to get that right. But on the other hand, Here's a review that I got from this, this person's called G fan 2015. And he says in his review of Revolut, [00:05:00] of course, Revolut is a great product, as long as you don't hit a snag. Hmm.

Okay. So this is interesting. The moment you're facing issue, there is no way to resolve it quickly. And he goes on to explain some of that. So it's interesting. Isn't it? Just the difference there, even though, I mean, I deliberately chose this Revolut one, which wasn't all strawberries and cream, but what it did say is I'll take you back to this.

Of course, Revolut is a great product and that's why we can learn so very, very much.  What is astounding to me? The actually Barclays isn't the worst customer experience in the United Kingdom because we have done a lot of work studying the UX of banking report by Peter Ramsey, where in the UK, he studied the experience and measured the customer experience throughout the UK banking system.

And barcodes actually was kind of one of the better. So I [00:06:00] really don't want to experience the worst there. So this is the context of why getting the basics is so innovative. It's so new in an existing category. So the story here is that legacy banks just get the basics wrong. It's not fast, they're not transparent about fees.

And some of their basic features like hello, telephone calls. They can't get those touch points. Right. And the truth is that Revolut gets the basics, right? Super fast product, very transparent about fees, and they just continue to add more features. But if we step back, there's still so much opportunity.

Whether it's for Revolut, Barclays or some other neobank or FinTech, you can see that it seems like everyone stumbles, when you have a particular  what we call in the industry, like an edge case where there's some unusual  characteristic that  blocks our user journey. Both banks seem [00:07:00] to struggle with that.

So there's the opportunity. So Revolut has got even further to grow and I think the gap for Barclays and other legacy banks becomes larger. Okay. So let's take now a snapshot and a check-in on what are the features that they actually include in their product? Well, money transfers. They seem to be the gods of, and.

What's really important on the back of a transfer or a payment is that you get instant, real time notifications and analytics. It's really important that if you study the customer experience, people hate the fact that they have to sometimes reload, close their account and reopen it to get the new balance.

Okay. So that's really good. Essential again. Revolut does it. Well, many others do not. And of course they've  Done a great job on bill splitting.  They've opened up into cryptocurrencies and they're doing this now across many markets, such as [00:08:00] Japan, India, and the U S they're really charging for some global expansion there.

I'm talking about being overseas. I mean, handling currencies and transfers in different currency seems to be one of their great strengths. It's it really is  exceptional when compared to the. Rest of the market. And of course there's lots of other features that help you manage your money. I want to focus on one feature in their product.

I think it tells a little bit the story of Revolut and why their customer experience is so good. So the way back in April, 2018, they launched volts. Volts are a special little area that you have.  It's a, it's a little envelope  where you can put your savings into. And  these little volts are really interesting.

It's a beautifully, simple idea. It's like a, a little savings area and here's the interesting thing. The [00:09:00] saving features are personal. All four groups. So you can chip in with your friends and check this out. Since they launched it, there have been over 4.5 million volts created by users. There is 6,000 new volts created each day and into those volts, the Revolut global user base has saved over $2.5 billion.

How good is this? This is a great example of not just being someone that holds onto your money. What Revolut is showing us with volts is by understanding the user and their end goals, a trip to Japan, to Mexico, maybe saving for a wedding, or just paying the bills. They will help you get it done. And this is where they can build so much trust.

And imagine if they get a charter and licensed to be a [00:10:00] full fledged bank across these markets, it would be incredibly powerful because their user experience is far. Better than the industry. And that's why they've grown to over 15 million customers. And it's not only with consumers, the Aleuts product is rolling out.

Those features, they're getting into the business side of things. So just.  In less than the last six months, they have launched a bunch of new features. They're allowing businesses to, to run on Revolut. Of course, they've now got QR codes for socially distance payments. They've got a new expenses product they've got, and this is really interesting.

Two other things I want to talk about the ultimate freelancer plants. So usually. Going from this, this kind of mass growth freemium model. This is one of the most successful models for fintechs  neobanks, usually these  [00:11:00]  which is a complimented by a different way of thinking where you kind of go after just a local market or perhaps a segment of customers.

What Revolut are doing is they have built the ultimate freelance plant, which serves. The growing number of freelances who are perhaps working from home or they're digital nomads. So they are not only going for the mass freemium model, but they're also starting to cater to particular segments such as business, such as freelances.

They have even built a plugin for the very. Popular WordPress  till called WooCommerce WooCommerce commerce helps you create an easy shop, do E business to retail on your WordPress website. And the reason this matters is WordPress makes up well over a quarter of all websites on the internet and built with WordPress.

And so Revolut have created this gateway that enables you to use Revolut as your payments engine. [00:12:00] Really interesting stuff. So no doubt. They're innovating. I will say the one word of caution here is. That they are becoming bigger and bigger, and they're doing more things than just focusing on international money transfer.

This could be their opportunity, but it could also be their greatest challenge. And coupled with the fact that they are going to have to move more customers to paid, can they sustain their growth? Can they achieve a viable business? Because they've given a lot of way  to their customers and that's afforded them the growth.

The real question is can they actually convert. I mean to premium. So I want to talk about some of the homework I want to give to the team at Revolut.  They are definitely going to have to find a balance as they transition more of their value into their premium features.  This is really, really important.

They're going to have to really think about  how they're going to operate, whether it's going to be as a full stack or whether it's going to be as a front [00:13:00] end bank.  They are going to need a banking license and charter. If they want to have the most viable customer relationships, if they want to increase total revenue per user, they're going to need that because then they'll be able to offer the full deposit guarantee  and offer a full  range of credit and debit services across all currencies.

And without a doubt  a lot of people do complain when little snags hit. So taking you back to that review that I started at the beginning of this episode, when people get frozen out due to security reasons in their app, this seems to be a bit of a nightmare  for the user. So. Homework for Revolut to do there and all in all.

When we do see users having errors that go outside of the normal, we are seeing a lot of negative feedback about customer support. Sometimes the chat takes too long. Maybe the chat doesn't get answered so [00:14:00] homework to do, but wow. When we look at this product, we can see. At Revolut truly has done the basics.

Right. And they have been able to grow by just doing the basics. Right? What a powerful lesson that we can take from Revolut. And I hope all of you are now with a little bit of inspiration and some practical advice on how you can build great products, too. Now talking about building great products, you can go to bottom-up dot IO and we have a ton of free courses.

We have design thinking, agile lean case studies and Revolut. Lots of FinTech presentations. Get on over to bottom-up dot IO. It's all free too. Open source so you can learn to make better products. All right. That's it for the bottom upskills podcast. That's right. 

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Hello and welcome to the bottomup skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance. And today we're talking about the growth strategy of none other than Revolut. I mean the guys at Revolut, they are a pretty clear leader in the Neo bank slash FinTech market. So we've done a lot of work stuff, being how they build product, how they build teams.

Got a great study, uh, on our website at bottom-up dot IO. So check that out. But today, We're going to revisit their growth strategy. We're going to do a 20, 21 update. We're going to get the latest and we're going to see what we can learn from their journey. We're going to dig into some of the new product features.

They have, how they're expanding in different markets. And we're going to ask ourselves, are they up for the [00:01:00] challenge? Can they transition into doing more than one thing? In the face of really fierce competition. I mean, it's getting hot in here, so let's dig into it. Okay. So quick snapshot on the growth of Revolut and boy, I got to say, I gotta hand it to these guys.

They've got some pretty serious growth going on. Let's start with customers. Now, uh, proceeding, uh, 2020 and all things that are COVID, we saw them ramping up pretty nicely. So from about early 2017, up until early 2019, they went from zero to about 6 million customers, not bad and, um, good growth. Um, and you know, did that across a couple of markets too.

So. They didn't kind of line for a while, um, in 2019 and then kind of go going again [00:02:00] and then they hit another flatline, um, which was, uh, obviously no surprise there. February, March 20, 20, things really slowed down. Sort of at about the, um, roughly about the nine, eight or 9 million Mark, but all credit to these guys because, um, as things kind of calm down a little bit at the back end of 2020, and as we look right now in April, 2021, they have hit 15 million customers.

So if we step back just a little bit, that's 5 million customers, um, Since that six Mark and well beyond. And actually they've done this only since 2017, so it's not even funny five years. So, you know, they've roughly been growing at about 3 million plus customers a year. Um, so the growth is pretty exceptional.

[00:03:00] Now, if we now kind of move across to their evaluation, this is what they're worth to investors. They have previously raised, um, 5.5 valuation that's $5.5 billion in their series D round. So you're getting pretty late in the investing game year. You're not too far off IPO and, um, their last and most recent round, they came in at 5.5 billion, which, uh, Is interesting.

Cause that was probably, uh, somewhere in the space of, uh, eight to 9 million customers. So you can do the math there to kind of work out the value per customer. The interesting thing is because they've grown so much since that D series round of investment, the rumor is, and it's, this is hot off the press.

This is literally just a few days old is that they are talking. Uh, two investors again, and they are looking at more than a 10 billion valuation that's [00:04:00] post-money valuation. So if you want to look at growth, you know, it's the classic startup gain, lots of customer growth, lots of growth in the valuation.

So as a snapshot, 50 million customers, Roughly 10 billion valuation. That's solid. That's really, really solid. So good on them. Now the question is, you know, they started off being brilliant at like sending money to your friends, maybe, um, you know, currency when you're on holiday. That was certainly the kind of.

Early adopter, innovator segment. They went after they got that growth. But now, uh, it's really interesting. Um, next Darren AUSkey, uh, CEO and co-founder of overload recently kind of shared the, what they think their, their mission is right now. And they're gonna, this is according to him and I quote. We're on a mission to build the world's first global financial super app.

[00:05:00] And, uh, that's pretty bold and heavy stuff. And a big tactic in that strategy is going to be getting a banking license in the U S and we're going to talk about that in a little bit. Another thing. That they've seen as they think about the U S and we think about their growth strategy, how they're going to grow the business.

Here's another interesting insight that they've shared, and it's about going after a new segment, the small business. So you got to remember, well, it's pretty famous for being a very consumer focused offering. So now they're going to stop moving across into small and medium businesses. Um, you know, the fascinating thing about that is that not only goes to.

Helping them with their banking. I think, um, I think you're going to see them, uh, do a full play here. Think about zero or QuickBooks, uh, for small business. I think they're going to, uh, I think there's a lot of clues that that's the way [00:06:00] they're going to play this. Uh, I've got, I've managed to do some research here and I've got another quote, uh, from Starsky that I want to share with you.

Uh, not only about small business, but how they're going to do it. He says small and medium-sized businesses are massively underserved in the U S and we want to empower them with tools to grow and scale globally. So this is sounding like Neo bank plus FinTech, plus I dunno, turbo boost. And then here is a really good thing.

He identifies. Um, some of the challenges that they face as tackling fragmented processes, high fees, and other banking, pain points, uh, we've built an end to end solution that saves business owners time and resources to focus on what really matters running their business. Now, nothing revolutionary here, but I always love it when a company is prepared to.

Listen to understand too, they [00:07:00] understand their customers and is really clear about what they face as a challenge. And we'll happily put that up as their mission. So quite clearly, if we want to think about growth, it's all about the U S it's all about small businesses. So let's break this down a little bit because it's not all like sunshine and, uh, balloons and party favorites.

So good news is for Revolut that they've applied for a banking chatter in the U S challenges. This thing takes forever and not everybody gets one. And it might not necessarily even, even if they did get it, if they, if Revolut gets a full banking charter, so they can operate as a licensed bank, that doesn't necessarily mean success.

And we'll come to some reasons why in a moment, but let's just kind of look at where the complexity here starts to come to the fore. And I've got this big [00:08:00] insight that actually. I think Revolut is about to go through its hardest period yet because they grew up being this challenge of brand. They did a couple of things.

One thing, particularly well with currency and money transfer between friends like this little niche, and now they've ballooned into 15 million people. And now they got to do a lot of things, a lot of different offerings from crypto to insurance, to banking, to credit cards, et cetera, et cetera. But they've also got to do that in a number of markets.

So they're obviously revving up in the U S they're they're revving up in India too, but here's an interesting thing. They have already launched, failed and closed in Canada. I just couldn't make any money, too many incumbent constraints, pretty close market, probably very similar to Australia. It's quite hard to shake up the financial market in Australia too.

[00:09:00] So isn't that interesting? Um, like they've already kind of basically said Canada, adios. See you later. So maybe they might have to do that in India, too. The reality here is the game is going to be so different for them in growth. The reality here is that they've got a big play for the U S and small businesses.

They've got a big play here for a banking charter, but here's the thing. They might not get that banking charter. And even if they do, there are plenty others that have one too. And this is a really new paradigm because this becomes very much about product differentiation in a competitive maturing market, which is something they're not used to.

They are competing with traditional incumbent. Banks legacy banks and fintechs. They're now moving into a more and more regulated space [00:10:00] with which they're not really that used to. So there's some pretty interesting things happening. So let's, let's look at this well, let's break down their challenges in the U S um, you know, chime and Vajra are the big leaders.

Who, uh, who've been, you know, operating and succeeding and growing in the U S for more than five years, chime, wait for this has 12 million customers in the U S at least they've also said, Hey, you know what? Banking chatter. It'd be pretty interesting. And Varo last August already got a charter. They're the first Neo bank to do so, and check out this Varo.

Doubled its users in 2020, they're there nearly 2 million accounts. And they're like this really early stage company Revolut doesn't even have a quarter of their customers and doesn't have the [00:11:00] charter and chime has 12 million customers. And they're thinking about a charter too. So the real story here is Revolut might be a bit late to the party there.

This strategy, which I talked about in the previous episode, they've played the, what I call the front end. Um, neobank and it B that they have realized that they need to be a full state bank, full stack bank, not working with partner banks. To do the backend of their banking because they don't have a license, but they actually need to go get those license, those charters, but a lot of other people have them already.

So this is a big strategic challenge that they need to do. Not just in the UK, not just in Australia. But in the U S and India, and many, many other markets across 15 million customers. Plus they've got the expectation from their exists, getting investors to make a lot of money when they go [00:12:00] IPO, this is a new paradigm for them.

This is the new challenge. They've shown that they can grow, they can build teams. So they have the capability to perform, to create high-performance teams, to build a great product. Something that customers love. The question is, can they come and have a second chapter here because this will be a more strategic, um, challenge.

And it will be, um, a challenge of the size that they have not seen before. This will be. Massive for them. So it's going to come down to people and culture. It's going to come down to leadership and we break all of that down in our case study that we did on Revolut, which you can get over at bottom-up dot IO.

Now I've just done a growth. I am going to dig into all sorts of other new product features. Things they're doing internally with their people, with their culture, how they're doing [00:13:00] their marketing over the next coming podcast episodes. So I'm really excited to share that with you. So I hope you stick around for this series on neobanks, fintechs and Revolut.

Okay. So if you're really getting into this kind of stuff, make sure you head over to bottom. Uh, bottom up.io. We've got design thinking, agile courses. They're all free or totally open source. So jump over there to bottom-up dot IO. Grab one of those courses. Uh, it's yours to use and enjoy. And of course, um, let us know if you've got any feedback, send us an email at skills at bottom-up dot IO.

I'd love to hear what you're enjoying about the podcast and what you'd like me to cover in the future. Okay. That's it for the bottom-up skills podcast, that's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance and we are talking FinTech. We are talking neobanks today. That's right. We are starting a brand new series. And in today's show, we're going to ask how FinTech is shaping up. How is it affecting the future of banking and.

You know, this FinTech industry, you know, pioneered and led by those big neobanks that you probably know like Revolut, uh, like Monzo, you know, all of those guys styling, chime. All of those guys, they've reached a really impressive size and they really acquired customers and got pretty impressive valuations.

So join me and let's take a bit of a snapshot of who's [00:01:00] leading this market. How are they doing it? What offerings. Are actually winning. And I think one of the big questions is how can they achieve both growth and profits. All right. So if you look at the global. Neobank and FinTech market. What's really fascinating.

Is this roughly about 26 companies who are leading a global charge? Of course, there's lots and lots of smaller niche or local players, but there's kind of roughly 26 that are shaping up to be the global influences. The ones that are winning in more than one market. And what's really interesting is when you look at the value.

Of all of these Neo banks, it comes to, this is their market valuation. It comes to $27 million. Huge, huge, huge, really, because it's an emerging market. It is, uh, coming into one of the oldest [00:02:00] industries in the planet banking. And the banking has been around since, uh, I think it was 14 hundreds, late 14 hundreds, a little bank started in Italy.

Um, if you think about such an incumbent. Such a locked-in industry. Pretech pre certainly pre-internet that already. We're looking at a $27 billion market and it's pretty impressive. And there's already more than 20 companies that are leading the charge on a global platform. So here's, what's really interesting.

As we study these in 2021, these neobanks, these fintechs what's what we really can benefit from now is that there appears to be sort of three models, um, that are the kind of growth strategies. That are being employed for success. So this is how neobanks are winning number one [00:03:00] and the biggest one and the classic one.

It's the good old freemium model. Um, so you'll, you'll know that, uh, you know, one of my, uh, Favorite neobanks Revolut. They have really led the charge there with this idea of the freemium model. So massively disruptive because you know, traditional banks, legacy banks love the Goodall, a monthly fee, and the neobanks have just thrown that out and said, no, come and get all your basic services for free and all the add-ons will be extra.

So that's the freemium model. So that seems to be a clear winning strategy for growth. The only interesting thing is some of the other players are coming with more multi tier, um, offerings, multi-tiered subscriptions, um, premium accounts. Um, and they're sort of really looking at what we call the upsell for the customer.

So this is really interesting because, um, a little bit different to, to freemium, but [00:04:00] really pushing towards subscription. And it's interesting that sometimes it's just a really beautiful. Credit card, physical credit card is enough to get that subscription. But it's interesting because now you see two very clear routes.

Do we go freemium, give away the basics charged for the addons or do we play for a subscription? That seems to be the two winning models there, but there's also a third and I would probably categorize this as the niche play. Now you either go niche in terms of your, uh, Demographics niche in terms of your geographies, um, or you might try and go for a very particular segment, um, gig workers, SMEs, uh, tradespeople, you know, all that kind of stuff.

So that's the third one. That's the niche play that seems to be playing out. So there you have it. Three models for success. Going freemium multi-tiered subscriptions and niche segment segments. [00:05:00] This is how these Neo banks and fintechs are really disrupting the world. And if you look at those roughly 26 global leaders, global players in, in their banking, they have acquired not only a big valuation, but between them, they have over 39 million users, uh, is a pretty substantial.

User base. Now, this growth that I've been talking about, and when you put it in perspective in just a matter of a decade, this huge marketplace has, has kind of come out of nowhere. Really. Um, the interesting thing though, is that acquisition of that many customers in such a short time, that high growth has come at the cost of low.

If. Zero profits. This is really fascinating because if you look at what a great product takes, customers need to love it, check it next. It needs [00:06:00] to be technically feasible. Well, that seems like a big check, but is the business viable? And I think it's really interesting that we're at the beginning of a process of a, kind of a new chapter where we're starting to see that neobanks have proven they can grow, but they haven't actually proven can they be viable?

And given the fact that so many of these are not publicly listed, we can't have a little peak in their, in their books and their accounts to see how things are really going. But it's. Unquestionable that they have sacrificed their profitability to grow. So they're really breaching the concept. They breaking the idea of viability because they cannot grow profitably.

They can grow like crazy. So this kind of creates a really interesting paradigm for this Neo bank. And I think the larger FinTech space is can they achieve both growth and profitability at the same time? [00:07:00] I think this is going to be a much bigger challenge than they realize, because of course what happens is they all become growth obsessed.

And then when you ask them to be obsessed with profits, that's a, that's a new mindset they've been growing at all costs. And I think if we just take a step back over the last year, we've seen some rather big, uh, high venture capital backed companies like turbo powered, uh, who were all about the growth fallen, a big heap.

I mean, Go no further than we were. They were just growing at all costs. And then when you said to them, Hey, it's time to actually make a dime, like be profitable. Uh, the whole thing fell apart. They lost the CEO. Every like the whole thing was a shambles. It was awfully public as well, but I'm not seeing that, you know, Neo banks and fintechs are about to go through that.

I think it's a bit early for that, but without doubt now, As the market matures, where you're [00:08:00] seeing that they are going to be forced to consider profitability, particularly if they want to go to the public markets in IPO. So if you're building this product, if you're building growth marketing teams, you're now going to have to do it.

Cost-effectively with a wait for it. Return on investment no longer can. They just rely on these huge amounts of cash. Coming from venture capital, coming from private equity. They really now need to. Become viable. And there's kind of two types of banks that are in this race for viability, because remember if customers desire the product, if the technology is feasible, you just need a business model that's viable and you have the Holy Trinity of product.

Right? So you've got full stack banks. Good example is Monzo in 26 styling. They actually went and got a license [00:09:00] and they operate a full, um, platform sometimes even offering, uh, an entire marketplace. That's why, what we call the full stack near banks. Now the front end focus neobanks. Are a bit different.

They don't have banking, charters, they don't have banking licenses, so they need to partner with others. Uh, so a great example of this is Revolut. Um, recently in the U S vAuto, uh, was the first Neo bank to get a charter. And, um, many others are now in a position where they need to choose a path to profitability.

Brutal, I think to prove out that they actually have a business that's not going to be acquired because without that banking license, the real question is, can you survive just being a partner with legacy banks or did they just end up acquiring them? What a fascinating challenge, right? Because if you go full stack, yeah.

Obviously, um, not only is your [00:10:00] tech platform, you've got to own operate, uh, payments as a service banking as a service. But what you also have to do is adhere to, to all of the, uh, fiduciary, uh, compliance responsibilities that you have as being the operating bank. Whereas the front end banks. As of now Revolut, for sure.

They're just partnering with others. So this is, this is really, really interesting. Yeah. Particularly in the bigger markets where it's not quite as easy to get a bank license as it might be in a smaller market. So this is how it's playing out. We've kind of got these full stack banks. We've got these front end banks and it's a race now to not only grow, but to do it viably, to do it with some profits.

So you will run into companies. Like chime like Revolut. Um, there's some other, uh, more interesting, uh, plays like transfer wise. They're fascinating because they're obviously coming at it from a slightly different [00:11:00] perspective. And you've got a few incumbents that are playing there as well. You've got ABN AMRO.

Um, a traditional, uh, Dutch bank that's playing in this neobank industry. And right next to them is Aden, which is a really successful, uh, neobank and payments company as well. So look at that. And then over here in Australia, you've got Commonwealth bank, enormous bank. Uh, you've got national Australia bank and Zed three huge banks, uh, from Australia, plus lots of others, um, that are really bringing the challenges.

Um, To the traditional legacy banks, but also I think with so many active players in the Neo bank and FinTech market. There's going to be a shakeout and it's going to be, the winners are going to be those that found not only desirable and viable products that made feasible products, but they made them viable too.

They could make a dollar, they could create and [00:12:00] capture value, which is really the ultimate test of a product that we need to build for our customers. All right. Well, look, I hope that's a really helpful snapshot of where the hell FinTech, where the whole neobank market is at. If you enjoyed that head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can get our big, deep dives into design thinking, agile and lean, but we've also got a great case study.

On, um, uh, Revolut, we've got future banking, keynotes, and there's plenty more to come. We're going to do a big push on this journey into the world of Neo banks and FinTech. Alright, that's the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello and welcome to the Bottom-up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance, and we're going to do one final deep dive on our trends report. We talked about four really significant trends. Those that really touched upon this notion of collaboration. And for the first time we really went deep in our annual trends report on this idea of collaboration.

What's interesting is we actually. We usually only touch on emerging technology and issues with very specific to technology or usability kind of hardcore product stuff. But this time we went broader because we feel like after 2020, and that whole work from home thing, like collaboration is back on the table, it's ready to be [00:01:00] discussed.

And so what I want to do is a special edition. Of the show for you today. I want to go deep into how we can think about collaboration. Let's take a moment to capture all of those ideas, reflect on them and see how perfecting collaboration is essential for creating an agile mindset in the digital age.

All right. I'm going to do a quick little context here before we look at the actions that we can take on collaboration. Don't forget. Here we are. 2021. We now have customers demanding Omni channel direct to customer experiences, but also on the other side, employees want to be able to work from home and have entertainer hybrid way of working.

So what happens is technology teams plug together all sorts of platforms from CRM, CMS, payments, ERP, you name it, everything's getting pointed together. And it's a little bit of house of cards that leads to complexity. And it's not only complexity from a platform. [00:02:00] Point of view. There's also complexity on the people's side because Hey, who's the systems architect who knows how this whole thing works together.

So what we have is this obligation to get technology into all the different touch points, to be everywhere for everyone. And it's hard, right? That's the pressure that product teams are under right now because they're serving more stakeholders than ever serving more platforms than ever. Stuff just got complex and it's changing real fast.

And that's why the agility mindset is the essential thing to have. If you want to survive in the digital age, in that knowledge worker age, otherwise you're going to get snowed down by all that complexity. So I want to now take a moment now that we kind of set the scene. We've got the complexity conundrum.

We know we have to be agile. We're going to get that tech under control, but equally, if, if you know another word for tech is all the platforms [00:03:00] need to be under control. Then it's also on the other side of things. It's the people who run that. Have to be under control, have to have clarity, have to have a lot of different things.

And one of the biggest secret ingredients for getting your technology and your products under control is to have people working well. And to have people collaborating, you know, for me, collaboration is when one plus one equals three. When two people get together, you get an unexpectedly good result. Like, wow.

Because two heads are better than one. So for me, that's, that's my pitch for collaboration, but let's look at like four key segments. It's almost a little architecture of collaboration. Let's look at what they are and let's look at what we can do in each of them to get our teams collaborating well. So they can be more agile so they can solve complex problems.

And Hey, in the end of the day, they can go out into the world and put a product that's worth building that [00:04:00] social problems for its users. Okay. So there's four things that I mentioned. Here's what they are. So if you want to collaborate, here's the magic four things that make up collaboration, alignment, learning, engagement, and connection.

So I'm going to dig into each of those and give you a quick recap on what you can do to get your team collaborating better. Number one, alignment. Well, for me, the saying here is to get the band singing the same song because actually one of the interesting things is every team, every business has a discreet unique way of working and thinking.

But actually I challenge you. Where is that written down? Just pause for a moment. I want you to think where have we written down in our company? How we think, what models do we use and how do we work? And what you're going to find is invariably, it's never written down. It's [00:05:00] not written down, it's just done.

It's just the culture of the organization. So this is particularly challenging. If you want to get aligned with new people on a team, There's no textbook to read. There's no playbook to pick up that says, this is how we think we use these to three different models and here's how we work. So if it's not written down, if it's through the doing, what are the things we can actually do to help people get aligned?

Well, what we discovered in our trends report is there's two big things you should connect and be with. Your fellow band members, your team members daily, do not enter the estimate, the power of daily connection. It's something that came up a lot in the report, but in surveys and interviews with all these great product experts from around the world, definitely industries daily get together.

So you might think about a standup or a scrum, or even just a sink. This is essential. The frequency [00:06:00] needs to be daily. If you want to particularly help new people. Understand how you think of work, or if you really want to kind of bring people back in the tent, as they say, you need to reconnect with them and to remind them of how we think and work.

Now, the other big thing that we learned is it needs to be guided. And what I mean by that is you need to do a bit of show and tell. But then you need to start transferring. So don't make the mistake of, Oh, I'll just do it. Cause it's quickest. Maybe you do it once or twice. Maybe you do it once or twice and then give a voice over to your colleague.

And then you might say, Hey, why don't you give it a go, I'll be right here. So if you want people to truly get it, how you think and how you work as a product team, then it should be daily rituals. With a lot of guided practice. There's no shortcuts here. I'm afraid. If you want to have people aligned, if you want to have them connected, there's no magic pill.

They can take it's daily [00:07:00] rituals with guided practice. That's how you get people singing. The same song. Okay. So that's alignment. That was number one, number two, the second part of the world of collaboration. So first of all, you're aligned now you need to engage. That's. The second piece engagement starts with putting your teammates before yourself serve your teammates.

And the first thing you can do there is welcome everyone. And every single idea that they want to bring to the table. Because if you want people to be engaged, this is actually where it starts and I'll show you how it works. So you need to drag, kicking and screaming people into the room and give them a voice, let them share their ideas.

Welcome them. Don't criticize don't judge celebrate the contribution, all people and all ideas are welcome. This is really fundamental. [00:08:00] Then once that has happened. And all the ideas are up on the wall, invite everyone to challenge those ideas, improve those ideas, own those ideas, because here's, here's the real secret with engagement.

If I've had a chance to challenge and improve the ideas about what we're doing, where we're going, how we're doing it. Invariably, because I've been heard, I will accept the direction we are going, even if I don't agree with it. Very important. So if I can challenge improve it, I will accept it. Even if it's not where I think we should go.

I was heard. I was understood. I was acknowledged, Hey, I don't win them all this one. I didn't get it. Hey, the idea is not too bad. I can, I can sign up for that. And if you do that, then your employees are going to be truly engaged because you're not telling them [00:09:00] the company's vision or your vision. You are sharing with them, their vision.

And they own their vision. They will uphold their vision. So that's how we get engagement. That's part two of the world of collaboration. Part three is about how we create real connection. And this is all about celebrating success, whether it's big or small personal shift, Oh, personal or shared, and it can be just the mere act of learning.

Of growth as an individual growth as a team, doesn't have to be always, Hey, we hit a home run, right? Maybe you only got to first base, but you grew together. You learn together. This is really essential. And in fact it's pretty good. Exhausting. If you're always just hanging out for the big wins. Cause sometimes you need a lot of small wins to get to the beach.

Sorry. If you want to celebrate growth, it's all about those learning moments [00:10:00] and share them for each other. And you know what. Celebrate your colleagues, growth and success before your own. And the key thing is to do it publicly. It's always best when it comes from a peer acknowledgement recognition is always best from those who are doing the work with you.

It means the world to them, and that's how you connect to a team. And that's how you create that winning team atmosphere. A fourth part of collaboration is learning. There's so much to learn, because look, think about it. If you're doing something that's worth doing, it's probably some unknowns. There's probably some stretch goals.

So Hey. We are all on a learning journey. Now, the important thing is you must put in the diary time to learn and you must learn to gather if you want to learn. Don't think it's just about you and the textbook and locking yourself in a room. Learn from others, get stimulation [00:11:00] inspiration from others. And remember this, the biggest insight of all was that we are all, both teachers and students.

So sometimes you're a student, even if you're the CEO. Sometimes you're a teacher, even if you're the youngest person on the team, because in the end of the day, we are all teachers. We are all students and we should be learning 24 hours a day, seven days a week is all about the rate of learning will bring you success.

Trust me. All right, this is the universe of collaboration. So let's just recap. Alignment, learning engagement connection are the four foundational activities of collaboration. So get everybody singing together, make sure that sometimes you're the teacher. Sometimes you're the student, embrace your colleagues and embrace their ideas to share the successes along the way.

And you will truly build a great team. And if you still feel like learning after all [00:12:00] that head of it to bottom-up dot IO, you're going to find a lot of free courses. They're all open source. You can learn design thinking, agile lane. So very much you can even get our trends report bottom-up dot AI. That's where you get pulled to fun and games.

All right. That's it for the bottom up skills podcast, that's a wrap.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance and we are finally here at trend number eight, the end of our deep dive into the 2021 emerging trends report. And. The subject of today's show is connection. So the context of this is that if we're going to collaborate together in a team, if we're going to get things done as a team, uh, it all comes down to connecting.

And we discovered in our emerging trends report that sharing success together builds team rapport, builds that connection. So let's dig into it. Celebrating success is really important. It plays a [00:01:00] significant role in how we feel as employees. Uh, so it determines a lot of our employee satisfaction, but also the fulfillment that we have in a team building a product.

So the act of commemorating achievement, forges, a connection between ourselves and the group, and it really serves as a strong validation purpose. Cause if you think about it, if we're all acknowledging our own individual, Progress our own individual success. If we're all celebrating the team's success, then together, that means we're all feeling pretty good about things.

So let's learn how we can create a sort of a flywheel effect with both personal and group success to build connection. So, as I said, we did this very wide range, emerging trends report. We spoke to over a hundred people. Different countries, different industries. And it was really interesting looking at this data.

We [00:02:00] asked them, which of the following activities is the most challenging for you business and trying to create connections with teammates. And there's a whole list. Is it creating transparency amongst each other, checking in with each other, recognizing each other, sharing success or onboarding new people.

And it's the sharing success to feel like you're part of something was the number one response hitting up at 40% of all respondents. So it's a very strong signal. So let's unpack that let's get into this and, and work out what is happening. I think when we are. Going out and building something that really matters.

So let's say it's a brand new product in a brand new area, or perhaps you're in an existing category doing something wildly different. Um, it really to build a team, you really have to invite everyone's contribution. And we talked about that a lot, you know, in terms of [00:03:00] engagement in the previous episode, which was one of our big trends.

So you need to open it up for everyone. And then, you know, obviously learning is a really key part of the process. And we've talked about that as well. And so if you're going about doing something new, there's going to be some unknowns, which means you're going to learn something new, which is great. And this is the cornerstone of the context of this insight.

And what you have to remember is that if learning is so damn essential, This is really a proxy for personal growth for team growth for business growth. Because if you're learning, it means you're doing new things. If you're doing new things, you're growing. And so growing together as a team, learning new skills, learning new technologies, new tools, new frameworks, new methodology, it's all part of this story of growth.

So if we want to build connection within a team, this is where sharing of success. Really plays a role [00:04:00] because success can be something, whether it's really big or really small, it can be personal or it can be something that's shared amongst the group. I think the key thing here when we talk about connection is that if we learning, if we're growing.

Celebrate that, because this is the moment when you see that you have learned a new thing, that's a win, that's a success. When you see that your peer learns something new, that's a win, that's another success, and you should be so keen, so enthusiastic to celebrate their success, set the example so that they will share.

Their personal goals, they will share when they make progress on them and you can celebrate them because it's that moment. Then you, when you say, well done, Bob, well done. Jane, when you say that this [00:05:00] forge is a connection between the two of you, because you're acknowledging them before your own success, before your own learning.

And this, this is almost like. Servant leadership, putting the success of those around you before your self. So when we talk about sharing success, it doesn't have to be the big multi-year multi-billion dollar deal. It can be, Hey, I learned a workaround for this bug. That's really been annoying me about the product and I fixed it.

Good on you. Hey, I learned how to improve conversion on our funnel. Good on you. And you know what? The more that you go out into the world and that you recognize the growth, the learning, the success of your colleagues, the more you do that, the more they'll recognize you. So we start getting into win-win territory here, everybody's winning.

And when everyone is [00:06:00] winning, when you're sharing those success, when you're celebrating that success, You'll find that if you help your colleagues and they achieve something, you will feel some wellbeing in that. And that's connection. That's empathy. That's understanding, Hey, we're growing as individuals, we're growing as a team, we're growing our product, we're growing our business and you know what.

That's a pretty good vibe. That's kind of somewhere. I want to work where it feels good to grow, to learn together, to celebrate the successes. You know, this is, you know, work, shouldn't be a labor. It shouldn't be all doom and gloom and obligation. It should be. Growth abundance opportunity and vibrant and celebrating those success amongst each other, again, to create those long lasting connections.

Right? Think about it in life, the best teams you've been on, you often still [00:07:00] have really good connection with those people. Maybe don't see them so much or chat so much, but when you do see each other, those feelings that shared success, that connection comes back pretty quickly. Doesn't it? So now let's go into another thing that we learned in our emerging trends report.

So we were really digging into this broad area of how we collaborate together. And specifically today, we're talking about this connection and I think we've established growth really important. So when you're building something, you've got to learn new things, and these are things that are wins when you learn those.

And you should share those bigger, small, personal shit. Okay. That's where we're at, but I got two more things for you to really bring home some learnings and insights around connection. One of the most powerful things you can do when you want to recognize your peer is know that peer recognition is the best.

[00:08:00] It is really the most powerful, in fact, it is in not only in our study, but also. Commonly understood that actually, when the boss gives recognition, it's kind of good when your peers right. When they give it, that's kind of great. And I think that's great because the team doing the work with you. So that's why it means the most.

They know what do you put into it to deserve that shared success, that personal growth, that team growth. So please recognize that. You should be actively celebrating the successes of your peers and your colleagues. And here's the big thing, do it publicly. Don't just say to them, Hey, well done. Take the opportunity to recognize the success, the growth, the achievements of others, big or small, personal, or shared.

Recognize them publicly, because if you do this, you're giving them like a secret fuel. You're giving [00:09:00] the capacity to believe in themselves, to believe in them team and to do their very best work. This is why sharing success, personal growth and learning. It's all coming together here. You can see how this whole universe of collaboration is interrelated.

So make sure. That you are sharing the success, make sure that you underpin a total embracing of learning as being a proxy for growth as something that is worth sharing, do that. And you'll bring everybody together and you'll create that, that sense of we're onto something. We really got something and I can guarantee you that team will go on to do great things.

So there you have it. This is our last, our eighth insight, our eighth trend from the 2021 trends report. It has been a huge piece of work [00:10:00] because not only did we tackle the world of technology, but we also tackled collaboration as well. And it's so great that we finish up this eighth trend on connection, the sharing of success, the sharing of personal growth and learning.

And Hey. If learning sounds like a great idea, then you should head to bottom up.io because this is our open source learning platform. You can learn all sorts of goodies there. We've got masterclasses, keynotes on design thinking, agile lean, and so very much more. So if you're a product person and you're trying to be the very best.

Version of yourself, then you should head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can learn all sorts of bite-size skills that will help you on your way to building something that's truly going to impact users, the communities that you work in. Maybe even put a dent into the world. All right. That's it for the bottom-up skills podcast, that's a wrap. [00:11:00]

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance, and we are continuing our deep dive into collaboration. And today we're putting the spotlight. On engagement. And if you really think about it, that couldn't be a better topic to be talking about. Then employee engagement, you know, getting our team alive, contributing, listening, learning, discussing.

Contributing to the product, you know, doing something that matters together, not sitting in silos. That's what we mean. When we talk about engagement and boy did we come across a really solid insight and here it is around engagement. If you want to have that thriving, vibrant culture, then the starting point for that [00:01:00] engagement is this everyone and their ideas.

Are welcome. Let's talk about that some more. So the context here is that nothing has killed employee engagement, like forcing everybody to work home for a really sustained period. It's like, come on. When will this end? And as the novelty wore off during quarantine in 2020, the new challenge sort of percolated up to product teams.

When they're, when they're thinking about working together, it's all about getting out of just doing. The essentials, just plodding along and coping with all of this change. It's all about finding out how we can ensure our teams. Our teammates are involved, contributing. They're vibrant. They're feeling satisfied and fulfilled by our work.

And that often comes to contributing and often comes through engagement. And if it's. Contributing to the product, to the product vision, or maybe the company's vision [00:02:00] itself, no matter where you channel that energy, the engagement is essential. If you really want to have a thriving environment. So let's dig into the data that we found from our trends report.

Now here's, what's really interesting. We were. Asking over a hundred survey, respondents and interviewees for all around the world. We said to them, which of the following activities is the most challenging for your business? When you're trying to align with teammates now, you know, a lot of them said actually creating professional and personal boundaries.

That's no problem setting clear goals and objectives. Take getting everyone together for a tricky conversation. No problem now what's interesting is that tricky conversation? I, Hey Houston, we have a problem. That's really interesting about that. It registered very low as a challenge when you're making a product and aligning with teammates, [00:03:00] but here's the big one.

This one got a lot of feedback. In answer to the question of like, okay, what is the biggest challenge when you're trying to align is getting people in engaged in the brainstorm and out of their inboxes. So you've all seen it, that people will be on calls, hardly contribute there. They're looking off to the side because actually they're in their inbox, cleaning stuff out, or maybe better still there on Facebook or what ever.

The point here is that you desk, you, you really want that contribution, particularly in a brainstorm because unlike the tricky conversation, I, cause that's really just reacting to a problem why it's so important to have contributions in brainstorms. As you can bring people into the present that you can really enjoy [00:04:00] sparking ideas  thinking about how might we, what if these kinds of really powerful questions and prompts and getting out of the drudgery of the day to day and exploring the potential of the tomorrow.

And what you'll find is that your colleagues are a wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and inspiration. If. Given the chance to engage properly. And this looks to me to be one of the biggest problems we're going to face in 2021, getting people, dusting them, all the cobwebs out and saying, come on, let's think together where we can entertain possibilities and new things.

So let's break this down and see how we might solve this as well. So, what we know is that 51% found getting people engaged is the most challenging practice in team alignment. Huge. If you benchmark that against all the other data in the pot, it's one of the strongest [00:05:00] signals that we got and the way we can unlock this is welcoming.

All people and all of their ideas, this needs to be a deliberate, purposeful, rigorous practice, because we all know that there are certain people in the team who are just not naturally going to speak up. And to be honest, between you and me, they're the ones that probably have the best ideas too. So you've got to go.

And hunt for those. So the first recommendation I have is how you in your role can make that happen. You need to serve your teammates. You need to ask yourself how you can help your colleague contribute. What conditions would they need to contribute? To provide insight, facts, data analysis, recommendations, whatever you need from them.

What do they [00:06:00] need to do that? Because remember, a lot of people are not like me. I'm a bit of a chatterbox, but some super wicked smart people can be sitting there and they could have great ideas, but they just don't feel comfortable contributing, ask yourself how you can make them comfortable in. Setting conditions that they actually would like to share.

So a great thing you can do here is always be the last to speak. Let, let your colleagues contribute. Now, if you are interested in this, this is what we call servant leadership. Just Google it. There is a ton of work written about how you can serve your teammates and your colleagues. I think this is the underlying recommendation, serve your teammates.

And then I want to come back to what I was saying. You are like. Show look. So you must go in search out contributions from everyone, not just the usual suspects. Who are confident talking in a group, you must go out and [00:07:00] get everyone, bring them to the conversation. Step one, to ask them for contribution, get contribution, come hell or high water.

However they need to give it. You want to get old people engaging because if you create a safety net where everybody feels comfortable to contribute, something starts to happen. All right, so let's just pause it there. So you have to ask yourself, how do I serve my teammates and you, then you, then you need to go out and be deliberate about getting their contribution, getting them in the room, number one and two, then getting their contribution.

So now what happens when you do that? The ideas, or perhaps they're just real facts, data, maybe do some analysis of the data, whatever it is, it could be the big idea. You want to make sure that your colleagues [00:08:00] challenge it, right. Improve it and then own it. This is what engagement looks like. Challenging ideas, improving ideas, and owning their ideas.

Let's talk about challenging him. We have to find a way, if you want employee engagement, if you want your teammates to be vibrant contributing, they have to be in the room. They have to be giving their thoughts. And when you give yours, give them license to challenge those ideas, because I can tell you not one single idea that I have when I sit by myself is nearly anywhere near as good as an idea that I share, because frankly.

All the super smart people that build challenge on my idea. They improve it. They make it better. They add more context. Maybe they sharpen it up. And here's the other thing. Once an idea is being challenged, maybe the facts of being challenged, maybe improve our understanding of the [00:09:00] facts. Then what happens because you've created this safe environment where these tough discussions can have happened.

Rigorous discussions can happen. Then here's what. The end result looks like even if the idea is not my idea. If I've born witness to an ID being challenged, improved, I can get on board with it. Even if. I don't agree with it because there was due process and Hey, you know, it's a numbers game maybe today.

It's my idea tomorrow to not, Oh, the other way around, but feels safe knowing that there is a fair, almost democratic way, the best ideas to rise to the top. This is what we call meritocracy. So unless you get this contribution from everyone, who's in the room, you'll never get, you'll never get the sort of engagement you're looking for.

Now let's end on a [00:10:00] positive. If you serve your teammates, get everyone in the room, make sure that they contribute, allow them to challenge ideas, improve ideas, and then own those particular ideas. Here's the biggest thing that happens. Your teammates will take overall. Ownership and accountability, not only for the performance of their work, but of the overall product or the overall business itself, because they feel like they had a chance to contribute, to participate.

So it feels like their business to some degree, it feels like they've had a hand in designing. The process and contributing to the destination and the best engaged teams will not only do their jobs, they'll look out for each other, they'll support each other, but they'll actually also look out for the business overall, even though someone might be only the head of HR, they'll [00:11:00] feel true responsibility for the entire business, not just the HR team.

And that's. Watch you want to create that's the upside of engagement to make sure everyone gets to contribute. All right. So that is. A little bit of thinking around employee engagement. It's one of the cornerstones of collaboration, which we have covered in real detail in our emerging trends report. And if you'd like to get a copy of that head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can do the emerging trends course, in fact, there are like, Over 16, 700 different courses, all free.

That will help you be better. Product person will give you the skills you need in 2022 months. All right, that's it for the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap. [00:12:00]

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance and we continue on our wonderful journey into our very recent hot off the press trends report. And today we're talking about learning and the, we discovered this really big insight. That, when we think about learning, we need to imagine that we are so not only students, but teachers as well.

Now the background to this is it feels like these days we're always confronting new and different questions and learning skills, particularly after a year of working from home. And this idea of upskilling has kind of moved from a once in a while. You know, something you might do once a year, once every half year.

And it's really. Transitioned into a continuous activity because [00:01:00] Hey, the world has changed so much. So it is natural that we need to learn a whole bunch of new things. So let's talk about how we can understand our teammates and how we can learn and grow together. How we can be both student and teacher.

Now the report that I'm referring to, it's our emerging trends report. You can get that at bottom-up dot IO. And the fascinating thing that we discovered is that 45% of the people that participated in the survey and in the interviews, I'm talking about over a hundred product experts, gurus. From all around the world, Europe, U S and Australia.

What we discovered is that 45% of them found that learning a new skill from Alice is the hardest thing. When we talk about learning and proving our skills. Now, if you look at the data, it is crazy to see how much this idea of learning a new skill from somebody else is the hardest thing versus [00:02:00] like researching case studies.

No problem. Rob role-play training. Yeah. That's pretty straightforward. Participating in a group reflections and group discussions. That's all easy. It's really, when it come, it becomes. Two people together going deep. And it was really interesting because here's what we discovered. Uh, the whole thing is that organizations have these, these gurus, these individuals have mastered particular part of the business.

I think it's fair to say that. You kind of can feel a little bit held hostage by these guys because they are the guru. And because the knowledge hasn't been captured, everybody's running to that person who is of this source to get the information. And this is highly inefficient with certainly no scalable.

And then it becomes a question of time. It's really fascinating to [00:03:00] see that this practical idea, this practical act of sitting together and learning together person, a training person, B. Is actually the hardest thing. It's way harder than something that I consider to be hard coaching and mentoring. It's way harder than getting a good group discussion.

It is going deep together at the same time in the same place. This came back really strongly. It was confirmed in the surveys and the interviews. It's fascinating to see that learning particularly the sharing and development of deep skills has become so hard and think about it. If your, a modern knowledge worker, chances are at least half, if not more of your day is being, uh, you know, dealing with zoom and Hangouts and, and teams and jumping from meeting to meeting to meeting.

So where heritage attention is so scarce, [00:04:00] we're trying to block out a few hours for ourselves to do our work, uh, and not just being meetings. So I think this is really, uh, at the heart of the context and the challenge that we face in learning. It's just hard to carve out that time and to talk together.

And to now, the reason why that's such a big deal issue is that there's so much to learn. Think about how much the world has changed in just 16, 18 months. Life was all fine. And then COVID happened in 2020 and the world has really dramatically changed. Some might even say accelerated. So this means that there is going to be a ton of new things to learn.

Think about it. Um, how to do multi-channel omni-channel direct to customer, uh, products. That's now not a nice to have it. We can't kind of do it in our own time. It's a constraint that is now mandatory and it has to be done because people can't go to stores or as we can [00:05:00] come out of COVID now in 2021, people kind of like the convenience of omni-channel direct to customer experiences.

So there's going to be a whole new job to do, to even get people back in the stores and to find a reason for shopping in person in a mall. So with all of that happening, uh, in the world of our users, there's no surprise that we need to learn a lot because if that's changed, we have to learn new techniques.

The same thing goes with employees. So on the backend, on the inside of the organization, all the employees are now working remote or hybrid working or working on different roster days. Everything's changed inside and outside of the company. So therefore lots and lots to learn. So the first insight that I have for you around what we can do, what action can we take is we can synchronize this learning time where we actually make it a mandatory [00:06:00] to come together to exchange knowledge, to share deep knowledge.

Tell me how I can do this. Show me how I can do this. And if you don't do that, it's simply it would from our report, it would seem, it is almost impossible to make happen. So this is the first kind of cornerstone to learning. There is you've got to understand that the volume. Of knowledge that we need to acquire now has increased.

You have to realize that time is scarce. So if you're not deliberate about putting that in the agenda, it just simply won't happen. Okay. I got a couple more thoughts to build on this that will help you understand this idea of teachers and students, and the fact that we're both. So naturally you need to make pointing scalable.

You can't have a single point of failure. You can't have just one person that knows or so your idea would be okay, let's go train the trainer. Now, the interesting thing here is training. The trainers means this, that if you step back, we are all teachers. And we are [00:07:00] all students or just, we go into different modes at different times.

This is the only sensible, scalable way to address this need of learning within the organization. You cannot have these choke points where Jane or bill. No, all there is to know about a certain thing. But if you can't talk to them, then you're stuffed. That cannot be the way we work. It's got to be smarter than that.

So the key thing to acknowledge is that we're all, we're all teachers and we're all students. So let me tell you this little story. We did an interview with the head of retail distribution at BCIS sta it's a large bank in Romania. And what they do is they have a process of learning where they actually vote on the topic and they then nominate somebody in the team to teach that topic.

So depending on the day, you might be a student or a teacher, depending on that day, you might be absorbing a new skill from one [00:08:00] of your colleagues, but here's the key thing. You have chosen, voted for participated in the choice of the, if you will, the curriculum. And so therefore you're much more ready to learn and understand.

And what was really interesting is a lot of people didn't see themselves as teachers. But what we learned from this case study is they actually discovered. Although it's a bit of a stretch goal that are a little bit uncomfortable, of course, who wouldn't be, but they actually learned that they could grow when they saw themselves as not only a student, but as a teacher, too.

So whilst trying to tackle organizational learning, there was the unintended benefit of not only making the team smarter, but also driving engagement because Hey, everyone got to choose co-create. The curriculum, the syllabus of what they were learning in the bank. So the engagement rocketed up within these teams.

So what we're talking about here [00:09:00] is that if we learn together, we get the chance to play both of these roles. We can share in our personal growth, which creates even more engagement and even more connection. And the strong advice that I have for you is to really process this idea of learning and know that it is something that you cannot.

Do as an option, it can not be once a year, twice a year. Learning has to become a continuous process within the organization. I would challenge you to say, are you doing it weekly or at least biweekly? I think monthly feels like you can't keep up with the world around us. So there you have it. When we talk about learning, the big insight is that we are now all teachers and students.

So be prepared to learn and be prepared to share your knowledge. Um, I've no doubt. You'll have a team, an organization that will thrive. Well, that's great stuff, right? [00:10:00] And that you can find much, much more about this idea of learning. In fact, there is eight trends in total, in our emerging trends report, and you can get that for free at bottom-up dot IO, where you can get a ton of free courses.

You can learn how to be a better product person. So head over to bottom-up dot IO and the world will be your ice state. All right. That's it for the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons, the CEO of Qualitance and we are entering into the second instalment. Of our trends report. We've studied the first to four tech trends, and now we're about to studying for collaboration trends together. And the key topic of today's episode is alignment.

How do we get everyone on the same page? Or what we learned is it's like, how do we get the band singing the same song? Now upon reflection is really interesting. Like I was expecting that the building part, the technology part of our trends report that we just completed. Well, tell us about all of the complexities and challenges of technology and it did, but here's the thing.

If that's all the [00:01:00] platforms and the tech, then the people stuff is equally as challenging. And we have got a lot of insights and a lot of best practices to share with you. So let's kick it off with alignment. Now here is one of the most interesting things from the entire report. Getting everyone on the same page was ranked almost twice as challenging as delivering the work.

Isn't that interesting. So if you think about, um, you know, getting people together, getting them on the same page, it's generally made up of, um, how we. Produce how we learn, how we connect and how we go. You get on the same page. These are all of the things that make up the bigger collaborations. Sorry.

What's fascinating is that this alignment, this getting everyone on the same page was almost twice as hard as the [00:02:00] doing of the work. So in terms of collaboration producing, like, Hey, let's build this thing together. Was actually way easier in the, what should we build together? Isn't that amazing? So this alignment thing is a real challenge and you know, the, the key thing, you know, that we would, uh, take from this trends report is that you have to work very deliberately on your.

Alignment as a team, you need to really understand and define first of all, and this is the first big insight that I have for you in order to succeed at alignment is you have to know what is. Our way of thinking and our way of working, this is almost always never, uh, written down. It's never taught. It's kind of spoken about at best, or it's just [00:03:00] kind of done and you're meant to kind of work it out on the fly if you're a new member of a team or a company.

So define your way of thinking, define your way of working. And that is the cornerstone to this, uh, uh, um, idea around alignment. If you want everyone singing the same song, everyone being on the same page, having the right attitudes, the right ways of thinking, then you need to understand and agree as a team of like, what are they, what is our way of thinking our way of working number one thing here for alignment, you need to know what those things are before we talk about how we get everyone to do it.

You need to know what they are. Now in going deep on this. I mean our trends report, we had a lot of people giving us feedback from all over the world and from many different industries. So this is really widespread. This challenge of alignment. One of the great things is we found that there were some really good [00:04:00] practices, um, that you can can start with the first one.

Is if you want alignment and you know, your way of thinking and working, then you need to use daily stand-ups daily scrums as a way of reinforcing how we think, how we work daily, daily, daily, daily critical is really, really critical. Because this is the chance to increase the calibration, increase the understanding.

Maybe sometimes unusual challenges come up, which become a chance to explore. How do we think about that? How are we going to work on that? And that needs to be reinforced daily. Unfortunately, I know this is going to sound like hard work and it is, but you've got to do it daily. This is how you reinforce the way of thinking and working, which is alignment.

Getting everyone on the same page. Now, the next thing is. You need. [00:05:00] So if that's the sort of daily reinforcement, you know, the talking about reminding and communicating how we think and how we work, the next thing is you need to guide people in your teams on how they can get aligned with the way of thinking and working within the team within the wider organization.

Here. I want to give a really big call-out, um, to a great partner of ours at ING Romania. It's overdue, Slavonia he's head of marketing and customer experience banking, uh, for business clients all over ING Romania. And he had this really great metaphor that it's like a band when we talk about alignment.

So he. Uh, gave us this great insight that we all need to think, like band leaders were the front man, and you need to invite your teammates to come join the band, play alone, and you might start, you know, imagine you're up there with the lead guitar or you're on [00:06:00] vocals. You might like get everybody going, but here's the key thing.

Once you kind of bring people together as the band leader. What you should do is over time, you sort of drift a little bit into the background and then you can maybe not play quite as much. And then over time, let the band take the song in the direction that they want to take it. So it's this idea of you guide them, but then you're able to reinforce on those daily scrums in stand-ups, but actually.

The key thing is if you want alignment, they need to actually not only think, but do in the way of thinking and working, they need to celebrate right. How you operate as a team. What, what is your purpose? All of that should be reflected not only in the leader, but they should make room for others. So it's got a little bit of a servant leadership, uh, notion to it here.

So [00:07:00] I just want to bring this back. This alignment challenge cannot be. Uh, underestimated. Because what happens is it's proving to be one of the single greatest challenges. It's far harder than actually like building stuff. It's like, what are we going to do is like much trickier than, okay. Let's build now.

So this is often why. We see products get built that are not right, because there wasn't alignment at the start of the project. We weren't agreeing on our purpose, how we think and how we work. So this is particularly challenging, particularly challenging for teams. Now, without a doubt, what we have seen as a pattern in some of our interviews for the trends report is that we did see that obviously COVID has made this alignment.

Harder it's tricky because sometimes we can leave people out unknowingly. Um, it's really hard, you know, you don't have everybody in the same room, so you can just say right everyone into the war room. [00:08:00] So alignment. It does become trickier. That's why our first recommendation is to know, define, celebrate your way of thinking your way of working and bring it back daily in your scrums, in your stand-ups in your status calls, make sure you bring it back.

And when it comes to really getting things done, Make sure you think of yourself as that band leader, as we learnt from overdue, make sure that you get the band going, but then actively take a little bit of a backseat. Let them take the song that then play, let them make it their own, because that has a lot of benefits beyond alignment.

You see autonomy and ownership will come out of that. And when people are doing that, they will feel like they are thriving in your team, in your business. Okay. Now, if you want to thrive when you're building products and services, if you're struggling with tech and some of the trends [00:09:00] that we saw in our recent trends report, head over to bottom-up dot IO there, are you going to find all the answers we've got master classes on everything from lane agile, design thinking rapid prototyping.

We opened it up. It's all open source. It's free for you to use. It's a bottom-up dot IO. And hopefully today you've got yourself really equipped to go out and be that band leader to align the team, get them singing the same song. All right. That's it for the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons in this I'm the CEO of Qualitance and we continue without tech trends. That's right. And we are going to talk about low code. Maybe no code. Uh, but you got it. We are talking about the big technology that is clearly everyone's favorite. It was really quite unanimous.

Uh, When we did our recent emerging trends report to find how many people are considering low code. So it really deserves our attention. In this episode, let's get into the world of no code and low code and unpack why this is such a big deal for companies that are looking to build new products and services.

So, as I said, we were doing our emerging trends report recently. [00:01:00] And if you haven't checked that out, just head over to bottom-up dot IO, it's all free. You can go there, download it and enjoy the full report. But today we're just jumping into the idea of no code and it was amazing. 26% of the respondents that did this global survey over a hundred people participated.

They ranked no-code as the highest short term priority, 26%, one single tech. And that was the choice. And it's really fascinating because when you look at the others, you know, in th in the second place was. Cloud-first solutions, which is pretty, pretty natural, but, you know, for example, AR VR, uh, digital health, all of those way back in the pack compared to no-code solutions.

So let's dig into this and ask ourselves, why is no code so popular and how might we leverage it? Without a [00:02:00] doubt. The promise of no code really comes in the fact that when you're launching a new product or service, or even managing a new product, the effort that it takes for business and design folks to get things happening in the technology, in the application, the software and the data in the UX, it's usually a huge effort.

And what the promise of no code is, is to make that process faster and easier and effectively. What it means is that people who do not have engineering technology skills, who are not developers are able to get products to market a lot quicker and to be more continuous and adaptive as the product is launched.

And you start to learn what customers are liking. So this is the promise of it. And without a doubt, it really is transformative because we know how hard it is to find developers it's even harder to find good developers. [00:03:00] So we're really looking at, um, a solution that really speaks to the deficiency of skills in the overall workplace.

There's just not enough good software engineers. So. It's about this speed. It's a, that's achieved through having a less effort, less blockers to get to launch. But I think it's also equally about the agility to be more in line with continuous development, best practices. So if it's less effort goes faster, I mean, it all just sounds so good, doesn't it?

But I think what was interesting about the report is that we actually had a few insights. That put this into context and give us a sense of what we need to do in order to use no code solutions successfully. Now I think the first and most important thing is that we need what we call in the, in the business world, the configurator, um, persona archetype.

So differently. These are people [00:04:00] who might resemble business analysts are super sharp at understanding the business, the rules, the logic of the business, who are able to then also understand the customer. That's quite a rare role. I mean, these would be almost product owners. If you will. And the reason that these roles are really important is that if you're going to go no code or low code, what happens is a lot of the due process between, uh, designers, uh, business, people and engineering, uh, where there are checks and balances, you create user stories and you do all those sort of things.

They can be bypassed in a no-code solution. You can jump straight into the backend and start. Drag and dropping things around, but the question is who's going to do that work. And it's this idea of a configurator, someone who can really drive the dashboard, the admin, who really understands all of the rules that you have, because not only will you [00:05:00] be dragging and dropping changes in the process, the very best no code solutions, um, have an instant deployment mechanic, meaning when you drag drop and save.

That one is going live immediately. So you need to make sure that it's done correctly. Now in speaking to Jaco, FOC at ONB Pedrom, he had this great expert advice. He said, you have to engage and mobilize citizen developers within your company because they will lead the way they will be these configurators.

And they are the people who are really to understand the systems. From a business logic perspective, they're going to understand all of the implications of thinking, doing a new features, updates, and services tweaks to your product. But they're also going to have the background, the history as to what has worked and what hasn't.

[00:06:00] So. Yes, there is this promise of moving with much more agility, which is very central to the theme of how to work in this modern age of digital transformation. But you need to actually make sure that you don't, uh, Have a skills deficiency in another area. If you're trying to skip over the lack of engineers, you're going to need these citizen developers.

You're going to need these configurators who are really driving the business. So you need to make sure you develop those skills. Now there's another big, uh, learning that we had, which is when you want to go to a low code or no code environment, one of the very important, uh, paradigms. Is to understand, truly understand the business rules, the logic and the flows that work with inside of your product.

Now, what is exposed when you have a no code, [00:07:00] uh, set up is you need to actually. Install and configure the application to respect your business rules, your business logic. And what I often find is that that is easily said. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got this, we've got all our business rules, but I cannot tell you after decades of doing new products and services, when you say, okay, give me.

The, um, overall systems architecture of your entire business stack. So I can understand where this new product is going to say, give me all for this particular product. I want all of the offline business rules, uh, logic and processes, uh, all the Gates that it needs to go through. All of the dependencies, the human flows, the automation flows.

I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen. It is rare that an organization is able to provide me with all of those things. This is assuming that they're all sitting there saying, yes, we need to build something new. Let's talk to Mike and [00:08:00] his team. And then we asked for this and they don't have them. You know, usually they have half of them do Thurs, but working.

Honor the system rather than just in the system is actually a far greater challenge. And if you're going to employ no code and get the most out of it, here's the catch is you need to understand those business rules in those business logics in order to apply that otherwise you can't drag and drop. You can't operate no code because there's no underlying rules for which it is going to operate.

And the last thought here. Is, this is the perfect time to ask yourself, well, rather than just copy and duplicate what we're doing offline or what's in our existing digital system, let's take this new opportunity that NOCO presents to ask ourselves what would be the best. Approach to our business rules and our best business logic.

How might we reduce complexity? Not only for [00:09:00] our customers, but our employees too. How might we take our learnings from all the data we're getting back on the product today? So we can build a better product tomorrow. So no code a huge promise. Very exciting. Uh, agility speed. I mean, this is, uh, the key formula for success, uh, in digital transformation.

However, you need to make sure that you truly study and optimize your business rules and your business logic. And talking about building great products. There's one place in the world that you can go where you get a bunch of free masterclasses and that's bottom up.io. That's right. We've made all of our internal and client courses totally free to everyone.

So you can learn design thinking, agile lean there's a ton and ton of courses. I think we're almost at 20 courses, absolutely free for everybody. So hit us up at bottom-up. Dot IO. Okay. So that's it for our [00:10:00] study of no code solutions. It's top of the list. If you study no code solutions, if you go to bottom-up do-now, you'll be the top of the class too.

Okay. That's it for the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons, the CEO of Qualitance and we are getting deep into. The individual trends that all came out of our trends report. This is the third trend, and it's all about the single source of truth. And for those of you who are new to the world of a single source of truth idea, it's essential.

It's really simple. It's essentially. One place one destination, which has all the information for a product. Be it tech, the it design be the business rules that drive it. It's all there in one place. Now we might often use tools like confluence and JIRA, or maybe Simplicit, it might be like a [00:01:00] great, uh, Word document that has everything in it doesn't have to be too flashy.

It can be quite simple, but if you're working in a larger product organization, you'll find the need to have pretty robust tool as a single source of truth. And what we've discovered is that, Hey, This single source of truth idea is essential to get everybody on the same page, but it's actually comes with a few challenges.

So the fun really starts when you start not only getting people to the two, but then you start asking questions about what they find. There is everything they need to go on with their project. Is it there? Is it adequate in order for them to be autonomous? And the answer is it's red, that the entire package is delivered.

So let's dive into the world of a single source of truth. It was quite interesting, uh, for this part of the report, it was a very strong message. [00:02:00] We asked over a hundred product and business experts around the world, which of the following activities is the most challenging for your business when trying to produce work with teammates.

So right now we're in that sort of producing mode, not so much learning, it's more about the producing. We've got to make a thing. And what was really interesting is. We asked all sorts of, uh, different, uh, activities to right. The one that was the easiest is making an inventory of the worker to be done. So, you know, you've got your to do you know what your individual role is now interesting when you compare how big an issue, finding the critical information for a product or a new service?

A single source of truth said different. This was over 30% of respondents. Nominated. This is the hardest thing about producing work. It is more than double the next option and it is I'm looking at it right now. And I [00:03:00] think it's like 10 times, uh, an issue than that, of making an inventory. So this is a big issue, so let's, let's break it down.

And then there's, there's really two key concepts. We discovered the report that make up this single source of truth idea. The first of which, now it's again saying sound insanely easy, and you got to be thinking, Mike, that's so simple, but actually it's not. And I've got a reason why the first concept is access to this single source of truth.

The problem with the access thing is a lot of organizations have geared if they have a single source of truth. They've gained their access to everyone being in the office. So here's the thing. A lot more people are working from home and significantly we've found. And it would suggest in the data that I think it is unlikely to go back to five days a week in the office.

I think everybody has found the flexibility and the time-saving quite good. That being said, I think everybody does [00:04:00] want to have a little bit more social interaction. So it's not going to be five days a week from home, but it's certainly going to be a hard hybrid way of working. So access is actually a little bit harder.

It might be simply the VAP VPN can't handle the load of users, or maybe it's that the product is, is geared for our local area network, whatever the issue is. Access to the single source of truth is actually really fundamentally important. So making a work from home, mobile friendly access to your single source of truth, I mean, that is your to-do list already.

And we haven't even got to the big, the big bit yet. Okay. So that's access. But as I said earlier, that the fun and games kind of really start to happen here. When we think about the idea of quality. And when you think of a single source of truth, the quality of it is really judged by whether [00:05:00] someone can go to your internet, your, your JIRA, your confluence, your Google docs, and can they find all the information there?

So a good test is if somebody is working from home and let's say, it's an unusual time, let's say it's, I don't know, six in the morning, and they're already standing to work. We know the thing is. A great single source of truth, right. With all the critical information would be. So well-managed that, that person could good.

Come on at six in the morning. They're a little espresso coffee next to them. Yeah. They could log in and find all the information they need to continue with their work. That's good. Here's what's bad. Let's assume they got access, but they get there and. Not everything has been saved to the repository. Not everything is in the single source of truth.

So what do they do? The crime of all crimes? They send an email. Yeah. They send an email. And the problem with that is, first of all, it creates more [00:06:00] email traffic to, they can't continue with their work. And three, what could have been posted once properly to the single source of the truth now? In the future, this person is emailing and sending it to all sorts of different people.

But then what happens is if you ask about the quality of this, what happens when there's version control, and then they forget to share the updated version with everyone via email, and you can start to see how things unravel. Pretty quickly when we talk about single source of truth. So my strong advice to you, what we learned is that it really comes down to attention to not only the access, but the quality of your single source of truth.

We have a saying, um, in our company at quad tense, then if it's not in the single source of truth, then it didn't happen. So if it's not there, if it's not self-service, then it doesn't exist. And it's really takes a lot of time to [00:07:00] get people into that space, but we must as a rule live and die by that single source of truth.

Great access, great quality. And you might be thinking, Oh geez, Mike, it sounds like a lot of work or the good news is I've given, I'm able to give you some incentive. And that incentive comes in the form of, we found out from some of the successful projects, uh, from some of the respondents to our survey, is that there's some things you can do.

And there's some, um, most important thing is that when you have great access and quality to a single source of truth, two things happen. One. You're able to provide a better customer experience. And number two, your employees behave with more autonomy. They take more ownership, they feel empowered. They have the information that they need.

To continue their work. So let's [00:08:00] unpack each of these better customer experience. We found that BCI ouster, one of the leading banks in Romania were able to give better advisory advice to their customers because no matter what touchpoint. They engage with the customer, no matter who had that engagement, they have centralized a single source of truth for all customer experience.

So you can avoid that terrible situation where you talk to the bank yesterday, you call them back the next day you talk to a different person and you have to explain the tire thing again. You don't have to do that with them. So when you remove all of that friction, when you have all of the information, the person.

The assistant from BCA sta when they're there, they're able to get down to the business of giving good advice. There's none of this time. Okay, please. Re-explain to everything you already told my colleague yesterday. No, they have all the information to make it better recommendation to the customer. [00:09:00] They can give better vice to the customer, more insight into the customer.

The other thing that we found from talking to people all around the world, is that a good single source of truth, great access, great quality leads to more employee autonomy, because as I said, they got what they need. They can get on with the business that they're there to do. And it's the removal of these pains really opens up the opportunity for good things to happen.

So. Single source of truth, not the most sexiest topic, but it's critical. In fact, it was a massive signal in the report. It's a really big issue and far bigger than other related work production challenges like agreeing priorities, making a list of all that stuff. No problem. Compared to single source of truth.

Where's the information. Make sure you have. Not only the access, but you provide the quality to your team and you'll get better customer experience. And in the long run, more autonomy from your [00:10:00] team members and employees. All right. Product to owners. That is the end of this trend. Single source of truth. I hope you've enjoyed it.

If the answer is yes, hit bottom up.io, get a bunch of our free courses, design thinking, lean agile, you name it. It's all there. And remember this that if you work hard, On learning these new skills, not only will you be able to build better products, but you'll be able to help your colleagues too. All right.

That's a wrap of the bottom-up skills podcast.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I'm Mike Parsons, the CEO of Qualitance. And I want to welcome you to our hundredth episode. Woo. And it is the appropriate that we are discussing our trends report, which we have just released. And the previous episodes, you would have heard a little bit about that, but today we're talking about a huge insight and it is about the implementation.

With new technology into your stack, into your solutions architecture that drives the production, the creation of your new digital product. Maybe it's some software, maybe it's a mobile app. We're talking about how we tackle this crazy difficult issue of implementing new technology. Now to remind you, we went and talked to a lot of people [00:01:00] over a hundred people all around the world, all sorts of product and business experts about the challenges they face with digital products, and simply put the act of bringing outside technology inside the company is the single biggest technology challenge.

It must be said that there are quite a few challenges with technology, but this was the big one, but it's not all doom and gloom because what we also discovered. Is that leadership plays a real key in actually the successful adoption of new technology. So let's jump into our next trend, uh, from our emerging trends report, let's get into implementation.

Now, the curious thing about implementation is we found it was really, really hard, but it has some good company. We also found that the next biggest two challenges was aligning. The organization around a technology technology [00:02:00] solution and making sure that it actually speaks to the goals of the business and not far behind it researching potential technology solutions.

Ain't that easy. But I think if we zoom out here, obviously whenever you're considering something new, You're in sort of foreign territory. You're not really sure. And, uh, the thing that struck me having done so much customer research in my time is that there was just an overall sense of when people were ranking the difficulties, everything kind of came in pretty hard and there was no clear part of the technology adoption process.

That was really easy when compared to the others. So let's talk about why it's so hard. And another thing that we discovered from our report is that. You've got the challenge with a particular technology in itself. So let's just isolate it. You've drawn up a long list of potential [00:03:00] technology solutions for whatever you need to do.

And we discovered that, you know, there's a pretty strong and clear, consistent line from that consideration to choice implementation and then support. Everybody seemed very clear on that. But here is where implementation gets really hard. Yes. There are challenges with every new technology, particularly if it's a pretty emergent, but far greater is the fact.

And this is the big bit is where it becomes part of a larger system inside of the organization. It becomes another product, another platform in the overall solution. Or technology stack. And this is where the complexity is organizations before they know it. They look around and they look at the tech department and they're supporting 10, 12 different technologies.

If you're in banking or finance many, many more, and it's all [00:04:00] glued together. And it's that gluing together does something. It creates interdependency between systems and a lot of, uh, I'm I'm almost going to say they're almost like bandaid fixes get made on this fragile collection, this fragile stack, uh, of technology.

It's all glued together over years and years and years people come and people go and this leads. To the next insight we have from the report around implementation is that the complexity is not only the platform alone, it's the platforms, but it's not just this whole concept of platforms, it's platforms and people.

This is where the real challenges, because what's really fascinating is when you look at the people side of things, getting people like really aligned on the technology people. Finding people that have the skills to design new [00:05:00] solution, architectures really hard, really scarce person to find, making sure that the engineering, the web services, the API APIs and so forth are all integrated in a scalable way, documented way.

This. Is where the challenge really is. There's not only lots of platforms and products all glued together. It's the people that run them. And here's the thing. If you're a designer, developer, creator, engineer, business leader, you come along to your engine and technology team and say, let's do something. I think new and boy, they look at you and go.

Oh, no. And the reason that they're like, Oh, no is because they've built. All of these products and platforms and glued them together in a very sort of precarious stack and it, and it just works. Okay. It's, it's actually working right now. And then you say, let's add something new [00:06:00] and they're like, Oh my gosh, I don't know how to do that.

We'd have to undo a couple of things. Is it going to create some issues? We don't have the people, the bandwidth, the resources, this ladies and gentlemen, this is why implementation is so hard. Because it's not only what you have and keeping that going. As soon as you introduce something new, it reveals deficiencies in the stack in that system, in that multi-platforms, that you've glued together.

This could be gluing, ERP, CRM, CMS, all together, all these sorts of things have been glued together. So you've got very unusual, unexpected relationships between data, applications and interfaces. Oh, my gosh. It is. It's really tough. And then when you want to add something new on that, it's always like, we don't know exactly what's going to happen when we add a whole new product platform or even sometimes just new features can be quite a drama to entertain.

Now don't worry. [00:07:00] There's some light here in the tunnel. And one of the interesting things is that we found that the reality is you will constantly need. To at least entertain new technologies, new products and platforms in order to build out your offering. Particularly as you know, you've got employees that want to work from home.

You've got customers who want omni-channel direct to customer experiences. You're going to have to entertain the new. So here's the thing. We found some successful case studies and it comes down to this simple idea that. This is one of those rare occasions that actually tucked down as essential. If you want to bring a new technology into your organization in order to enable a new product or service, be that for an employee or a customer, it is crucial that leadership truly gets on board.

And that is far beyond just saying, Hey yeah, good idea. Go do it. [00:08:00] There was a very strong case for that. If you want to unblock all those challenges you will have inside the organization, leadership must be all in and they must support throughout the strategy phase, right through, into execution and support because if the leadership of the company doesn't come in and mobilize and open up opportunity, engage the organization, convince people in the organization about the vision behind this new technology.

It will die. So remember that bringing a new technology from the outside, in get top leadership involved and they need to be ready to go the whole journey, the entire ride with you as a product owner, you need to get that support because you won't survive without it because organizations have so many priorities so much to do.

And really when you say, Hey, let's, let's bring in a new technology. [00:09:00] You're really just saying, I want to bring more drama to the technology team who are already dealing with all the challenges on the platforms and the people. So this is essential and it's really important that you understand that tech skills are very rare.

So when you do ask for something new, Make sure that you've got the skills internally to handle it. And you know, the other interesting thing here is keep in mind that very few organizations are retroactively going back and cleaning up their technology, stack, cleaning up their systems, because if it's not broken.

There is no urgency to go and invest into something that is already working. You're only, you know, perceived to be right juicing the, the ongoing returns from the project. So remember that there's often quiet the complexity and drama [00:10:00] in the platform. Everything's a little bit band-aided together, but you can overcome all of these things.

If you go and engage leadership and get them along. For the ride. Now, if you have enjoyed this insight around technology implementation, you can head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can get an entire masterclass dedicated to our merging trends report. And they're a bottom-up, you're going to learn design thinking, agile lean, and so much more so super free.

There's lots of decks, videos, templates, you name it. And it's all about us helping you being a better product person. So they have from the bottom up skills podcast that Sarek.

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Hello and welcome to the BottomUp skills podcast, I'm Mike Parsons, the CEO of Qualitance. And today we're talking about. User experience. That's right. This is the first of our eight trends from our emerging trends, report and masterclass. And when it comes to user experience, there's one thought that rises above all the others.

When you talk to experts in product all around the world, just like we did. In fact, we talked to over a hundred of them. We said, what's the biggest challenge when it comes to user experience, is it providing a chat app or is it device compatibility or error handling? That's not it the real thing that keeps everybody up at night when they're trying to build a great product.

What's the key thing that they [00:01:00] have to deliver here. It is. The key thought when you're building a product and you're thinking about UX, consistency is key. So when we build an end to end experience for our users, it has to be. Consistent right from onboarding and what you see in the app store ride through to that very first user account initiation, right through to using the core products and services to support, to advocacy.

You have to follow the entire journey and it ain't easy. In fact, almost 30% of the people we talked to said, Hey, UX is their number one challenge when building a product. Now, the thing that I noted about this is if we had done this report five, six, seven years ago, do you know the interesting thing would have been, is the report would have [00:02:00] been inverted.

It actually would have been a lot more about device compatibility, making websites work on mobile phones. Um, But it's really fascinating to see now that the product journeys are longer, deeper and richer, but also those journeys are happening over so many different touchpoints. Just think about the difference between your laptop, your tablet.

Your phone, your television, your watch interface. So I have seven for laps that deliver me native experiences on all those platforms that I just mentioned. Let's say Spotify, Netflix to do list and testicle calendar, et cetera, et cetera. They have to try and create consistent on that. Well, that is the crunch.

So, you know, how do, how do we think about this and how might we find a solution here? Well, it's [00:03:00] fascinating because I think what we have to do is we have to use. A couple of really simple models just to know where we are. So if you want to understand your consistency of user experience, there's a really good model that I find myself coming back to, which is called the basic UX framework.

And it's just five questions. And what I want you to imagine, I'm going to ask, I read out these five questions and what you're going to do is I want you to really. Think about each of these questions for the products that you work on. And if you're not working on a product right now, just think about a product you use a lot and ask these questions of that product.

Okay. These are the basic UX framework and I love them because they will help you determine how consistent your user experience really is. Here we go. Number one is the application aesthetically pleasing. Number [00:04:00] two. Can everybody use it? Number three, does the application make life easier for, is it easy to learn?

Five, do use established design. Patents, some really, really good ones there. So let's, let's explore those for a second. Now for me, aesthetically pleasing, uh, generally means like turn down the noise, um, having really elegant color palettes, but also using color appropriately. To suggest priority to suggest flow within the app.

That's when it's really aesthetically pleasing. Of course, it's got to be nice to look at, but it needs to be smarter than that. You know, those colors need to be put to good use. Obviously beautiful type Paul graphy. I like the idea of spacing, like an app [00:05:00] feeling calm and spacious, not all jumbled up. So that's my thoughts on aesthetically pleasing.

I have to be careful here cause I have so many ideas that I'll, I'll go on and on and on and let's go to the next one. Can everyone use it now? The key thing here is, um, can everyone use it? I like to think of the different modes that people work in. So if my user has an at home or at work mode, that's a good way of thinking.

Can they use it? Um, another way of thinking is if you've got a marketplace, say like Uber, you have a rider and a driver, make sure you test both. Or if you're Airbnb. Can a guest in a host use it. That's kind of everyone. So it's very important for a two-sided marketplace because Hey, if only one side of the market can really use the app and it's terrible for the other side of the market.

Well, you haven't been like an economic imbalance as a result of that. So I've given you some thoughts on aesthetically pleasing. [00:06:00] Can everyone use it, like make it democratic, be careful here. Like you can fall victim to trying to solve every edge case as well. But I would look for those fundamental principles of the main segments of users, the main different types of personas you have.

There's a great way to deliver on the question. Can everyone use it now? The third one does lie. Does the application make life easier? I find there's some great ways to test this. Like. Just tell users they have to pay for it. That will soon tell you if it's making a difference in their life. Um, for testers, when you take it away, do they like say, Oh my gosh, no, don't take it away because those are ultimate indicators of making life easier.

If you wanted to get a proxy measure for making life easier, I think you could try the net promoter score. How likely would they be to recommend this? Um, and I would actually just, [00:07:00] um, get as close to your users as possible here. Maybe do some user interviews, record some journeys, see where they click, how they click, um, see if the effort reward equation is working out.

So that's user experience. Is it easy to learn? Well, there's some interesting thoughts here. I would actually. I would actually sort of say, if you need an elaborate, um, introduction, an onboarding into your app, where you have all sorts of. Explanations of what things do in the interface and so forth. I think that might be a little bit of a tell, um, that if the interface doesn't speak for itself, if it's not so intuitive that it doesn't need a manual of sorts, then that might be a signal to you that it's not that easy to learn.

[00:08:00] Now, another thing that you could do here. Beyond user interviews is look at the data. So if you have an events based analytics tool like Mixpanel, um, you could establish where journeys break, uh, where people are falling off. And those would be indications, particularly if you could segment your first time users, um, you could see.

Just how they are, how far they're getting in the journey. If you have a lot of abandonment through the journey, if you have a lot of, uh, attrition of users like deleting your app, if it's a native app, those are all indicators that it might not be so easy to learn. I was looking today at a product that we've launched and looking at average engagement time per session.

It was interesting because, um, you know, When you get into that and roughly mobile apps, decent [00:09:00] mobile apps you want to be at about the four or five minute per session. Obviously some apps are a bit quicker. If they're more utilitarian. If it's gaming, gosh, the numbers were really high. But the interesting thing is to see how many users come back a second time is that's going to be a proxy for some sort of sense of, Hey, it was pretty easy to learn how to use them back again to have a go.

Um, so that's some thinking on how you can answer the question. Is it easy to learn when in doubt, just put it in the hands of a user, ask them to complete a task, and that will pretty soon tell you if it's easy to learn or not. Now the last one here is like, okay, do we use established design patents? Now?

It's really interesting here that. A different way of saying that, um, is that design patterns are like, um, sometimes they're enforced, but other times design patterns are just defacto standards of, [00:10:00] um, uh, where you expect to find things on your app. So what you'll see is without doubt, Android and iOS, um, has very distinct.

Design patents. Um, and, um, it's really interesting because, you know, um, when you look at these different apps, things are meant to be in a certain place like the back button and the menu button has to be some of the most basic things that need to be. Where you would guess them to be if you've never used the app, that's a great test to see if you're adhering to design patent.

And if you're a little bit thinking who might, this is a little bit abstract, I would go and have a look at where everything is on your mobile phone. Have a look at apps and you'll [00:11:00] start to see that the consistent use of color. The consistent use of navigation for back menu, et cetera. How things call upon the share function within your mobile device?

These are all done to defacto standards, ways that are pretty similar throughout all apps that creates familiarity comfort from the user's perspective. So this is it. Five big questions to see if you can tackle the biggest challenge. On the front end, that is, which is all about building a consistent product experience.

The other thing that we learned, um, is that one company had consolidated all of their design patterns and design libraries centrally, and they made a one employee. End to end responsible for their banking app in terms of UX. So they own the entire intent UX experience. And this was a really successful way of [00:12:00] meeting the challenge of consistency.

So there you have it. Consistency is key. Isn't it just such a powerful thought. And if you've had to build a serious product in your life, you'll really feel the size of this challenge. As you tie together, different platforms, different web services. On the front end for customers on the back end for employees, like it starts to get pretty big.

You might be having some web services. Uh, you can, I've had apps that have had up to 15 different web services. So it starts to get pretty complex. But the answer to all of this can be found at bottom-up dot IO. Isn't that great. In fact, What we're talking about today is just one of eight trends that we discovered in our emerging trends report.

And you can get the entire report and you can download it. You get the whole deck, everything you get video, it's all at bottom-up dot IO, where you can get it all for free. When you can learn [00:13:00] about a lot of other stuff as well. Like. Design thinking and agile, and I hope that all of these come together to be vital tools in your product tool belt.

I hope that you can use this thinking about your ex consistency to go out into the world and to build products that matter. All right. That's it for the bottom-up skills podcast that's around.

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Hello, welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of quality Qualitance. And today we're going to talk about emerging trends. In fact, today is the start of an entirely new series talking. In depth about emerging trends for 2021. And boy, I mean, the reason we really needed to do an emerging trends report was it just feels like things are changing so quick.

And I know you're thinking, yeah, we say that every year, Mike, but I really did feel after 2020 kind of a year to forget in many respects, it really felt that we needed to get the pulse of what's happening. So I'm so delighted to share with you an eight part series. In fact, I [00:01:00] think I'm going to go further than eight.

I'm going to go nine or 10 episodes where we're going to go really deep into the trends. That are happening in the tech design product world. Um, and this will help us work out what's happening. This will help us if we know what's happening, we'll know what to do. And that's really the whole aim of bottom-up is to bring to you a podcast that really highlights to you.

Sort of a snapshot of what's happening in the world with product, how to think about it and how to take action. And today we're going to start with the big picture and obviously the way we kind of orientate ourselves here is understanding kind of where things are at and we're going to stop blowing them up.

So, uh, you will enjoy that, but here's the other important thing I'm going to. Touch upon not only technology trends, but also collaboration [00:02:00] trends. And this is really new for us because we've been doing this trends report for five years now. And this is the first time that we've had a collaboration section to this report.

And we really felt that if you want to build great product with great technology, you need to understand how to collaborate, how to work together, how to get everyone on the same page. So that's why we have both trends in the technology world and in the collaboration world. So let's start by kind of trying to grab the moment the here and now the present.

And I would propose to you that having studied the responses of over a hundred people from all around the world, experts, product people, entrepreneurs, you name it. There was a really big starting point to which everybody had the same experience. It didn't matter what industry, what role. What geography.

[00:03:00] And that is what I call the complexity conundrum. The reality is no matter whether you're a startup scale up or enterprise. Everybody is facing a level of complexity, which is really unheard of. And we were able to kind of grab this moment, the here and now that is really, there's a lot of complexities and interdependencies.

When we're trying to launch new products, trying to do a big upgrade to an existing product. It really is a question of sorting through the complexity and it comes from everywhere. It's like data insights, you know, analytics, uh, customer feedback, you know, stakeholder management. There's just a lot of things happening when we talk about the big trends of how we build brand new products that truly make a difference in the world.

So this complexity conundrum is. The starting point. It's the complexity engine that you [00:04:00] experienced when someone says, Hey, let's do something new and you instantly have this. This feeling, Oh, a new product or a new feature on a product. And you're like, Oh, that means we're going to have to do all this stuff with, uh, customers.

Then those we're gonna have to change the marketing. Then we're going to have to work out what customers want. We have to do the UX and the wire frames. And we got to look at the data and make sure that that matches to the qual. So we got a quote-unquote match. Oh. And then we have to like, think about the integrations that we have.

What do we need to update? In our analytics, is it mix panel? Is it Google analytics? Oh, by the way, then there's other content that we need. Then we need to do business process design. You kind of get where I'm going. I could go on, but you kind of get the, the sort of complexity that if you're a product owner, that's really all landing at you.

So for this, uh, trends report, we really wanted to capture where we're at, but also bring a message of, Hey, don't worry. It's okay. Uh, take a breath. It'll be all [00:05:00] right, because we broke the world down into tech and collaboration, and we've got a ton of answers for you. I think the next thought I want to go to.

So if the first one is look everyone's at this complexity situation, the complexity conundrum. This really marks a very new distinct chapter of digital transformation. If the first era of digital transformation was all about exploring, well, now we are definitely in the second wave of digital transformation, which is about.

Execution. So there, you've got this second idea that we took from the trends report. We're no longer in exploring we're now in the sort of execution ear of digital transformation and obviously 20, 20 COVID quarantine that really has forced a lot of big picture trends that we've seen. Um, And this is kind of accelerated things a lot.

So there's no more time for exploration. This [00:06:00] is all about execution. Customers want to be serviced in all channels. And there's another group of stakeholders that have come along just to make it more complex. But I'm going to get to those guys in a second. So first idea, look, we're facing complexity without a doubt.

If you want to build a product it's just complex, complex. Number two. We're now really under the pressure to execute at a huge scale at a huge speed. Um, and really omni-channel multi-channel whatever the word that you'd like to use is to describe being everywhere for your customer and, um, Really interesting thought here.

This is probably the third thought that big picture thought that we got from the, from the report is that you really need to have this idea of continual learning. And for those of us that are not engineers by birth, we don't need to become engineers, but we need to have the basic [00:07:00] ability to understand and think.

Like engineers in order to interface with them and the products, the platforms that they build. So we, uh, we did an expert interview with Marie and ignite, who is the head of retail distribution. At the bank BCR out of stir. And he talked about this idea, you know, code has to become a language in teams.

Everyone's got to understand these basic principles of how we build software in order to come together. So this was really interesting, particularly for those of us who are business stakeholders, who are maybe not engineers by birth. It really means we have to do this continual learning to get our skills into the right place.

Okay. So. Let's now kind of frame, uh, before we get to the, uh, for technology trends in the, for collaboration trends, let's understand why these trends exist. And I want to touch on some key points here. Now [00:08:00] earlier, if we look at the factors, the environmental conditions that are really affecting us as product creators, designers, builders, entrepreneurs.

I talked a lot about omni-channel the multichannel for your customers? I think that was something that was happening well and truly before last year, but what will did that get accelerated? You know, particularly when people can't go to the store, then obviously you really need to be, omni-channel all the digital touchpoints, but here's the one we didn't see.

Employees are working from home. So in fact, they want an omni-channel experience as well. So you had two huge stakeholders as a, as a product owner. You have the customer, and then you've got the employee. Now, anybody who's worked on a mission, critical enterprise e-commerce style of app, the admin. On the backend is just as important as the shop on the front end.

So whatever your front end experiences [00:09:00] for your customer, you also need to have a great experience for your employees and your peers and your teammates. Otherwise they cannot execute, manage, and deliver on the things that customers are putting into the system. So these are two big post COVID expectations that are really.

Pushing driving factors, creating change in order to serve both the customer employee. We have our second big trend, which is this idea. Second big insight. Really. It's not really a trend. Second big insight is that in order to serve those two constituents employees and customers, we've all got multi-platform digital solutions.

Like your CRM has to talk to your CMS, which has talked to payments, which has to talk to your ERP system. For example, like. Threading that together, being the polymer and, you know, connecting everything up. That's a, that's a lot of stuff talking to each other. That means your Salesforce is talking to your Azure, which is talking [00:10:00] to your content management system, which is talking to your analytics system, which is talking to your advertising system.

And it's the idea of these multi-platforms being merged, combined integrated this results in the third factor behind the scenes of this high complexity, but it's not only, it's not only the complexity of platforms. It's the complexity of the people that have to operate, drive and build those platforms too.

So we saw this really interesting correlation that you cannot have the platforms. Without the people enhance. That's why we included collaboration. So very interesting. These big factors. So let's back it up a bit. The first factor work from home employees, omni-channel customers means number two, you need multi-platform digital solutions, lots of things, all tied together.

Hence number three, it's all getting pretty complex. And the fourth thing is. The thing we are [00:11:00] all trying to do is to truly now, and this is very distinct from the first wave of digital transformation to the second is we now have to be everywhere for everyone. This is a really huge challenge. This is where the complexity comes from that recalls upon those platforms that we talked about, which means you have to serve employees, customers, and alike.

So this is the challenge. This is why. We need to understand the right trends in terms of tech and collaboration, because they are the way forward. They are the way you gain this agility mindset to really overcome those factors that I've just described to you. And don't forget. But this is in a bigger picture, this digital transformation.

This is a huge part of this Titanic shift on a really macro level. And I'm talking over here hundreds of years, we are literally shifting out of an industrial [00:12:00] yeah. Into a digital age where it's not about machines. It's about data where it's not about your organization. It's about how. Teams integrate where we shift from stability into change from factory worker to knowledge worker from capital being the essence to knowledge or that one's, that one's a really big one.

And then obviously there are themes of self learning and so forth, but the world so differently is no longer top down. It is in fact bottom-up and that. Ladies and gentlemen, that's why we exist. We want everybody to understand that don't, you don't have to be frozen by this complexity. You can actually learn the skills and the mindsets to help you get through and build better products, products that make a difference for the users, products that have an impact in the world.

And do you know what we've published? This report? You can get it@bottomup.io. You can take the full course on this report at bottom-up dot IO. [00:13:00] It's all free. A bottom-up that I IO and there's a ton of other courses as well. So strap on those seatbelts, get ready because we together on this podcast, we're going to be going into each of the themes, each of the trends, finding the answers.

And if you want to take the masterclass, if you want to get, download the PDF, get all the goodies on the charts, paired to bottom up. Wrap of the bottom-up skills from the costume.

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Hello and welcome to the BottomUp skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons, the CEO of Qualitance and we have reached the final instalment. Of our growth marketing series here on the podcast. That's all right. We are going to tackle this final chapter growth teams and, you know, growth teams are really critical to the success of a growth marketing program, because it is such a diverse, um, more multidisciplinary team than a traditional marketing team.

We do need to sort of. Revisit this whole idea of team. And the interesting thing is in a, in a world, which is full of data and automation, I am here to tell you that if you want to have, uh, great results in growth [00:01:00] marketing, you're still going to need good all human beings to do some of the work. So let's discover together how you can build a cross-functional growth team and how you can get your product into as many hands of users as possible.

Now where I want to start this story is with our, one of our sort of benchmark growth companies, which is Revolut. Now we did a very in-depth case study on Revolut, which has proven to be really popular. In fact, I think it's almost challenging design thinking as being the most popular course on bottom-up dot IO.

And of course, if you're interested in that you can jump over there. Bottom-up dot IO, the course, uh, for design thinking the case study on Revolut, these are all free. So just jump in and enjoy all right back to Revolut and growth teams. Now, the thing with Revolut, uh, what has driven their incredible growth [00:02:00] story, uh, is that they have employed the use of a de-centralized cross-functional growth team.

Now in their case, what they do is they tend to have the country manager head up their growth thing, and then they have. Four or five roles, basically that work within this team. Someone who's sort of a marketing expert, an expert in business development, a comms manager and a community manager. And so this is actually a pretty front end marketing flavored, uh, growth team.

So this has been a big part of their success, but you can also get a little bit more heavier on the data side as well. Um, so if you imagine, uh, like a really heavy. Uh, a growth team that is in the same market as the core product team, you might have like a growth PM and that they would work with a growth engineer, a growth marketer, and here's another really important one, a growth data analyst, right?

So this might be a BA or a form of analyst that is really crunching [00:03:00] data and then a pretty versatile designer to pull things. Together be it really simple email, uh, social stuff, or a bit more on the landing page. So there you go. That's two ways in, on who we might throw in the mix there, um, to build a growth team and plenty of companies have used this model.

I'm focusing at the moment, I'm telling this through the lens of Revolut, but you can pretty much look at everything from Airbnb to Pinterest. They've all had. Amazing success, building growth teams. Now I want to put growth teams and perhaps growth in a bigger picture because you know, If you've been listening to our podcasts and if you've taken some of our courses you'll know we're big on products.

And the interesting thing is despite being big on product, this is not to say that we don't appreciate the value of marketing. [00:04:00] In fact, if you really challenged me, I'm going to tell you that product innovation and growth marketing. Or in the end does product and marketing are the two most fundamental things to grow your business, to innovate, to create the new.

And in fact, they are co-dependence product and marketing brother and sister Batman and Robin, they need each other. Because just because you've got a great product, it doesn't guarantee success in terms of growth. And if you just think, Hey, I'm just going to build a great product and I'll leave the rest to chance.

Um, it's that sort of old mentality. If I build it, they will come kind of thinking. And what you have to realize is that. We're in a world where we're competing for the attention of a customers, our potential customers, and they simply, they just don't care about our products. Like we might, as creators of those very products, there's a whole bias, [00:05:00] um, that you can study, um, how creators are always sort of blind to the level of disinterest, their potential customers actually have towards their product.

And that's natural because you may have spent and committed a lot of your life to building this product. So you think it's. Damn important in the eyes of everyone. The truth is, is not. You have to be proud. You have to go out and pitch your message to the world. Because if you don't, what happens is you launch your product.

You get a little bit of a spike in, in engagement and usage on the product, but then it flattens out. So you fall into what we call the product desk cycle. So you, then you add features. You've watched the features, you get another little spike. Uh, but then grow flattens again and just try and have more features.

So this is sort of a spiral if you're not careful. So by now I hope I've made some sort of case for building a growth team. Let's have a look at the sort of fundamental formula that I encourage you to follow. We'll start with where [00:06:00] you should recruit your people from. So whether you will get to structure in a second, but.

Regardless of where you find these people, this is what you're going to need. And it's a formula of full. So let's say the hypothesis we have is we want to grow like crazy. We want our products to be in the hands of millions of users. Okay. No problem. But let's start by making sure we've got some product people involved.

This is people that can give us insight into what problems the product solves and may even make things like signup and onboarding easier so that we can grow. So that's number one, we need some product people. Number two, naturally we need marketing people. There's people know how to tell a story, connect with an audience and a segment.

They have some real need desire to be forensic and to really find the early adopters, the early majority, maybe even in the innovators, in your segmentation, but they really want to get there. And next it's all about [00:07:00] data. And this third group of people you need are. Analysts of data. They find story in the data and they not only report what the data is saying.

They interpret the data and the best data people give you actionable insights, meaning like here's what happened. Here's the causation here's the correlations is the context of this. Therefore, we recommend that that's the perfect narrative from a data specialist. And then lastly, but not least we need engineering people because we want to automate their hell out of this process so that we can scale.

And do you know what the keyword is? So we can. Grow as fast as possible so that I have, uh, four, uh, key levels of expertise that we need, product marketing, data and engineering. Now, just to build on this, I want to bring you back to where growth marketing sort of intersects with agile. I want to [00:08:00] talk about the process so naturally if you're following good agile practice, you'll have a small autonomous team, but the really.

Crucial thing in how they work is that they employ a build measure, learn mentality to remind you, we go into depth on this in the lean masterclass, go over to bottom-up dot IO. If you want to get really deep on lean, but the shortcut here is everything you build, you measure, and then you ask yourself what you learn and then you build again.

Then you measure again, then learn again, build, measure, learn, build, measure, learn you get the picture here. It is continuous. It is iterative. It is never ending. There's always new things to build, measure and learn. This is what your growth marketing team. That's what they should be focused on. They should be focused on build, measure.

Learn. Now the last thing I want to touch on is how you might pull [00:09:00] these. Growth teams together within the context of a, of an organization. Um, and some interesting insights here, you know, generally there's two models to follow. One is like a autonomous, uh, team, um, that kind of is subject to having a VP of growth.

And then within that VP of growth, you'd have some of those key, uh, lead roles on. A growth project manager, growth engineer marketing, uh, and maybe a few of those other roles, the analyst, for example, that we've mentioned before. So that would, that would kind of be more of an independent, uh, team that would traditionally be either a startup early stage.

This company that's being founded by a very growth minded founder, or alternatively, it tends to happen a little bit more into the scaling. Um, part of the lifestyle in startup or what I see a lot of is in the [00:10:00] early days, um, you know, getting a VP of growth. Is not an easy ask. So you might have what we call a cross-functional team that pulls, um, a team that sits over the existing, uh, business units, business aligns within your company.

For example, you might take one person from the product team and other from the engineering team, another, from marketing and another, from design in order to build a, um, a hybrid. Cross matrix team. This tends to work very well in the very early days, because you might not have all the key roles. You might not be sure whether you're going to go for, you know, a project based organization, whether you're going to go across matrix, reporting line, all of that good stuff.

So I just want you to imagine you can either have an independent team. That is within a growth division reporting to a head of growth, or you might have a team that is taking talent from each of the teams to create like a virtual [00:11:00] skunkworks, if you will. All right. So there you have it. Growth teams is all about having that multidisciplinary team.

You have to have them because the product is not going to sell itself. Even if it's great, you got to get out there and you've got to pitch your case. You got to fight for the attention of your users, make sure that you have people from that product marketing data and engineering intersection, and they need to always.

Be learning. If you do this, you're going to have some great marketing. You're going to have enjoy some great growth. And remember this, that for me, if I'm to think about why growth is so important, I think it's a proxy for a product experience that delights users. Really is something that, um, delights its founders as well, and has a really positive impact in the world.

And that's something you should be proud of and should go out and tell. So therefore you have this virtuous circle where you get into growing building. [00:12:00] Then you grow some more. And I think this is a healthy sign that you're making a contribution that is truly worthwhile in the world. All right. So there you have it.

That is the last installment of our growth marketing series. I cannot wait. To start the next series in this podcast, because we will be announcing and doing a deep dive into our emerging trends report. We have so many goodies on technology and collaboration from all over the world, all sorts of different industries.

It's a huge report. Ah, it's so much work to pull it together. But the team and I are having so much fun and most importantly, the insights are huge. All right. This is another episode of the bottom up skills podcast. That's right.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I'm Mike Parsons, the CEO of Qualitance. And today we are a part, two of the full funnel, the full growth marketing funnel, and we are moving away from the A's that were in the first part of the funnel. The awareness, the acquisition. The activation we're into part two, it's all about the IROs, their retention, their revenue, and their a foe.

And did you know that sometimes the growth marketing funnel is called pirate metrics because when you put them all together, they spell higher, but there you go. That's just great marketers being crazy. I of course am not crazy. I am going to tell you about the second part of the funnel. Now, the second part of the phones.

Kind of all the things that start to happen [00:01:00] once you have the customer and, you know, traditionally marketers were like, Hey, that's over to customer service. I am thinking about that, but growth marketers, they think about the entire funnel, the entire user journey. That's the beauty of it. So let's look at these us first.

Ours is all about retention and that's trying to uncover how many people come back for a second. Third. Fourth or fifth time and trying to really optimize that and converting that into revenue. How many people are paying, how much do they pay? And if we're real good, if we're delighting, if we're satisfying our customers, we should hopefully get some referrals.

We might even get. What they call in the lean world, a viral coefficient. And these are really powerful things because, Hey, if we do a good job with those that we have, and we can attract more with them, then you know, you start to get efficiencies. You start to get scale. You start to, if you're really good, you get [00:02:00] exponential characteristics.

If you can design your service to improve with the more people are on it. Take Uber or Airbnb, a classic examples of this, then you're really cooking with gas. All right. It's time to get into this funnel. Let's get into retention. So retention is all about like how many people are actually coming back. So they've had the first experience, but how do we get them back the second and third time?

Now, one of the great best practices here in the world of growth marketing is to offer a freemium product. Now, there is a great example of that. We've done a full case study on this company. It's obviously zoom video and they gave away a free version of their product for consumers. You know, pre COVID. I think you got up to 45 minutes.

I don't know if they've changed that now, whether it's unlimited, but the point here is by giving away to consumers, a free version of their product, that means people could experience [00:03:00] the magic. And we spoke about this in the last episode, really getting people to the magic as quick as possible, but the freemium model builds on that.

It means that they can come back time and time again for it. And, and if you look at their large enterprise clients, over half of their large enterprise clients announced zoom, where they make a lot of money started with one person in the company using zoom personally, as a consumer for free. So that's how retaining the customer made a highly profitable high growth business.

Now another thing that you'll probably notice from services when you kind of think about your customer experience is the way in which email automation can play a great job in notifying you as a user. Hey, time to come back. A reason to come back. This is very good for retention. You'll even see. That this email marketing may be rewarding.

You and maybe sending you [00:04:00] personalized content, maybe offering you rewards and loyalty programs, but this is the world of retention. Now here at bottom up, just to give you an example of what we do for retention, every student that completes a. Masterclass on bottom-up dot IO, they get a certificate.

That's great. That's a shareable moment. But what we also do is we also notify everybody by email, when a new courses available, this is all about retaining the customers. We have getting them to use the service. As many times as possible. Now, key question to ask yourself here in retention, is, are we winning?

Are we acquiring customers faster than we lose them? This is probably the ultimate question to be asking yourself in retention, because you want to be on the right side of that. Equation. Okay. So we've got in the head retention, let's now go to revenue. This is where we kind of getting into some real metrics, almost lean analytics, if you will.

[00:05:00] This is where we're trying to think about, you know, how much people are paying, um, and how many people are actually paying. So the best practice here is you're really trying to find high value customers. Find the ones that are really active, that are paying a lot, get feedback, and build around that. And one of the other ways to give trust big thing with revenue and transaction 24 hour a day, seven days a week.

Customer support on all channels. And this will be a huge trust builder and the metrics that really matter at this stage, it's like every rate, average revenue per user average revenue per paying user. And if on the more mature products you might be getting into lifetime value. And alike. Now the best example I can give you here is Facebook.

Um, Facebook, if you have a look at this, you can actually see this chart on our masterclass at bottom-up dot IO. So go check out the growth marketing masterclass, but take it from me over the period of [00:06:00] 2012 to 2020. You will see that almost every consecutive month, every second quarter, the revenue per user.

The average revenue per user increases. This is crazy. They did it not just for months for quarters, but year after year after year, this, these metrics are off the chart. This is such a healthy sign of a business. If your average revenue per user continues to increase, if you have the inverse of this. I'm sorry to tell you, warning sirens are going off like crazy, because if that number is declining, then there is something very wrong in the way you're converting through your funnel.

And you really need to go and ask questions. Like, do we have the right pricing? You have to do experiments on upsell and cross sell and you need to find out what is the most effective source of, for your customers. Why and why are they coming back is really important to ask those [00:07:00] questions. Okay. So that was the world of revenue.

This gives us one, I left the referral. Okay. So we are, we're really getting through the funnel. In fact, in the earlier episode, we did awareness, acquisition and activation. That's the top of the funnel. Now we've done retention. We've done revenue. We are all into the world of referral. And of course, this is all about asking the question, like how many people are referring, how many happy customers.

Going out there and saying, you got to use it now. This is such an important measure of customer satisfaction. And the key metric I would always go for here is your net promoter score, you know, score of one to 10. How likely would you be to recommend this product or service to a friend or family member?

Really important because whilst it's actually not much work for the person to leave that number, to give that score, it's one of the, I've found it to be one of the best indicators of, are you doing a good job overall as a business? [00:08:00] Now, when we think about referrals, you should be thinking, well, there's a whole practice on referral marketing.

I should say that. But think about incentives, giveaways, and contests, or. Just celebrate reviews and recommendations. Uh, you don't even have to give anything away, just make them famous. So if you look at what we do here on bottom-up dot IO, we actually share student progress. So not only by course completion with the, uh, certificates, but you can even share completion during a course.

If you just finish at one of the lessons inside, of course, she can even share that as well. I got to admit, we could probably do some more work here, uh, but. The point here with the world of referral is how satisfied are your customers? Because if they're satisfied, they're very likely to go and tell someone else.

Now, the reason that them telling someone else matters so much, it's the most cost efficient way to get new customers. One referred customers will sign quickly. And two, it [00:09:00] doesn't have all of that paid media expense that you might have to convince people. You don't know who don't get referred. They obviously going to take a lot more time and money and resources to convert.

So if you're thinking, geez, we don't really do much here. I would get you to ask this question. Can we create a memorable achievement? All right. What's the most shareable moment in our product. Can you build something like that into your product or service so that you set up a reason in the product experience for people to share it?

Very powerful question. And it frames just sets you up for either at worst. You just give them an NPS and say how much, how likely would you be to recommend you might even trigger people, referring others, just through asking that question. Okay. So what we have done in this episode is done all the eyes of the full funnel for growth marketing.

In the previous episode, we did the A's for full [00:10:00] funnel. I hope your brain is excited and it's not too overwhelmed with all this information. It's really powerful because if you can get into growth marketing, it's really about sustaining positive growth for your product, for your service. Or for your business.

All right. That's it. For this episode, if you want to do the growth marketing mass class, head of it, a bottom-up dot IO. You'll get everything you need there. It's all free to go and enjoy it. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's a wrap.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons it as I'm the CEO of Qualitance. And today we're delving into the full funnel. This is part one that funnel. That growth marketing. Forfar it's so big. I got to break it into two parts because we can't fit it all into one episode. So today, part one, we're going to deal with the letter a three times awareness acquisition activation.

In fact, those are the first three steps. The first three parts of the full marketing funnel and this stuff is good. We're getting into three. Fundamental questions. So you've got a product or service, a business you want to launch it to the world. You want to take a growth marketing mindset. This growth marketing mindset [00:01:00] is all about.

First of all number one data insights throughout that full funnel, with a real focus on how much you convert your customers and trying to obviously improve those conversions. That's what growth marketing is all about. So the funnel that we mentioned has six steps. We're going to deal with the first three at the top awareness, acquisition and activation.

So. Awareness is all about how many people do you reach? This is big picture stuff. And then we're going to talk about acquisition, which is of all the people out there. How many actually come to you and we'll use a website as an example, uh, to explain growth marketing. And then we're going to talk about activation, which is all about getting them to, you know, for example, to sign up for something on your website.

That is the first three steps of the funnel. So let's get in it. And today it's this gonna start with this awareness thought, how many people do you reach? [00:02:00] And so we'll use the example, uh, actually of bottom line.io. And I'll share with you some of the things we do throughout the whole funnel. So as you're listening to this, you can actually look at the website and I can actually share with you the things we do to practice full funnel marketing.

So the best practices that I would recommend when you think about awareness, I mean, the ultimate goal here is that everybody can know about you to the best of your ability. Obviously won't be the whole universe, but you want to try and be everywhere. That's best practice. Number one, being Google, being all of the directories that review products and services in your industry.

But also be in all the social media platforms, um, create all of the different, uh, types of content. Now with a growth marketing hat don't want her, you don't have to like be in 25 different digital channels. You will [00:03:00] find that some of these ultimately will deliver you far better results than the others, but the big.

Advice that the best practices for awareness is experiment everywhere. So find out which of those channels. Usually you get three to five of the digital channels truly do work and have a real obsession about owning. Key words. So SEO focus. So if you're all about, you know, rare, exotic, organic bananas, when people type in organic bananas bananas in your market, you got to own that search phrase.

That's for sure. The start of great awareness. There's obviously lots of other things you can do in our case. We've got, you know, press relations, actually just very recently we announced the bottom app learning platform. We've got lots of press because it's obviously, as you probably all know, it's free to take all our masterclasses we're in all sorts of product [00:04:00] review sites, when you probably are very familiar with is, um, product hand.

And we're also in G2. And if you were to search different things, such as a Revolut case study, actually, you know, we're probably one of the top two listings that you will find for that. So that's an example of how we get awareness done for us. And we asked lots of questions to improve that. Uh, how can we be found, uh, for different phrases?

Um, have we got as many people linking to us as possible and trying to take a journey. Of someone looking for maybe a course, uh, you know, Cognito in Google and see how you might find your own company. And you'll be surprised sometimes that you're not always as lit, highly listed as you might expect. Okay.

So done a rip-roaring tour of awareness. Just a quick note here I am giving you just, uh, a touch, uh, a little intro to some of these [00:05:00] ideas. If you would like to go much deeper. We have a full, complete master class on bottom-up dot IO. There, you can go in, take your time, get the slides. There's a lot of information there, here today.

We're just introducing you to some of the best practices. Okay. Step two. In the funnel from awareness, we go to acquisition and that's really about if, if awareness was all about being in Google, step two acquisitions. How many people from Google actually come to you? And, um, particularly when they do come to you, one of the big focuses on acquisition is not only search, but how can you get the most out of the people that do come to you?

Some best practices, there would be, uh, something like Dropbox. We talked about that in the previous episode where they actually created incentives for customers to actually recruit other customers. Or you might do what PayPal and zoom have done, which is offer a fantastic integration to a much larger platform.

So for example, zoom made [00:06:00] integration with Google calendar, a top priority. And the rest, as they say is history. So those are great ways to drive your acquisition for us. Our big focus is that because we are there in the world, uh, really well-placed on, on awareness. We really focus on the journey from people landing in on our site, particularly on our blog content, which is a showcase of what's in our courses.

They go from the blog, they to go to a course landing page and from the course landing page, they go to a signup page. So we're always looking at that funnel, trying to optimize the steps through, keep it clean and simple, and really tweak the percentages. So that's how we fulfill on this second step. The second part of the funnel, which is acquisition.

Now, if you're a. Thinking about, Hey, we get a lot of traffic to our side, but we don't seem to convert much. You should really go and have a look at which channel, [00:07:00] uh, which is which sources delivering the best traffic. Um, so that might be in volume, but the best. Thing to do is ask which channel has the highest conversion rate.

So don't be fooled that a particular site drives a thousand clicks a month because maybe few of those actually sign up. So if you start from who signed up and from where did they come, you might unlock some new insights. Okay. So that. That we just did then together, that was acquisition. We've done the awareness.

So now what we can do is we can go to the third step of the marketing funnel activation. So it means you're out there in the world. You actually get people coming to you, but can you. Put forward a proposition that they are totally engaged with and are prepared to sign up with and complete that first step.

And that's a really important thing. Um, in fact, I think for activation, you could ask yourself [00:08:00] how good is the users or the customers. First experience is really essential here that people can sense. The magic that is in your product or service as quick as possible. So some best practices here would be to reduce any heavy signup forms with a gazillion different, uh, fields in the, in the form, make it light.

Um, maybe if you've got a free trial, get rid of credit card, like just get as, get them as quick as humanly possible to the good stuff, get them to the magic. So what do we do? Here at bottom map skills on our website. We know we're very lucky because we've made a choice to give away all our courses for free, however, but we're still thinking like growth marketers.

What we're doing is we're really focused on course completion. If you can finish that first course as quickly as possible, you get to the end and go. [00:09:00] Wow. I learned a few things there. This is really handled handy for my job for working in this sort of new digital era. This is great. All right. So, so that's what we're trying to design for.

So what do we do? We have a real, uh, powerful and really clear display of your course progress as you go through it. So we try and make sure that is really vs where you are and how many steps you have less left. How many more lessons inside. And of course, do you have before you complete the course and we'll talk about, about what we do after they complete it in another episode, but this course completion is a big number.

Now what's interesting here is that for e-learning courses, student, engagement's a real challenge. So, you know, students can abandon it any time because it's on demand. It's not like traditional in-person schooling and education, where you sit in a classroom, you have to turn up and say as well, do the work.

It's the opposite. People can just turn it off whenever they like. So we're [00:10:00] really tracking average days to complete a course. And what percentage of all students. Complete. So as you can see here were really starting to get almost into product thinking, but we're doing this with an eye for growth. We're looking to make sure of that.

We understand if customers bounce out of our service, why, and what's the, the, the patterns in the insights into things that are really working. How can we get them through to that first, second and third course, that's really, really important. Get them signed up, get them to the magic as soon as humanly possible.

All right. So that's part one of the funnel. I hope you've enjoyed it. If you'd love to go a lot deeper than we are just on the podcast, go over to bottom-up don't I, uh, where you can get our master class on growth thinking and plenty of others. For example, we have a whole master class on agile. That could be quite handy to say bottom up.

Don't I, uh, all right guys and girls that syrup. [00:11:00]

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Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons. I'm the CEO of Qualitance. Since we are into a brand new series. And it's all about growth marketing. And today I'm going to give you sort of the big picture. If you will, I'll give you some of the context and background to growth marketing.

I'll give you a sense of some of the practices that make up growth marketing and where it kind of fits in on the product journey. Yes. The journey of building a brand new product or service, maybe even building a business. It all, uh, will be put into order at the end of this 10 minute session together, which will be really fun.

Uh, so what is growth marketing now? It's very likely that you've probably heard about growth marketing. [00:01:00] Uh, but you know, like a lot of things, I think it reminds me a bit of design thinking. Everybody's heard of it, but not everybody really knows what it is or there's a lot of different points of view.

Well, it's the same with growth marketing. Let me try and help you with having been on both sides of the fence on the product side and the marketing side. I think it's made up of three, the first growth hacking. That's really what. Super smart startups have done to get, you know, big results with small investments.

Then there's the second piece of it, which is sort of more the performance marketing world, which is where people are all about cost per click cost per action. And lastly, it's the full funnel marketing world. Where you test every step of the user journey. For me, if you think about growth marketing, it really is made up of these three main ingredients.

And of course, different people use different balances between the, between the three. But [00:02:00] these really are. Great starting points for thinking of the fusion, to what has become growth marketing. Now, another way to think about growth marketing is it's a combination of lots of data experiments in the, in that funnel that we were talking about.

Lots of creative design, whether it's for marketing materials, sort of product entryways. Or as some serious automation and tech, uh, in the backend, that's also a very good definition of growth marketing. And already you can start to feel that it's pretty expansive because it's not just marketing. It really is a very multidisciplinary practice.

Here's my favorite definition of growth marketing. It's got three ingredients, the full funnel data insights. And conversions, aha. Conversions, big piece here. So now that I've kind of primed you with these different ideas and combinations, [00:03:00] what I've pulled together is just a simple written definition, which I'm going to read to you now that you've got a little bit of context and let me see if I can really make the case for defining growth marketing.

Here we go. Growth marketing is the fusion of data and conversions throughout the full marketing funnel. It is a continuous process of building measuring and learning the steps involved practices, such as technology, automation, data experiments, and design creativity. The end objective whilst hard to achieve is a healthy growing product and business.

All right. That was my shot at it. Here's another guy who's really kind of caught the magic in growth marketing because it really flips traditional marketing. And this is from one of my favorite authors Ryan holiday. Here's his definition of growth marketing. Instead of bludgeoning them public with ads or dominating the front [00:04:00] page of a newspaper to drive awareness.

They growth hackers, use a scalpel precise and targeted to a specific audience. Ryan holiday. He's such a good writer, isn't he? So there you go. We've got a definition. Now I want to try and map it to kind of where it pops into the process where you might expect to start doing growth marketing. Now I'm going to be a little bit contrarian here, and I'm going to say if you're building a product, it begins on day zero.

That's right. I think step one, before you've launched the product, you should be baking in the marketing into the product itself. And I think Strava is a great example of where the marketing really has been baked into the product from the start. And the next step before you're into these massive global campaigns and buying lots of paid media, the growth marketing team can really get involved in the second step, [00:05:00] validating customer satisfaction, and then, okay.

And then go crazy. It's Showtime, find traction and look for what we call distribution conversion fit. Now a lot of marketers will say until you have product market fit, you shouldn't be doing growth marketing. But I challenged that notion. I say, get growth marketing and get it right in to the very beginning.

Now there's many different case studies that you can find on growth marketing, probably the two most richest, most powerful examples are Dropbox and Airbnb. Both of these companies, did, I mean, archetype or growth marketing thinking to transform how they products grew, how they achieved product market, fit, how they got traction and how in the end, they just went to the stratosphere.

Dropbox grew massive.  bye bye. For it, baking in the marketing right into the product so that if you were using the product. Back in the day as [00:06:00] oldies like me, remember when cloud storage was like a really scarce commodity. And what they would do is they would give you free extra storage. If you upgraded your account, if you referred a friend, I mean, you got white for this, a whopping 500 Meg per friend.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that was a big deal once upon a time. And they even rewarded you for connecting, uh, your, your Facebook or Twitter account. The point here is that they baked in referral right into the product itself. And that's how they grew Airbnb. On the other hand, they did some cool stuff with integrating with Craigslist, but I think such a great growth hack was changing from amateur to professional photography.

So what they went out and did is. They looked at the listings and they realized that if they did a professional photo shoot where you know, what the bed was made, the lighting was good, proper [00:07:00] lenses. That whole thing is shot at a good time of the day. Um, signups for that listing, uh, increased 2.5 times.

That's it 2.5 times. So these are two just fantastic, uh, powerful, uh, stories that show you sort of the growth mind, a growth marketing mindset in practice. Now the, the last, uh, thought that I want to leave you with, as we really try to. Lay a foundation of definition of understanding of growth. Marketing is a great quote from Sue Hale, who is the chief executive officer at Mixpanel panel, which is a great product in your growth marketing stack.

And he's got a quote, which I think really speaks to the mindset of growth marketing. So here we go. Most of the world will make decisions by either guessing or using their [00:08:00] gut. They will be either lucky or wrong. So they have it CEO of mixed panel kind of laying down the absolute truth there. And I think what this really points to is how much of traditional advertising and marketing were just guesses having been.

On Madison Avenue. I have witnessed like a lot of hard work. Don't get me wrong, but in the end is still traditional. Mocking was a lot of guessing, maybe some good taste. And when in doubt, blast the reach and frequency and it will kind of work out right. Well, in this day, in age, Everything is turned. You know what it ain't top-down here's now here's an idea for you.

It's bottom up. That's right. You cannot guess when it comes to building your product, launching it, telling it story, and you don't need to, you can work in a bottom-up way. You can [00:09:00] transition from the guessing mindset to the knowing and the way we kind of de-risk our product and its marketing is we go out there and we can test and learn.

Measure and improve. Now you might be thinking this is your world. I mean, that's what you're listening to this podcast. But you have to remember, this is coming to an industry. That's not traditionally done this. So this is why growth marketing is so powerful. In fact, what I'm going to propose to you as technology, as the internet becomes more and more pervasive, the growth marketing will not be some new cutting edge thing that startups do.

It's going to be the default. Of what all companies do, it's going to become the way to market. It won't even be called growth marketing anymore. It will just be called. Here's an idea, marketing, and it's going to be more accountable. We're finally [00:10:00] going to transition to knowing at least a much better sense of what's working and what's not.

And if we have the desire to test and learn to measure to ask ourselves, what did we learn? What are we going to do next? And if we become iterative, if we become continuous in our approach to growth marketing, then the moon. Is our destination. So there you've got it. If you really enjoyed this, the great news.

He said we have a full growth marketing masterclass on bottom-up dot IO. So check that out. We're going to have a whole bunch of episodes dedicated to growth marketing and stay tuned because in a couple of weeks from now, we have a very special series with some, I mean, I'm very excited about what we're going to announce.

Stay tuned. We'll prime you with all the info, but if you want to know more about bottom-up head over. To bottom out.io. Okay guys and [00:11:00] girls, that's a wrap.

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Hello, welcome to the BottomUp Skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons, I'm the CEO of Qualitance and we are at the final chapter of lean hypothesis. I've really enjoyed sharing with you, the real nuts and bolts of how to do the lean hypothesis, how to apply lean thinking to your product. So now what I'm going to do is in this final chapter, I just summarize best practices.

So it really does assume you've listened to the previous two shows. Just go and jump into your app, have a listen to those super short 10 minutes each, um, that that will help you get the most out of this. Episode, uh, I'll do my best to give you all the context, because really what we're going to do today is isolate a few things that can really ensure that [00:01:00] you get your problem solution fit, that you get the validation you're looking for.

And likewise, I'm going to help you avoid being in a guessing game. We want to be in the knowing game when we're out there designing and building product services business, nonetheless, it's really important that you are disciplined and rigorous. In fact, I always talk about, uh, being. Sort of like Sherlock Holmes, really investigating the facts.

You can put a ton of facts and data into your lean hypothesis and it can yield you really powerful insights on how to improve your product. So let's just talk about lean hypothesis as a mini process. I've got five steps for you, and I would really strongly advise you following these. First of all, let's just imagine you have.

Uh, an existing product and, um, step one is go and gather the data [00:02:00] on what your users are. Your website, visitors, what are they doing right now? Now, if, um, you look at that data, you might need to ask a few questions just to. Uh, fill in some basic gaps, like a good example of that would be rather than just saying our customers.

It would be really good to say our very loyal customers. So you go down into a segment, you might need to speak to a couple of them just to get to know their needs. So that's step one, get all the data about how they're behaving. If it's a website where they're clicking, how they're getting there, if it's a sh, if it's a physical store, you know, talk to people when they'd come in, talk to them, when they check out really important.

And then step two is you formulate your hypothesis and your hypothesis we'll have these five. Major components that we've talked about in previous episodes, we'll dig into them in a [00:03:00] minute, but you're going to have this hypothesis about what a great new product or service is going to look like. Step three, go and test each of the variables in your hypothesis.

And you're looking to confirm what you've written there or scratch it out, reject it. We said it was the loyal customers. Actually. It's the new customers that have the biggest opportunity for us. Great insight. So you need to get, actually go through the hypothesis until it is fully tested and you will often.

Find that it's really important to document because people want to discuss particularly major pivots in your lean hypothesis, like a customer pivot, like a solution pivot. You really need to have some documentation to support that. Um, so we love, uh, the dovetail app. Uh, so if you go and Google that, it's a fantastic way to document what you're learning from your users.

So step four, you've created those documents. Step [00:04:00] five, the loop starts again, get your conclusions, create new questions, perhaps even a new hypothesis. So this is the process that you want to follow. Now we mentioned our five key things, and I want to make sure that you get these into your hypothesis. You should state.

A clear user persona, or customer state, their problem that they have right now and trying to get a job done. So there's two really important points. I love to see it when people also say here's their current alternatives. Okay. For what's our value prop. What's new that we're bringing to them and we'll observe, observe success through certain metrics.

Really important to stick to those, please don't skip because they're all there for a good reason. And it's just going to skew your results in your lean hypothesis. Okay. So we've dealt with the nuts and bolts of the lean hypothesis. We kind of put those into a [00:05:00] process. Here is some. Some very, uh, good lessons that I've learnt overseeing this implemented.

And, uh, if I was to start today, these, these four lessons, I would hold really, uh, front of mind, um, in order to make sure that we are successful. Okay. So you're going to do a lean hypothesis, make sure that the. Testing is given a very specific fixed timeframe. You know, I like one to two weeks max, because you know, you need to create a start and an end to this process.

You need to take all of the conclusions, share them with your colleagues, your partners, your, your investors, your board, whoever it is. It's really important that you just don't get into this endless, you know, fine tuning and polishing because this really leads us to the second thing. We're really only [00:06:00] proving here, problem solution fit.

So you don't want to get too carried away. So an interesting thing that you'll see come, uh, come up a lot in, in lean startup is doing the least amount of work. So this doesn't mean in this case to cut corners, but. Particularly if you're seeing that something's not working, let it go. If you're seeing something that's working.

Okay, good. But we don't need to test it 300 times. Like test it a couple of times look solid. Okay. Because obviously there's still so much testing that can happen, particularly when we're going into product market fit, we're going to be building MVPs. So do the least amount of work to achieve the proof, the validation of your hypothesis.

Now another thing, uh, that is really important is when you're working in a team structure, like who is doing what and defining the actions that need to happen, because if [00:07:00] you don't. Run these tests and have clear actions on who's doing what you're still going to have largely a bunch of guesses. So if you have an existing product, you might do tweaks in your product in order to test out your hypothesis.

If you've yet to build a product, maybe you need to go and do some research. And there's many different ways you can research. I'm going to give you those in a moment to help you out. Lastly. The expected result. For success. Now we talked about, uh, something, uh, earlier on in, uh, the previous episode where we talked about actually, when you write your hypothesis, you should also, um, actually outline your test outcomes.

What do we think being correct? Looks like, what do we think being wrong looks like. Cause there's not easy, easy. Trust me. It's not always easy to know. Okay. Does that data. Prove or disprove our [00:08:00] hypothesis. So to get you out of that endless cycle, just make sure you've got some framing of success of test outcomes.

All right. We're on the home stretch here for some best practices with the lean hypothesis. If you are enjoying this and you would love to go deeper head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you'll find all sorts of, uh, great courses, they're totally free and you can learn. Design thinking, agile lean and much, much more.

So if you want to test, um, uh, beyond, uh, your product, um, there's lots that you can do. You can do surveys and interviews. You can even rapid prototype. If you have a product right now, obviously what you want to look at is the ability. For journey completion, task completion. Very good way to, to validate our hypothesis, um, make sure that when you are prototyping, you try and create the really direct experience.

And if you're very interested in rapid prototyping, we also actually have a course on [00:09:00] that as well. So you can check that out at bottom-up dot IO. All right. So that's it. That is our three-part series on the lean hypothesis. I hope you've really got something out of this such a great tool. I use it all the time and, um, I couldn't, I couldn't bear the thought of starting a project to build a brand new product without Arlene hypothesis.

So. I hope this gives you a really good frame for the problem solution fit. I hope it gives you the ability to articulate your vision for your new product. And most of all, I really do hope it gives you the power of the confidence to go out in the world to build new products, to build new services, to build new businesses.

All right, this is the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap. [00:10:00]

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Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast, I'm Mike Parsons since I'm the CEO of Qualitance, and we continue into the lane hypothesis today on episode 92. We're going to be talking about validating the product's problem solution fit. Now, this is at the cornerstone of your lean hypothesis. In fact, it's a very simple system is a problem, a solution.

And the result we expect, this is how we talk about. Our products particularly useful in the early stages. When there's so many possibilities, everyone's got a suggestion. Everyone, uh, has a recommendation to make your product better. But if you can hold onto this idea of, [00:01:00] Hey, we've got to get the problem solution fit through testing this hypothesis for our product or service.

Um, this will keep you on track. And the beauty of lean hypothesis is that it takes a narrative, a vision for the product and puts it in these three parts. And apart from it being. Just a little bit easier to remember the true magic in this is this is how you pull apart the hypothesis and you test every single piece of the hypothesis.

So in the end, if you've got problem solution fit, you're going to need roughly five different data points, five different parts of your hypothesis validated. You got three, keep going for almost there. Five bingo. Now what you will find in the world of product creation [00:02:00] and in particular, first attempts is that often somebody was solving the right problem, but they were measuring the wrong thing or maybe.

It was the wrong problem that they were going to fix. And we often see a category of the wrong problem for your product is products that are problems that are just a bit too small. For example, it's nice for your user. To have this solved, but it's not necessary. I kind of like, it don't really need it, that kind of situation.

So if you stayed true to lean startup thinking and you're in your build measure, learn loops. The hypothesis is in a really, really good starting point. So it's going to be three parts. Let's jump into these three parts and [00:03:00] let's look at well, what actually do we need to be testing? What do they look like?

How do we pull it apart? And how do we end up being more confident about the products that we're building? All right. So I'm going to read to you a very simple lean hypothesis. If you've been listening to the other episodes, you will have heard me talk about this one before I'm going to read it too. I'm then going to break it down and then I'm going to attach some things that you might want to measure.

And remember if you do. Test and learn what, what is working with your lean hypothesis? I think you're going to just feel so much better about where your product's going. Okay. So I'm going to hit you up now with the hypothesis here it is because we know our customers prefer colder lemonade in warmer weather.

If we add ice to each cup of lemonade, we sell. We expect higher customer satisfaction and more sales. Okay. So that's the full [00:04:00] hypothesis, the old classic entrepreneurial lemonade stand. Let's just Frank and Danielle. Now the first part was the problem statement and it's because we know our customers prefer Coda lemonade in the warmer weather.

So, what you can see here is we're calling out a preference, a desire, a struggle in the problem statement. And what we're doing is we're also mentioning the user segment now. Some of the best lean hypotheses will actually not just say customers, but they'll even go a level deeper and say early adopter, uh, early minority, early majority, this kind of segmentation.

However you break your, uh, customer base down your user base down. You might have personas or something of that nature. The more specific you can be here, the better. Now we've talked about what's happening is that folks [00:05:00] are, you know, Preferring cold eliminate in warmer weather. So our solution is we're going to add ice to each cup of lemonade that we sell.

Now, one of the things you can do in a great hypothesis when you state the problem is you can also give some context and say, they're currently solving this problem. How bringing big water coolers , uh, to the beach, this kind of thing. You can, you can definitely do that for context. That's also very good as a reference point, too.

You know, where you can research, uh, with really good target customers. Okay. So we've got the problem, our solution here. This is the second part of a lean hypothesis of a problem. The solution is we're going to add ice to each cup of lemonade. Now what's interesting here is you're essentially, uh, stating your value prop or your value proposition or the change in the product or service that you're going to be bringing.

What is the new thing you are proposing? To the world and to your customers. [00:06:00] So we've essentially got this really nice play between the problem and the solution. So sometimes what works well here as well is to describe the change that you're going to create much like him. We were talking about how to add it, a richer story to the problem, giving context on how the customer solves the problem today, the solution you can really get into your value prop and describing the change that you're bringing to the world.

Okay, so that's parts one and two problem and solution of the lane hypothesis, part three, it's all about the results. Now, this one is really interesting because in the case of what we had, we said here, we expect higher customer satisfaction and more sales, but what's interesting about that is I've seen products that can sometimes be, uh, satisfying for their customers, but they don't really lead to more sales.

So, this is actually quite a big assumption that I see here in this [00:07:00] hypothesis. So we would really want to be testing this. So if I was looking at, uh, satisfaction of customers, I mean, obviously, yeah, depending on context, you might want to do NPS, uh, exit interviews, these kinds of things. Uh, NPS stands for net promoter score.

And that that's a really effective way of getting a good directional rate on your customer satisfaction. Obviously you might have some sort of a customer recruiting customer at the end of the journey, which might trigger more sales. Um, interesting one that's often, you know, not only a measure of satisfaction, but you've kind of got to bake in the marketing, into the product there.

Um, so. It's all about the results. What are we going to measure? When are we going to know where successful? Like when we hit, what number, like, what does success look like now in this case, we've used a pretty top line approach to [00:08:00] result. What you can also do is start getting into real product metrics. You might use the pirate funnel, which you probably know.

I love a lot, which is going to really talk about revenue retention. And referral metrics. So those would be what you would be measuring if you wanted to get kind of quite specific inside of your product, particularly if it's a digital product, but it also works, um, in analog products as well. Now, one of the things, when you write your hypothesis, if you want to kind of get into a more, uh, sophisticated approach, and this is something that you'll find it much easier once you've done this a couple of times, is that you can write down what you expect in terms of test outcomes, and you can continue your hypothesis and say, well, if we are correct in this hypothesis, By adding ice to the lemonade, if we're correct, here's what we [00:09:00] would expect.

And if we are wrong, we might see that there are other factors affecting this and we have the wrong hypothesis, which is totally okay. Because in the spirit of lane, we're just trying to learn. And if you test and learn enough and if you're refined enough, you'll eventually get it. Right. So this is my thinking on what is.

What sounds incredibly simple tool, which is the lean hypothesis. Now, if you're very, um, if this has really sparked something for you, um, head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can get a free masterclass on the lean hypothesis and lots of other lean startup, agile, and plenty of other free courses, that's bottom-up dot IO.

Now the key thing for me is. You might think, well, Mike, this is all pretty simple, but it needs to be simple because the true test of your lane hypothesis is how many [00:10:00] times you've tested it. And I invariably find that when I talk to people, when I gave people help and support and they're struggling with getting their problem solution fit, it usually comes down to, they just simply haven't tested enough.

So if you're holding. A hypothesis for your product with problem solution result, I would expect 20 plus versions of this hypothesis. I want to see a history of all the tweaks you've made, because they are a proxy for your rate of learning. And your rate of learning is a proxy for how good your problem solution fit is.

All right there, you have it, the lean hypothesis. And in particular today, it's all been about problem, solution fit and the three parts of the hypothesis. Okay. Thanks for joining us on the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a random. [00:11:00]

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Hello and welcome into the bottom skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons it as I'm the CEO of Qualitance and I'm super excited today because we are launching a new series on the podcast. Are we going to delve in to the lean hypothesis and the lean hypothesis is all about making your product viable and this search for viability, you know, I've found that it's often really overlooked.

Folks are often. Hey, I've got a neat product to look at what it can do. Hey, I showed this to customers, they loved it. Um, but Hey, there's a third vector here, which is viability and, um, this perhaps nothing better than the lean hypothesis or greater, still the lean startup practice to truly make you [00:01:00] accountable.

To this notion of does this thing actually have a business model that's going to work. Is this a product? Is this a business worth building? So today we're going to start the journey in to a lean hypothesis. It minimizes the risk of product development. It actually can make it go faster because you're actually feeling a lot more confident about what's working.

So let's jump in and learn how to make your product viable. So the context I want to set here is that, you know, when we often start out particularly to build brand new products, it is the big unknown. Um, so in the face of that uncertainty testing with the lean hypothesis gives you the creator, the entrepreneur, the builder, the product person.

It gives you the confidence, the convictions, and the inspiration that you need to complete the journey. Of building a brand new product. [00:02:00] This is why the lean hypothesis matters. Now let's have a bit of a study of what is a hypothesis and how does it actually work in lean? So very simply a hypothesis is just a very precise.

And I think the key thing is it's a testable statement about what you want to test and what you think the outcome will be. And it doesn't matter if the outcome happens. Or not the point here is that you're testing and learning and that kind of situ in this broader context of the lean startup and the way that lean startup engine works, it's build, measure learn.

So the leading hypothesis is a testing approach you can use for product. And as I said, if you do this a lot, you'll find that this lean hypothesis, um, it really helps you have a lot more velocity. Um, you can actually go faster in the right direction in building your product. So that's sort of the [00:03:00] context now, what you can use, uh, The lean hypothesis on is really broad.

There's a great variety of things. So you could go as small and micro, um, into like a feature for your product. Let's say you've got a basic product you're alive. Maybe your version one, 1.5. Well, you can go test with this hypothesis, this new feature, just to make sure that it's actually a viable and worth doing.

If I go to the other side of the spectrum, you could even test an entire venture using this hypothesis. So very, very exciting, um, because you really have great elasticity to go and test a lot of different things. And when you're doing these testing and I know you might be thinking, okay, Mike, you know, how do I do it?

What is, what is the structure? The template of a lean hypothesis. Don't worry, I'm going to get there, [00:04:00] but I just want to give you a sense of the big picture here before we drill down now with talking about the lane hypothesis, but what it leads to is a really important thing, a really important moment and action that you can take when you're employing lean thinking.

And if you are very curious to learn more about it, Lean startup. We have an entire masterclass@beaumont.io where you can learn everything about lean. So you can go over to bottom-up dot IO and you can find out more about that there that said, if you're really into this lean hypothesis, we also have a course on that.

Again, it's free and it's a bottom-up dot IO. Okay. So this big action that I was talking about. So you run all of your, uh, testing and validation against your lean hypothesis. And what might you do? It is the classic lean moment. Do we pivot or persevere with the [00:05:00] direction of our product? If you're getting positive results, keep going.

If you're getting negative results on your tests, you cannot prove your hypothesis. So therefore you need to change it. This is equally good because whether it is a positive or negative response, the truth really is you're still learning. You still have the chance to say, okay, well that didn't work. Let's try a different approach.

The pivot really important part of lean, really important part of building a great product. All right, now let's break down a couple of examples of. What the hypothesis is now, don't worry. I'm going to do lots of other episodes where I break this down and get into some real best practices, but I'm going to give you a first look here, a first sense of what a lean hypothesis might look like might sound like.

Okay. So I'm going to give you three [00:06:00] examples. And what I'm going to do is show you some variations inside of that. All right. So what we're going to do is we're going to just test a whole venture idea. Okay. And I'm going to read to you. It's a very simple structure and it's made up of five main vectors.

Very simple. Here we go. Here is a lean hypothesis example. We believe families are thirsty when they come to the beach on a summer weekend. Right now they can only get coffee from a cafe. We will offer our freshing artismal lemonade from our drink truck. We expect to sell 500 units per day. So now there's something that we're going to be doing in the further episodes where you notice that I mentioned.

Hey segments. I particular niche or audience. We actually, uh, nominated the context in which they're in, how they're trying to get the solution right now, what we plan to offer and how success will be [00:07:00] measured. And you can actually, um, explore this both. Again, at a feature level of a product or a whole business like we're doing now.

And just to give you like, uh, like a slight permutation of, um, the hypothesis and this is where it gets really fun. Cause you can have all these different variations. This is a second variation based on what you just heard. I'm going to change a few of the vectors to show you the different testable parts of the lean hypothesis.

Here we go. We believe teenagers are thirsty when they come to the beach on a summer weekend. Right now they can only get coffee from a cafe. We will offer a refreshing dismal kombucha from our drink chat. We expect to sell 500 units a day. Do you notice what I did? I changed the proposition and I changed the segment.

Now what you will find if you are using. The lean hypothesis correctly. When you, when you're alive and successful with your pro, you would probably look back and go, Oh my [00:08:00] gosh, how many times did we pay for it? Maybe the customer segment, maybe the offering understanding of how they're actually solving the problem right now.

Or even how you measure success. I think the point here is this is a very simple way to communicate your product or business idea. It's a very simple way to break it into component parts and test it. And this I can tell you it's such an important discipline because in the face of all of the different variables and uncertainty of building a brand new product or a brand new company, Testing with this lean hypothesis, it'll give you confidence, conviction and inspiration.

Now, if this has really got you thinking, stay tuned because we're going to be getting into things like problem, solution, fit, best practices, and a whole bunch more about the lean hypothesis. And if you can't wait. Visit bottom-up dot IO, where you can get a free [00:09:00] course on the lean hypothesis and many, many more.

We love to share our thinking. We love to give it away to the community. So head on over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can get courses aren't anything for a talented and aspiring. Productive person. All right. That's it. For our first episode on the lean hypothesis, that's a wrap.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO of Qualitas and we continue emerging. Yes. Emerging trends. And this time. It's what are we thinking for 2021? What has got the pulse racing now, previously in this series, we've looked at some good pigs. What did we learn from those in history?

Some bad pigs, and I've picked a few shockers, but today it's all about what's next for 2021. We're full of all those learnings and those insights. What has got us pumped up now, I'm going to tell you that. As you're listening to this, we're actually conducting a full survey of hundreds of executives to find out what they vote for [00:01:00] as the emerging tech trends and collaboration trends.

So I'm really excited that we've expanded the program this year. It's not just tech and it's just not Mike and the team. In the ivory tower, having a stroke of the chin this time we're reaching out. Uh, so if you would like to be part of it, just shoot me a note or hit me up on LinkedIn. I'd be more than happy to share the survey with you.

So 20, 21. What has got me, Mike Parsons going, I'm pretty excited about 2021. I got six things for you. This is by no means all the things that I see for the coming years, but I just wanted to pick six really interesting, diverse ideas to get you thinking about how you might build better products, how you might build a better business.

Okay. So we're going to start with tech now, something that I'm really, really, really, really into is [00:02:00] this idea of no code solutions. We are seeing such a, um, boom, and it's early days in this, uh, in this boom of no code solutions. So what do we mean by no code apps? Well, It's really interesting because what, uh, this is simply saying is you can yeah, really good application patient, really good software, and you can do it without having to be a engineer now.

I'm going to caveat this and say the real trick here is to, you know, build great, no code apps, great being really, really great products because obviously with no code, you're going to standardize a lot of things. You're going to create a lot of restrictions. So this is still a [00:03:00] real art form in how to think and how to pull things together.

But what no code is essentially doing, it's really, um, Bringing us to a world where more people can build applications. And I think that this is, um, this is really, really important development because it's going to enable us to deploy more apps, better apps. And I think also too, it will also give people the opportunity to understand that even when you have a no-code solution, building applications is, are hard.

Thing. So maybe there'll be a bit more of that love for engineers and software developers. Um, if people have actually gone out and tried it themselves, so no code apps mean that you can build like complex data-driven apps that don't require dev ops database, administrator, engineer, front end, back end, full stack, all that stuff.

So who are we [00:04:00] talking about? Like. Who are the, the sort of, um, no codes providers? Well, you might've heard of air table. I mean, they're pretty big app sheep. You could even perhaps argue that Salesforce is a bit of a no code solution as well. Um, there's plenty of them out there. Uh, another really big one is bubble.

I'm pretty fond of bubble and, um, You will find an endless stream of brand new companies that are coming out with this idea of a no code solution, because if WordPress helped you make a website tools like glide bubble, uh, Adelanto are helping you build applications without being an application developer.

So that's one of my first things that I'm really excited about. We're working a lot with it as well. So no code. Has my vote. That's something I'm really excited for. I'm really looking forward to seeing what everybody says in our survey [00:05:00] to whether they are writing that as a big new thing. Now, another one that's really got me fired up, which is pretty cutting edge stuff, which is this automatic interfaces or interfaces that are built in real time, fully automated.

We're using AI and machine learning. Mostly machine learning. So, not only does it represent the data in real time, and maybe it has some recommendations, but it compiles the interface at the same time. So you have not just a B testing, but a through Z to the power of X. Uh, this is where every journey is personalized.

Every journey is. Um, built every interface is built in the moment based on the logic and the data that we have on a user, incredibly powerful, because it creates more personal or relevant, uh, experiences. And it [00:06:00] helps you get the job done quicker. So perhaps. When we look long-term static, interfaces will be a thing of the past.

And, uh, so that's number two. So we've got no code solutions, uh, automatic interfaces. The last one I'm picking is open banking. I've been bank open banking has been around for a while, but we're now looking at a number of really, uh, really big markets, uh, UK, most of Europe, Australia, and Asia are all adopting this idea of open banking, open banking.

I think really brings us a lot of things too, that I want to focus on one. It is essentially a much more API driven architecture, meaning that. Yeah, traditionally bank systems. Don't talk to each other very well. They can do that. And lastly, data portability, I mean, users now aren't stuck with all their data in one bank, they have the right and the [00:07:00] opportunity and the ability to move around.

And I think that's a win-win because it means that users can get more value. And I think it sets a nice challenge for. Those in banking and FinTech to provide new services, new products, more value, and to compete for the hard earned cash of uses. So they've got three big tech trends, no code solutions, real time, automated interfaces and open banking.

I think these are game changes because no matter whether you look at on the backend, when you're engineering products. The front end to face or more even system-wide innovation. You've got three things there that are really going to change, you know, invigorating the marketplace for 2021. Now, if we jump over to the world of collaboration, Whoa boy has this undergone some change and disruption, obviously quarantine work from home.

He's putting [00:08:00] everybody, everyone is working, uh, in a different way. So that's why we've actually added it to actions report. This year. I got three things that I think are really changing the way we collaborate. Number one, flipped learning. I think we're all getting a dash of theory and then looking to apply that theory into our job.

Today into our work of today. So this is what we call flip to learning. It's a way of you're learning new skills, where they're all in this form of applied learning. I think this is really huge because never before have we seen the need to relearn, uh, to reconfigure, to adopt new skills and practices. So flip learning, big collaboration chain, next one.

Hybrid work in getting people aligned. Now it used to be easy because you could call a meeting and say, everyone, we need to get in the room and agree on something because everyone was in the office. But how do you do that? When half the people [00:09:00] working from home. Hey, does, uh, does bill work on a Monday and does Betty work on the Tuesday who comes into the office on Wednesday?

Uh, hassle. I think this hybrid work is a brand new challenge for solo. It's here to stay. Uh, so, um, getting a hybrid work, working well, huge opportunity. Same thing, huge challenge as well. And lastly, with this sort of hybrid work, uh, work from home quarantine thing in mind. Employee engagement. It's huge.

Anyone that's got a team at the moment is thinking, how do I engage them? It just got really hard. We can't pop down to the pub after work. We can't just chat at the water cooler. We can't go grab lunch. All of that just got infinitely harder. How do you keep people engaged? How do you hold onto your culture and your values?

Huge challenges. Really, uh, exciting new product opportunities. Uh, but there you've got a three collaboration [00:10:00] challenges, employee engagement, hybrid work, flipped learning. And on the tech side, we've got no code solutions, real time, automatic interfaces and open banking. I had six. I could, I could go on for hours, but those were six that I thought would be really.

Inspiring for you to think about and to consider. And if you want to consider any more of those or any other trends or practices for product people head over to bottom up.io, where you can learn design thinking, agile, lean, and a whole heap, more tons of free courses. Um, we're just giving away all our knowledge.

So jump on over there and just vacuum up all that. Goodness. All right. Well that is, um, another episode of the bottom-up girls podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality science and we are continuing this adventure into emerging technology and trends. And, uh, we're taking a bit of a pivot, a bit of a turn because this time we're going to talk about some of the flops that I picked in recent years now, in the previous show, we looked at the ones I got, right.

And we asked ourselves, well, what did we learn from that? And that's exactly what we're going to do in this show. We're going to look at the pics that did not work out and we're going to say, okay, why didn't they work out? Because all of this will lead to our next show, which is what's got us excited in 2021.

Okay. So let's do this in reverse order and look at some of the picks over the last four years. And let's [00:01:00] start with 2020. Uh, now we got quite a few right there. I think we got a helping hand from, uh, COVID in quarantine. We saw cloud, um, and a number of, uh, automation trends that we picked, but one that we did not get right.

Is five G we really expected 5g to take off me. Maybe I was a little bit of a victim of all the hype from the telcos and the handset manufacturers, because the truth is, uh, 5g is not the easiest thing to find. And I know some of you might say, well, there are certain neighborhoods, certain cities, but let's think about it for 5g to really.

Be alive and well, you should be able to live in New York, be traveling in Chicago and stay on your 5g connection. You need to be in Sydney and fly to Melbourne and easily access 5g. And there are truth really is. That's not possible right now. [00:02:00] Here's what I think the big thing is is you gotta, you gotta take into consideration that the handsets are there.

The telcos are willing, but I think this story is one of infrastructure. You know, 5g is tricky because we've got long wave, short wave. We actually need more towers in order to deliver 5g. And I think part of that is just the simple effort. The push the time, the cost of rolling out infrastructure in a way that it's sustainable to offer a complete.

5g all day, every day service. And what you have to remember here is we had many years of this hype and we still in many, many, many major cities around the world. Don't have this quality of service with 5g yet. And I think that this is a real lesson, that anything that requires really fixed analog infrastructure, you [00:03:00] have to factor in the delays and the time that that takes to roll out.

So moving on to 2019, um, and this is a bit of an interesting one. Um, we, um, we really picked mixed reality. Now I will say this one for, in my own defense, uh, you know, the ARV, uh, and anything in between that I think while it certainly didn't happen in 2019 and 2020. All of a sudden, I will say, I think we've deferred it for two years.

I think 20, 21 mixed, uh, extended reality will take off because there's finally, this is the big insight around mixed reality. There's finally a problem to solve, which is whether we talk about retail or health. Both of them now are really investing in mixed reality solutions because they are unable to have contact based interaction with customers or patients.

So [00:04:00] retailers can no longer deploy a in-person experience. So they need mixed reality. And in the same way we look at telemedicine, we look at AR VR solving many health problems. We see virtual consultations ramping up incredibly. This means that whilst I will admit it didn't happen, uh, when we thought it would, we said 2019, we're now in 2021.

I do think it is deferred. I think it's going to happen in 2021, but I think the lesson here is that mixed reality. Be it AR VR or anything else? We're still needing a problem to solve. There weren't enough constraints, uh, in users' lives in businesses world. That meant that it could play a role, but post COVID now there is.

Autonomous vehicles. Well, this one, much like 5g, I'm going to admit it. I think it was a bit of a victim to the hype, a lot of chit chat about autonomous vehicles [00:05:00] and we're still not there. Uh, and yes, I know we see the funny Reddit videos of someone falling asleep at the wheel. But I think the truth is we are such a long way from true autonomous vehicles for the everyday person.

And I think this is a lesson in complexity. Because you don't only have your product challenge, like say a handset for, for Apple. You've also got the fact that there is all this complexity that the car, which is the product in this case must work in integrate within the major road systems, road regulations.

And on top of that, if that wasn't enough millions of other drivers. So the variables and the permutations of all the things that could go wrong are endless. So whilst I am sure the folks at Tesla are doing great work. I think the truth is it's [00:06:00] been really over height. We try to pick this in 2018. I think we're crazy.

In retrospect. I think the lesson here is complexity. So when we see an emerging technology come along and there's a lot of complexity, I mean, think of that thing that you've got all the tech in the car and you've got to get the car on the road. The road has to be part of assistance of the cars, got to work on the road in the highway system with other drivers.

Holy smokes. That's a lot of variables, a lot of, a lot of product complexity. It's a long term bet. I think it feels like a very inevitable technology because this, the benefits are huge. The disruption is equally huge. We totally underestimated the complexity lesson learned, look out for complexity. And let's go back to 2017, our first year of pics.

And we were huge on virtual reality and hollow VR and goodbye VR because it came in, [00:07:00] it went, uh, it was so high to back in the day. And a lot of lessons here, I'm going to start with the handsets or the headsets in this case, uh, they were big, they were bulky, terrible video quality, um, terrible battery life.

And the, he looked pretty awful big and bulky and heavy and strapping on your head and all this crazy stuff. Um, and two interrelated things is it was actually really expensive to make VR content. I worked on a couple of big VR projects, huge amount of effort for a small VR experience. Everything has to be custom designed, created, developed engineered, um, yeah, a lot there.

And as a result, put these two things together. Big expensive headsets that nobody wants really expensive to make content. Then there is no content. So there was no big hit. There was no app store, like moment, like the iPhone had. VR, just too many barriers. [00:08:00] I think the lesson here that too early, too early, and as you'll note, I do think that VR will come back as some sort of mixed extended reality play in 2021 because simply retail and health providers need it.

It solves a problem. So some interesting lessons here. So infrastructure takes a long time, watch out for complexity, make sure there's a problem we're solving and look out for the expense. Um, I mean VR and so funny. It's amazing. It's this too damn expensive to make. And it's a really fascinating product insight.

So there you have it. Those were the flops and the lessons learned if you want to learn. And you want to dive into the world of being a product person, head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can learn design thinking. You can check out all our, uh, old emerging tech, uh, presentations in keynotes. There's a ton of free courses there.

Bottom-up dot IO. It's the perfect place for product [00:09:00] people. All right, that's it. For the bottom up skills podcast, that's a wrap.

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Hello, welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I might pass since the CEO of Qualitas and today we start a brand new series and this is going to be big. Emerging trends, both in technology and collaboration, we have so much to get into. So I'm super excited. We're going to start a new series. It's all going to be about what's emerging.

And the first place we need to start is if we want to see what's going to happen in the future, we need to check in and see what's happened in the past. Let's have a look at our back catalog. Now the good news for you is I've been, I've been trying to pick emerging trends for many, many years now. So in front of me, I've got four consecutive years of some good picks since I'm not so [00:01:00] good pigs.

And, uh, today I really want to share with you just some thoughts that I had about trying. Uh, to pick emerging trends and weighing up all the factors and looking at addressable market, what problem does it solve? Is there kind of ecosystem support all those kinds of things that I look for? Well, today we're going to, we're going to look back at the ones I got, right.

And try and decode them a little bit and see why those picks worked. But don't worry. This is, this is not all about self praise here because in the next show, I'm going to go to my flops, my bad pigs, but for now, let's, uh, let's start with the goodies. So for years I've chosen one thing from each year that I got.

Right. And let's talk about why we think it's, it's worked so, so damn well, 2017, uh, I had a big peak for blockchain and [00:02:00] obviously. With retrospect that wasn't such a bad peak. I would have been even smarter if I had bought a few, uh, crypto coins. Um, I could probably retire now if I had, but the point here is what blockchain represents is this.

A fantastic system that is decentralized, um, it's super efficient and the integrity of the system. I mean, if you just look at 2019 and you look at, uh, the fraud, uh, around transactions in the blockchain in 2019, there was zero. So the system is so competent. That it has the incredibly, this incredibly efficient level of performance of integrity.

Whereas you could compare that to the global financial market. It is commonly estimated that more than 5% of transactions were fraudulent, [00:03:00] meaning that they were fake, uh, meaning that they were not real transactions. There wasn't a buyer and a seller. There was not a proper ledger. There was some. Fraud happening in that transaction.

So isn't that interesting how efficient blockchain really is now, obviously born of blockchain. We've got a lot of these cryptocurrencies, which are taking up a huge, huge amount, huge amount of the news at the moment. And I just want to put that into a. Perspective that we're looking at, you know, take Bitcoin, for example, the value of Bitcoin raised over 300% in 2020.

Now I don't want to get into the hype and the cycles of Bitcoin itself, but what we're seeing is whether it is as an asset class or a store value. Um, these coins, which are built on blockchain are proving a safe Haven against [00:04:00] traditional systems. So I think there is huge momentum that is being driven by investment, which has been driven by transaction store value or people finding safe Haven or alternatives to federal reserve government systems.

So blockchain has come along and it has whipped people up into a frenzy. And this idea of a distributed ledger with high integrity is not only great for consumer investors, but what we are starting to see is that more and more. Businesses are adopting blockchain to perform ledger based tasks in the enterprise.

So we've got that one pretty right. And I'm pretty happy with that and excited to see what happens with blockchain in 2018, we picked face recognition. Now, many of you might know this from face ID with your iPhones, [00:05:00] and I want to start there, but that's not the only angle that I took with face recognition.

Without a doubt. Um, you know, if you look at the core of consumer device interaction, it's all about inputs and outputs. And in this case, Entering your whore pink code. It's a thing, password drama. So being able, just to look at your face and open your iPhone is actually a huge reduction in friction for the user and enables them to get their tasks done quicker with less hassle.

So face recognition, we picked that in 2018. Boom, we're off to the races, but what we also saw is the technology from big firms, Microsoft, Amazon, et cetera. Was so good at face recognition, even IBM as well that they actually took a step back and said, we're not going to sell this to police forces around the world because of where it would naturally take [00:06:00] you.

Um, with. Crime law and order. So the tech was so good that they said, well, we're not even going to supply this to the police force. So I'm not here to really, to cast any judgments about that, but it shows you the power of the technology. So 2017, we picked blockchain. I think Bitcoin would, would serve as evidence that we're in a great place there face recognition.

I mean, I certainly use it on a regular basis and we see just the desire for, uh, police and crime prevention, the huge role they can play now in 2019 sort of building our face recognition, we, we really picked something that we didn't expect, uh, to be this big. Privacy and ethics. That was our, one of our big trends that we picked for 2019.

And what was interesting about that is we were kind of looking at it from the perspective of that. There were so many big systems, whether it was, um, Cambridge Analytica that were, um, kind of stealing, misusing a user [00:07:00] data, or whether there were all those big breaches that we saw. Um, so many different, uh, folks, uh, were, um, seeing their data.

Um, misuse that we saw this huge need to increase privacy and the ethics around it. So the thought here is that users realize that they had become the product and they wanted to get back in to control. So what we saw with both tick-tock and Facebook is we saw these big. Blowups in 2020, where the use of the data, whether it be by the firm or by state actors became a huge issue for users.

And I think we can expect that it's going to stay around for a long time as well. Another big pick from, uh, last year, you know, obviously we had some cloud and automation, pigs. They did really well, but I wanted to kind of continue this theme [00:08:00] of face recognition, privacy and ethics, one that we picked. And I just want to caveat this.

W COVID had not happened at this time. We picked mass surveillance and what we have seen Holy smoke, whether you look at it from a defense perspective, Whether you look at it from health and safety, we have seen three of the biggest state actors, China, Russia, USA, all getting into various forms of mass surveillance of trying to defend the nation state.

Look after the health of people. I'm not here to judge whether they be right or wrong, they're just doing their thing. And surveillance is at the heart of it. It's a combination of face recognition, privacy ethics data. IOT, all of these things really do come together and mass surveillance. And I think all of these things, what's really interesting when you zoom out and you look at each of these big four themes is that they really demonstrate the power [00:09:00] of emerging technology because they're not only alive and well each and every one of these trends is.

Taking off in a big way. And I think what we're seeing is the opportunity to build new products in 2021 that enjoy the efficiencies. Enjoy the exponential nature of the blockchain of cloud AI, et cetera. But also there is this fundamental choice to do good with your technology to take care of the users, to take care of the ecosystem.

And I think that this will be one of the greatest ethical, philosophical debates of 2021. Now I hope. You're enjoying the series. Cause we've got a lot more to come. And if you want to know anything more about emerging technologies or how to build great products with them, Head on over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can learn design thinking, agile, lean all for free, lots of cool [00:10:00] classes, lots of courses masterclasses.

If you're a product person jumping over to bottom-up dot IO and you'll find a whole bunch of goodies. All right. That's around the bottom-up skills pockets.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance and today we've got a special little entre mall, a little episode around. Uh, very, uh, dear topic to me, which is podcasting. And I just want to share with you four thoughts around how to start a brand new podcast.

Come on. It's 20, 21. It's a new year. And a lot of people have been asking me recently, you know, For micro recommendations, uh, for any sort of advice on creating a podcast. So I thought I would give you four essential tips. Now these four tips are built out of actually a brand new course that I've. Um, made.

So if you have a look in the show description, you'll find the link to that [00:01:00] course. Or if you head over to bottom up, uh, dot IO, check out the blog and you'll see the links to the podcasting course, but let's get into four essential tips for creating a new brand new successful podcast. Now tip number one is all about the topic that you choose.

To make your podcast about, and my advice here is avoid being too general, avoid being too generic in the topics that you cover. I think here being specific. You might even say picking a niche really well is a really key thing. Now, without a doubt, podcasting is not as big as blogging. So the truth is you can jump in and find that there's not nearly as much competition in podcasting as blogging, but here's the key thing.

Yet because podcasting is taking off like crazy. And [00:02:00] I really believe that you're actually really want to start very small. I want to start with a small group of people who are insanely interested in particular topic. So a great example I gave of how to be specific in Nash, how to pick your niche. Well, uh, would be, uh, around the idea of creating a podcast around running.

Now, if you just went in called it, the running podcast, you will be presented with an let's be honest. It's not so much presented. You're going to be buried in hundreds and hundreds of other running podcasts that have been going for a long, long, long time. So my advice would be is to make it more specific and to make it more niche.

So in the case of running. I would do a little build, I would say, pick the topic running, but then maybe try picking a qualify like marathon running. But even that [00:03:00] might be a little too general. So you might say I'm going to do a podcast on a marathon running for beginners, and it's actually, once you get to that sort of niche, you'll find that you will not have many competitors and.

In an area like running your shorter, find thousands of listeners who are, if you produce some great content, who'd be really compelled by what you have to say. So lesson number one, avoid being too general in the topics you cover. Lesson number two is all about just thinking where your show is on display.

And my advice here is create colorful, iconic eye-popping brand for your podcast. And a special caveat, make sure it works in a small format. Many of the podcast artworks that you will see have small texts, which [00:04:00] when blown up full screen. On your laptop, they look fine when they compressed into like 40 or 50 by 50, uh, on a phone, you can't read the text and again, make sure you choose a really vibrant, uh, relevant, fresh set of colors.

Have a great palette. Use some bold, iconic symbols. Words or photography. So you can really stand out because actually, you know, people are just flicking through the carousel on iTunes or Spotify paps, and you have a job, you got to stand out, you've got to grab their attention. You've got to be memorable.

Uh, Really important because people forget that it is like a, it's like a store shelf. There's literally an aisle full of products and you've got to jump out and get their attention. So make sure you stand out. Okay. So that's the first two tips. Don't be too general in your topics [00:05:00] and be super colorful and stand out in your artwork.

Now the third one is we kind of moving a little bit more now into production is work with simple show structures and make sure that like any good story, you have a start middle. And, and, and this structure is really important because if you're chatting, whether it's by itself or more importantly, when you have co-hosts or guests, that you can keep the show on track.

So make sure you have an introduction, an outro summary, and maybe three, five, six points you want to make in the middle. And this structure is really important. If you want to get a little advanced, you might want to put, um, time markers, you might say three minutes, four minutes per topic. Very important to have those simple structures for the show, because it makes the information, um, very easy to digest for the listener [00:06:00] and part of this show structure.

A lot of people will ask, Hey, like how long should a show be? My sincere advice. Keep talking only. As long as you're creating some value only talk. If there are new or clear compelling ideas being shared, once you're into rambles and tangents, unless they're wildly exotic, are you going to lose your listeners pretty quickly?

So only talk if you're creating value and don't be scared to be short. Sharp and concise. Okay. So that's working with simple structures for your show. Last one, number four. It's all about getting on the same page now, um, depending on whether you're producing most of the show yourself, or whether you are working with guests, co-hosts is really important to have a run sheet of how the show's going to run.

What is the start middle and [00:07:00] end? What are the topics? Are there links? Are there reference materials, but be it either visual audio that you need to reference throughout the show? It's so important. Now, if you stick to your podcasting, it's really going to be important to have those run sheets, because somebody might say, Hey, what was that thing you talked about and show 38 and you'll need a good run sheet structure.

So you can go back and grab that information. Okay. So let's recap. Four points. Don't be too general. Be colorful. Simple structures and get on the same page with a run sheet. If you're about to start launch a brand new podcast, this is the essential advice that I have for you do these four things and you'll be well on your way.

Now, what I intend to cover down the track is how to record and sound like a real professional. And lastly, how to sustain, how to grow your [00:08:00] efforts. Once you've launched out into the world. And how to build an audience. So there's lots to cover there and it's really worthwhile because what's so powerful about the podcasting medium is that it's really, really personal.

Uh, people have a really strong relationship with their shows because it's in there is it's very sensorial. And the great thing is you can connect to other groups of people who are talking about really specific things that you're into. So it's really great for your interests, your passions, the things that consume you, you can get them on demand.

You can make them part of your commute, ritual, your gym ritual. That's why podcasting has taken off so much. It really is the 2021 media format. Of choice. All right. Well, that's it. For this episode of the bottom-up skills podcast, we've talked a lot about how to start and launch a successful podcast. Make sure if you're interested in learning more head over to [00:09:00] bottom-up dot IO, go over to the blog and you'll see the links Podcasting course.

I hope you've enjoyed it. That's a wrap.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons, the chief executive officer at qualitance and we have got to the third installation. And the final part of our three-part series into product and marketing integration previously, you know, we talked about data and what you measure.

We talked about the key starting point, and today we're going to kind of shift a little bit more in to people and teams, because let's be honest, it's people who get the job done. So let's learn six mantras that remind us of the vital vital ingredient for product and marketing teams. And that's collaboration because if we ain't working together, it doesn't really matter.

How good your dashboard, your spreadsheet, your [00:01:00] code, your design, your Adobe XD, your Figma files. None of that really matters if people aren't on the same page. So what I wanted to do now is I wanted to take six mantras that I think you can. Celebrate adhere to remind yourself of remind your colleagues of these matches will bring people together and remind everybody of our common language, because I believe that these six mantras truly do speak to product and marketing people alike.

And my mission here is to really bring them together. To create harmony amongst them, because what is so crazy is decades ago, the, one of the greatest business thinkers, Peter Drucker said that the only two things that really matter are product development. And marketing, they are the true innovation drivers.

[00:02:00] So I've got these six mantras that come from some of the latest cutting edge methods, practices, and frameworks, but I think they would equally inspire you today as they would Peter Drucker some 50 years ago. So let's get into the big six Manches for collaboration. Let's get into six ideas that can bring us a common language, a common set of values and beliefs in order to build product and marketing teams that are truly integrated, that can go out and do great things.

Okay. Number one, build measure, learn. You know, the reason this works for me is when I think about marketing and launching a brand new product with this great campaign is. If you do all this great testing and validation in the product development, why wouldn't you do it in the marketing as well? So when we talk about build, measure, learn as mentioned, number one, [00:03:00] I think this will speak to product and marketing people alike.

And with the. Way in which we need to fight for the attention of the user. We need to understand that the user's changing a lot right now in their behaviors that experiences build, measure, learn. I think that's like the only way a marketer can practice good marketing in 2021. So that's really our first mantra build, measure.

Learn. Hmm. I like that. Number two, test the entire funnel. Now again, equally for product and marketing people. When I was introduced. To the world of marketing and advertising people talk so much about reach frequency, impressions. Um, it's so funny how there was a real obsession of just hit the top line numbers and everything will be pretty good.

But actually when we talk about. [00:04:00] The best marketing practices in 2021, they don't test just the top of the funnel. They test the entire funnel. So test the entire funnel is our second mantra. But the most interesting thing here is if we flip this, if you're a product person, then of course you want to test the entire funnel because you need to identify what your customers like.

What they're prepared to pay for how long you can retain them. And at the bottom of the funnel, the lead generator, ironically enough is the referral. How often do our customers refer the product to new customers? I mean, that is definitely one of the most important things, because face it, if your customers come to you, Through the good words of your existing customers, new people come because existing customers love the product.

Well, they will convert [00:05:00] better. They will convert quicker. And if you get your viral coefficient, right, every customer you win. Imagine this another entire customer was recruited. Thanks to that. I mean, that's momentum, that's scalable as well. So whether your product or marketing test the entire funnel. Now, the next thing is, you know, my big thing here is I don't just, you know, noodle away on all these methods and frameworks and so forth.

I truly believe that the same attention needs to be paid towards customers. So you have to build trust for high-performance team. And I've done a lot of work with Patrick. Lencioni's five dysfunctions of a team. That's the starting point. And at the anchor. Of high-performance team is trust. They believe in each other.

They believe in that each and every member will take care of not only of their own job, but the entire mission as well. So trust is essential. So whether you're productive, [00:06:00] Or a marketing team or cross discipline multidisciplinary team trust is key, particularly if you're not as experienced with an area of practice, um, you really do need trust because you might not know if they're a good marketing person, because you're a product person.

Well, That's where trust will be essential. So vulnerability is the key to trust. Go check out, um, our work that we've done on, uh, culture and teams over@bottomline.io. If you're interested in that, I'm a big proponent of the work of Patrick Lencioni and the five dysfunctions of a team. Now we've got three mantras so far build measure, learn, test the entire funnel and build trust for high performance teams.

I got another three for you here. Stimulate the senses. This is born out of my breakthrough. My aha moment of any idea should be put in front of a customer. Any idea can [00:07:00] be tested, can be prototyped. And I really encourage you to embrace that. So whether you want to. Work out what story to tell for the product or what's actually should be in the product.

It doesn't matter stimulate the senses. Now I'm very particular about saying the senses because when people sit in a focus group and prob Noster Kate about whether they would like something, they're just guessing. Because it's not in front of them. It's not in context. It's not the direct experience. If you truly want to know if you've got a product worth building, stimulate the senses, test it, validate it through prototyping, really essential stuff.

Now the next one is that obviously brings us all that prototyping brings us to a great practice. Uh, this is one where you demonstrate when you really live empathy for your users, walk in their shoes, see how they feel, think, and do work out the things that might relieve their pains and create their gains.

[00:08:00] It's all about empathy for your users. And lastly, rounding out the six build small teams. I continually see small teams working faster and better than big teams. You know, Jeff Bezos has the two pizza rule. If a team can't be fed by two pizzas, it's to be, and I really wholeheartedly agree, build small teams.

Let them be autonomous, give them on audacious, go and just let them go and ask yourself, what can I do to help? So there you've got six matches and what's interesting is each and every one of those build off a practice that you can go to bottom up.io and study take the course we've got build, measure, learn that's classic lean startup.

We've got a course on that tick test, the entire funnel. Well that's growth marketing that you will find on our site very soon. And there's already some great marketing courses there today. [00:09:00] Build trust for high-performance teams. That's all about people and culture stimulate the census rapid prototyping.

Empathize with users. That's obviously design thinking and lastly building small team is at the heart of agile software development. So there you have it. Six Manches, six ways of being a great product or marketing leader. Six ways to build things, to build products in a bottom-up way, staying close to users and really building some value that is worth talking about.

All right. That's it for the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello, welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I'm Mike Parsons the CEO of Qualitance and we're in the second  Of our product and marketing series. That's right. We are bringing together these two worlds and today is all about what we measure. And we have this little belief that you only get what you measure.

So imagine if you could get product designers and growth hackers, all working off the same data, the same results, the same dashboards. I mean, just think about the metrics. Think about the business insights that you could have. Well, what I'm going to propose to you today is I've got five, five big buckets with a really specific things that you can measure.

And I think they serve product and marketing equally, so let's get into them. [00:01:00] Okay. Five stages of a product journey, five stages of what I would argue to you might be things that we can measure in a marketing team. Things that can make our products so much better. So I'm thinking you probably want to know what they are.

Okay. It's empathy, stickiness. Virality revenue and scale. That's right. These are what I argue will be universal paradigms that both product developers and marketers will have to use in order to bring their worlds together. And what's so interesting is how these will demonstrate for you. Just actually, how similar the needs of data and insights are for product teams and marketing teams.

So let's jump into them. Let's break each of these five down and let's [00:02:00] ask ourselves, what's the sort of gate, what's the sort of objective each of them need to reach in order to go forward into the next stage, because you know, there should be some control method here because you don't want to be blasting away with some big ad campaign when you have yet to prove that this product really satisfies your early adopters.

All right. So let's jump into the world of empathy. And you'll hear me talk about this so much because. My whole bottom-up philosophy really stems from working very closely with customers. So empathy is the key thing we need to embody the key thing we need to do. And in this case, it's stage one, because if you have empathy for your customers, you're actually taking the time to see what jobs they're trying to get done.

What are their pains and gains? And here's the key thing. If you've got a value prop canvas handy, you want to be able to ensure [00:03:00] that the pain relievers, the gain creators, the features of your product, answer to the needs of these customers. Do they truly get the job done? And it sounds insanely simple.

Doesn't it? I always just make sure that we're getting the job done here. But many products don't and I'm going to talk about later in this episode, I'll talk about some of the common mistakes with how we get people on the same page, but let's stick with this idea of empathy and measuring the right thing.

If you are a product developer or marketing person, your number one step is to make sure you have that problem solution fit that there truly is a need in the market. And that it actually could be solved. So what you would measure is the response to prototypes, [00:04:00] uh, the response to interview questions or survey questions you would want to conduct sufficient testing of those three things you'd want to measure those.

When I do a user survey user interview, and then a rapid prototyping session, this will give you the signal that, Hey guys, we found a real PolyMet need that are reachable market faces. Okay. So this is the first data point that you want to have. Now once you've got that, you start getting going, you start building the momentum, and this is for me all about the stickiness.

That's right. Have we got something that's sticky? Have we figured out how to solve that problem in a way that actually the user can adopt, keep using and wait for it, pay for? So this is where we might see. The building of a minimum viable product of some type, [00:05:00] it could be, um, somewhat of a super-light one.

So it's a little bit faked, but it feels real, or it could actually be real code ticking along and actually satisfying the needs of a user group. The key thing here. Is, could you get those early adopters to actually do this roar? Just very essential experience and were they satisfied? And you have to be tough on yourself.

You have to ask yourself where they truly satisfied. Okay. Stickiness. So you have to really help ask yourself here. Do we truly satisfy the user? Did we meet their need? Are they willing? To pay for the product, even in its essential raw. Bare bones, uh, state, because if they will, then you're onto a good thing.

And that means that we can go onto our next thing to test, which is fire reality. Now, if you are from the product world, you may have [00:06:00] heard of the  coefficient, which is simply said for every customer that takes on the product, how many do, how many new customers do they recruit? So what we're really talking about here is testing advocacy.

And testing net promoter scores, very good metrics that inform not only the product people that I talked about, but think about if you're a marketeer and you know that your product is capable of generating new customers without paid marketing efforts, then you have this thing that we call organic growth.

And this is so important because if you have to pay. To attract every single customer that's going to be expensive. But if nobody is talking about rating, reviewing, sharing your product to both teams, it's a signal that things are not quite right. So you've got empathy. You've got [00:07:00] stickiness, you've got virality.

Now we need to move into the world of revenue. Now, this really comes down to some classic marketing metrics, CPC. And a R P U. Now what do all these things mean? Cost per customer? Like what does it cost you to go, go out into the world, place your paid advertising, get your customers, and then attract them into your product.

And what is your average revenue per user? These are key metrics that you would build the marketing campaign on. And likewise, a product person would sit there and say to themselves, Okay. Um, it looks like, uh, we're solving a problem, but it is so hard to reach the customer that we are paying huge dollars per customer conversion.

So. That could blow your business model. On the other hand, you might have a great product, but the willingness to pay, but use it is not particularly high [00:08:00] or maybe what you're monetizing is the wrong part of the product. Many, many, many lessons in there. So regardless of who and where you are, you need to understand what it costs to attract.

The customer and what, what actual revenues you're generating per customer equally, once again, product and marketing people will truly thrive. Now, there is a stage that happens after this. This is the scaling. This is the distribution conversion fit that goes into some sort of continuous iterative process, which is really.

I think at that point, we're getting into growth marketing, which is a whole separate topic, which actually I will be covering on a brand new course this year. So stay tuned for that one. But here we are. The five things that whether you're a product or marketing person, you can all agree to measure empathy, stickiness, vitality, revenue, and scale said differently.

What did we [00:09:00] get back in tens of data? When we actually did a user survey, when we did user interviews, when we prototyped, did we confirm the problem solution? When we build the MVP. Did we satisfy the early adopters in that raw clunky experience? Was it still good enough? Was it still solving a problem?

And when we're really getting going, what's our vitality, coefficient, advocacy, MPS test those things. And we talked about as we go into revenue and start to move towards scale CPC ARPU, you need to measure those indicators, whether your product or marketing, they will help you immensely. Well, I hope you've enjoyed this episode where we've really gotten into the second part of our series of bringing product and marketing people together.

If there's absolutely anything that you like here, jump over to bottom-up dot IO, because we've got all these mass classes, courses that really dig into. Some of the science [00:10:00] and some of the practical work you can do to really bring these practices alive. All right. That's it. For another episode of the bottom skills podcast, that's a wrap.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast, where we are starting another new series. Boy, they come quickly. Don't they? And today it's all about product and marketing coming together. Now these two things, product development, marketing. Advertising. They don't usually live together and putting them together can be a little clunky.

So what I'm going to do for you today is part of this three part series that we've got coming up. I'm going to give you three really powerful suggestions, ideas that, again, help you bring marketing and product together. Just that little bit more, just that little bit easier. And. Today, we're [00:01:00] going to start with perhaps one of the most powerful things that I discovered when I jumped from the marketing world to the product world.

It's this idea of identifying pains and gains of a user. Now these pains and gains are all what people experience as they're on the way to getting a particular job done. Being healthy, losing 10 kilograms, uh, going for a run, uh, being productive, sending emails, writing a document, whatever the job they're trying to get done, they get are running into all these blockers that can ever have all these hopes and dreams.

And we call those the pains and gains of the user. So we might ask ourselves, you know, what prevents your customer from getting that job done? And what gains would make the customer's life better. Okay. So let's build this up and start with product traditionally. Like a product person is going to look for pains and gains through research, [00:02:00] prototyping, being close to the customer.

And from that begin to build some user cases, some user. Flows, you might even call them. And this is sort of a, an idea of how the product might start and how it might start to serve the problem solving that needs to happen here. Now, once you have your use cases that you've kind of mapped out, you know, imagine that it's on a big whiteboard and you've got like a 10 stage process for getting a job done.

You might then go and build a prototype because you've kind of validated the use cases in Ingram and prototype. Now, importantly, with bottom up, we always always prototype with the end user, none of this, like a fantasy, uh, you know, innovation theater in the boardroom. No, no. Get on the streets and work with your real customers.

Now let's say you've. Dan you're prototyping. You've learned a lot. I think then you're ready to build an MVP. And once you validate that, then you can launch [00:03:00] version one of your product. Okay. So this is a straight through line of what really good product people will follow. And then a lot of this is based on lean startup, lean analytics, um, and you know, you want to test and learn at every step of the way.

Now what I discovered when I was presented with this thinking almost 10 years ago, it like all the lights went on because it maps beautifully to marketing. And in fact, what I'm going to propose to you today is the pains and gains of your end-user of your audience. These pains and gains hold not only the secret to great product, but they actually hold the secret to great marketing because here's what can happen when you actually test pains and gains.

For your product, you can also discover the emotions that your user, that your consumer customer or audience what they experience when they hit the pains and even better [00:04:00] when you relieve those pains and create the gains. And these emotions become the great starting point for telling the proposition.

We've got something great. That's going to be remarkable and it's going to create new value for you and you'll have the right emotions to tell that given story, that proposition. Now, once you've done your proposition testing, you can then bring that alive in some really rich vivid interactions. And after that, if you validate that and you can even test how customers might tell each other how they might advocate, how they might share your story.

And what's so powerful about this is whether you want to build the product or you want to build the marketing and promotion of it, the source of the right powerful insights. His pains and gains of the user. And it's one source, one single source of truth. And you can build both great product and promotion, [00:05:00] but I got a little excited about this because what I've discovered is that not only.

Can pains and gains of the user use, uh, be the starting point for our marketing team and a product team, but all those Excel wizards who like to make sure we've got a business case, they can profit from this too, because it's the pains and gains are the very starting point of your business hypothesis.

So you can go off and build, measure and learn around that hypothesis and make it even better. But, you know, I've had a couple of coffees today and. Therefore I am so excited because I think not only can we build great product from pains and gains, we can do great promotion and great profit. Like we just talked about with that lean hypothesis, but the fourth pay the people.

Can actually start with pains and gains as well, because think about it. If you have your marketing team, your [00:06:00] business team, your product team, all obsessed with solving and relieving pains for your users, creating gains for them as well. Then this becomes the mission that becomes very attractive for people to join the team, right?

So you can actually build a culture. You can build a team that wants to address. I want to relieve those pains and create those games. So the sort of behaviors that you model in the office, the systems, the symbols, all the things you say and do to celebrate, to bring your culture to life can STEM from the very same thing.

It is the pains and gains of the user. So. Just to recap, if we all take a step back and actually reflect on what are the pains and gains of users, how are we going to relieve the pains? How are we going to create the gains? I propose to you that beyond just creating a [00:07:00] product, we can create great promotion, great people and culture, even great profits too.

Now what's really important is that you do these step-by-step. Actually, you need to do these in lockstep together as a system so that you can do this on a continuous iterative basis. This is not just like a ha a habit. Or a startup process. This is sort of a lifestyle. This is sort of a way of being as a business.

And what I call this is bottom up innovation. It's really working with users. No more guessing, validating everything, building teams around a really well tested, well validated hypothesis. So there you go. That is the first of our three part series in how we can bring product and marketing people together, because there's never been a better time for this conversation [00:08:00] because when you look at Patagonia, when you're looking at Apple, when you look at Nike, what you really see here are companies where product and marketing come together, where you might say that the best product.

Weapon that these companies have is their marketing, or you might say the best marketing weapon that they have is their product. So without getting too grandiose, I think. What is seriously being something that has been so siloed. That is the partnership between product and marketing people. I believe that we already have the evidence that the best companies on the planet are already blurring the lines in merging these efforts.

And hopefully if you embrace this idea of starting with user pains and gains, you will be able to as well. Okay. I hope you've enjoyed this. There's another two parts of this series. And if you're really interested in [00:09:00] any of the practices that come up, as you do pains and gains, as you build a product, as you build teams, you can find all the answers in our free courses that are available at bottom-up dot IO.

So I encourage you jump over there. Take any one of these free courses? I believe, I think we're up to like 16 now. Um, and look, if you have questions about where to start with pains and gains, just head over to bottom-up dot IO, send us a note and tell us what you're thinking. What questions do you have?

And we'll get into the business of solving them for you. Alright. That's it. For the bottom up skills podcast, that's a wrap.

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Hello, welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons, I'm the CEO of quality teams and were going to talk about time. Time is essential for product people, because I can tell you, we always have that beautiful constraint. Have a deadline, we all have to meet the clock. So this idea of time management and prioritization is my third part of the essential, the top skills for 2021 for product people.

And as I've said earlier, yes, there are these broad themes of working virtually and critical thinking and learning and resilience. No question, but what I'm doing here in this show is I want to go deep. I want to go specific [00:01:00] in the skills that product people need. So I'm talking about designers, developers, creators, and entrepreneurs.

What do they need in 2021 to be successful? Now we've already talked about growth marketing. We've already talked about this product mindset. So we've got product and marketing, two essential things for innovation. Great off to the races. But the reality is we have so many things competing for our time.

You know, it's funny because it doesn't really matter who I speak to startup people or really senior executives. Everybody is time poor. Everybody is trying to figure out how to reduce workloads, how to manage their time better. And so with this, um, New reality of 2021. And perhaps you're working in a hybrid mode some days at work in the office.

Some days [00:02:00] from home, maybe you're working with more global distributed teams. The days become really big. And so what's really important is to work out what you do now. In fact, a lot of people. Are struggling on, I feel like I've got a very big list and I don't know what actually has to happen right now.

There's too many or. People just try and do everything now. And it's just too much, you know, the human mind is designed to be doing one thing at a time. Science continually validate some proves to us that it's one thing at a time, not two. And we know multitaskers are far less productive and people that are focused and do deep work.

So how do we do that? Well, one of the things that I worked so hard on myself is to prioritize my time and I have found a tool that I want to share with you that I think is super powerful. [00:03:00] This is something I've also been recommending to a lot of people to help them. Make better decisions on where they, uh, how they spend their time, because where we spend our time is what we're saying matters.

And that really ladders up to us reaching our objectives. And, you know, sometimes we put our time in the wrong place. And this is often the reason, this mysterious reason why we kind of, why aren't we on track here? Like I'm working really hard, but it's not quite coming together. It's often because we haven't managed our time and priorities in the right way.

So now, now that we're kind of all in that problem, Headspace let's. Discuss the Eisenhower matrix. This is a great tool, which will provoke you to ask the right questions, but equally to take the right actions. So let me share [00:04:00] this with you and let's get into the world of the Eisenhower matrix. Okay. Now what the Eisenhower matrix does is I want you to imagine you're looking at a quadrant.

In front of you and the top left is a corner. And in that top left, I is the important things and the urgent things. And diametrically opposite. So on the bottom, right. Of the things that you should eliminate, because they're not urgent and not important. These are the two extremes we're working in, things that are really important and urgent and things that are not urgent and not important.

Let's give this some context. So if something is critical, say it's in your OKR, it's in your KPIs. It's your big priority and that makes it an important activity. But if something is urgent and it's the [00:05:00] most it's related to the most important thing you can be doing. The most important goal or objective that you have, this becomes a dual item.

Okay. So we're in the top left of that quadrant. It's important and urgent. You do that now. Okay. Now that one's probably the least surprising of these, but here is where we start to breathe a little easier. What feels really good. Is when you can start to plan and allocate your time. And there is no better thing for that, for that allocation is when something, when an activity that you have on your task is important, but it's not urgent.

Okay. So let's say it could be done today or tomorrow this week or next week. But it is really important. It relates to one of your big objectives or here's the important thing that the Eisenhower matrix does. It [00:06:00] says you need to plan that activity, book it into your calendar. So a good judge of that. If you look at your calendar, how much of your calendar for the next couple of days is actually allocated to important things, because here's the thing.

You can breathe a sigh of relief that you don't have to do it right now. But you can also take some knowingness, some calmness, some wellbeing from the idea that you've allocated time to something that's important in the coming days or weeks. It's not urgent, but you've planned it. So you know that it will be executed if you disrespect your calendar.

So there we go. We've got the first two parts of the Eisenhower matrix. If it's urgent and important do now. If it's important, but it's not urgent plan that activity in your calendar. So open up your calendar and allocate a block of time and label it for [00:07:00] that priority for that task. And there you've done something really good because you're working on important things, but you're doing it now, whether you're planning it for later, this is the essence of something and the magic inside of the Eisenhower matrix.

There's two other parts of the quadrant, which. Do equally good a job, but don't get discussed too much. Now the third part, the third quadrant is where something is super urgent, but for you, it's not really important, but it's in your inbox. And the key thing, the action that you need to do if it's urgent, but it's not important for your goals is to delegate it to the right person.

Who in fact, this is important too. So this third action is the delegation. So we've got doing, we've got planning and we've got delegating. Delegating might mean that there is someone who's far better skilled to do the task, but [00:08:00] also it's very important to their role in the team. So you can delegate it to them.

So we've got, do delegate the fourth one. Is when something is neither important nor urgent. And we need to do only one thing with those things, eliminate them. Don't delegate them, don't plan them. And certainly by no means do them, you eliminate them because it's not important and there's no urgency for it as well.

And you know, the funny thing is so much of managing our time and priorities. Actually happens in these lower areas of delegation and elimination, because we often carry many things that are. Either not important or not urgent for us. And they would be much better delegated or even just eliminated. Just don't do them say no, thank you.

I can't do that. I cannot be part of that. I cannot attend that [00:09:00] meeting, eliminate those things from your time from your calendar and you will feel relieved, but you'll also have more time and more space. To focus on things that are important and urgent because Hey, if you're out there building a product or you're a growth marketer, who's testing the entire funnel, or you're working in a remote virtual hybrid team, you're going to be busy already.

There's going to be a lot of priorities. There's going to be a lot of urgency for things to happen. So the cleaner you make your calendar. The clearer, you make your priorities, the more effective that you can be doing your job and let's face it. If you are managing your time. Well, you are setting yourself up to build a great product, a product that creates enormous value for its users creates value for the business.

Everybody can win if we're working on things that matter. [00:10:00] All right. I hope you've enjoyed the third part of our top skills for 2021 series. If you did head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can get a bunch of free courses, uh, design thinking, Joe, you name it, it's all there. And you can get all the skills you need to be the best version of a product person for yourself.

So go on over to bottom-up dot IO. Everything that you could have a one is a product post, a new find it that alright. That's around of the bottom-up skills podcasts.

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Hello and welcome to the bottomup skills podcast. I’m Mike Parsons, I'm the CEO of quality terms. And we today are going to talk about a product mindset. Now, this is all part of our special series on the best, the top skills in 2021 for product people. In the previous episode, we talked about growth marketing.

And in this episode, we're going deep into the world of a product mindset. Now I know, uh, you know, the call upon us in 2021 is to deal with so much change working virtually, uh, learning new skills, uh, dealing with uncertainty. It's like the whole playbook got. Tone up in 2020, and we're all [00:01:00] reinventing ourselves, learning new skills to be the very best version of ourselves in 2021.

So this product mindset is as essential for product people. And I want you to, whether you're a designer, developer, creator, or entrepreneur, I want you to know. That is really important to have this product mindset, to be really strong in the fundamentals of building product in the digital age, because.

Every business needs it. And so few businesses truly have the skills of product design and product development, product discovery, you name it. It is very, very rare. The call for product managers as, as high as it's ever been. So hopefully what I can do for you in this show is to showcase what I think. The product mindset really looks like in 2021.

And I hope this really helps you in your work to build great products and [00:02:00] to create value for your users. Now I want to get into kind of the six specific ingredients that I think make up a product mindset. And, um, they actually all each reflect a practice, a methodology, but I think these are also mantras that we can hold to be true as product people.

And the reason. But these mantras are so important. And the subsequent methodologies that they represent that they showcase is that we need to be champions, not only inside of our product teams, but in the outside broader. Business, even outside of the business, in our external business communities, because I think everybody is, is talking about building a digital app, a digital thing.

Um, and it's complex. It's hard. It's not an easy thing. So I really want you to be able to [00:03:00] provide them with a point of view. Simple powerful managers that really serve the mission of building great products that put the user at the front and center. All right. So I'm going to hit you with six. Um, I'm going to give you these mantras.

We're going to talk about them. And the great news is we already have courses in five of these and we plan to launch a another course very soon. So you'll be able to take really big, deep dives into each of these ideas. All right. So let's get into the world of product mindset. If someone says to you, what is this world of product all about?

What do you guys believe? What is your vision for the world? Well, I'm going to take a shot at it. Okay. So I think there are these six ideas and they are all core. To building a great product. If I remove one of [00:04:00] these from a product project, from an effort to build a product, if I remove any of these six ideas, we're going to have some trouble.

So I think these are the six essential ideas for a product mindset without a doubt. Number one. Is build measure, learn great product building is all about learning. So you will never have all the answers at the start. You will never have them all at the start, but what you will do is have the capacity to grow, to learn and understand throughout the journey it's intuitive.

Okay. So mantra number one, build measure. Learn the next one. Stimulate the senses when you're building very early, early versions of your product, do not build some sexy, shiny PowerPoint thing. And have the belief that you just validated your product. No. I want you to stimulate the senses, build something [00:05:00] that people can touch, pick up, use something that you can test task completion with, and you need to go out and build these prototypes.

These will help you so much, particularly in the early stages of product development. And of course, if you're going to be building prototypes, stimulating the senses, if you want to learn, you need to do that with your users. And this is the third idea I want to propose to you. That is a true product mindset, empathize with users.

If you have no empathy for your end user, your product will fail. But if you can be humble and curious, if you can listen and learn, understand. Walk in their shoes, you will go very, very far with your design. And obviously as we get around to building a product, um, the real engineering part. You need to build small [00:06:00] agile teams, you know, so true.

There's this very traditional idea about the mythical man month, where in it, people used to just throw people at projects, make the team bigger, bigger, and bigger. And what they found is that that actually gives diminishing returns. That gets to the point where it's, there's no incremental improvement by throwing.

More people at it because it gets too complex. It can't move fast to building small agile teams. That's mantra number four for us. So, so far we've got build measure, learn, stimulate the senses, empathize with your users and build small teams. Now, once you've got that product, you need to go out into the world.

You need growth, you need distribution, you need conversion. And this is all about the idea of test, the entire funnel. Don't just, you know, Tell everyone and announced to everyone, the products there and leave it at that [00:07:00] go through and acquire them, activate them, retain them, grow them, get some referrals.

Test the entire funnel. Very important. Fifth mantra. And lastly, and I sort of a different flavor here is build high performance teams. Now this one, the sixth one is super important because everything that we've just talked about, the last five ideas is all happening. In the context of culture and it's done by people and it requires trust.

So you could be the sharpest growth marketing funnel optimizer in the universe, but you need to know how to work with people, how to build a trust. Okay. So let's take a little bit of a step back and look at those six mantras and let's reveal, which practices, which methodologies they all represent. And remember what I'm presenting to you is [00:08:00] this is what a product mindset is all about.

Number one, it's the lean startup idea, build, measure, learn. So head over to bottom-up dot IO. If you want to know more about lean startup, super powerful, we have Eric Reese to thank for that is very valuable. So you don't make the mistake of guessing what your product should be. The second one is rapid prototyping.

It's a great practice. Some might say it's actually part of design thinking, but the reason that I pull it out is it yields so much value in the early stages that this idea of stimulating the senses early is really critical to your success. The earlier you prototype the earlier you learn. And obviously design thinking is a huge part of this as well, empathizing with users, knowing the paradigm by which we might create a user experience, build user interface, create interactions in the [00:09:00] end, helping users get their jobs done is a critical thing.

And that starts with empathy. And so tied up in this wonderful practice of design thinking. And obviously something born of the technology and agile and software world is agile software development. And the mantra that best describes that is building small autonomous teams that write code that works.

This is the focus. This is the key thing. Don't build these gargantuan teams that are drowning in documentation, make it small, make it fast, and obviously test that funnel. And that's all part of growth. Marketing growth marketing is super powerful because it really looks at the entire journey that our customers, that our users go through to test the entire funnel.

And last, but certainly not least work on people and culture and building high performance teams is a critical part because they do all the [00:10:00] other things that I mentioned. It's all people and the culture of how they work together, what is said, and also what is not said, and that is really essential to building high-performance teams.

Okay. So there you go. That's my best effort at presenting to you an essential skill for 2021. The product mindset. Now, if you've enjoyed that five of those that I just mentioned, there's already a couple, some bottom up that AI very soon. There'll be another one. So you can go over to bottom-up dot IO, sign up.

It's all free and you can go deep on some of those tools. All right. That's a wrap for the bottom-up skills bucket.

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Hello, welcome to the bottom skills podcast. I am Mike Parsons, the CEO of quality and we are starting a brand new series for a brand new year. To welcome into 2021. We are going to discuss the top three skills that product people are going to need. Now let's talk about 20, 21st. I mean, it was crazy, very unpredictable fires, riots.

COVID elections, you name it. It was pretty crazy. And with all of that new uncertainty and that change, there was definitely some broad themes that I think largely affect. Most people working in those sort of knowledge worker roles. So I think that, um, you know, obviously working virtually and, uh, you know, quarantine was a particularly [00:01:00] timely skill that we've needed to develop.

And I think that's going to continue into 2021. We needed to be a bit more agile or needed to be good at, you know, Accepting some uncertainties, um, um, doubts. And we were presented with a whole new series of problems. So we need to be able to think critically and learn along the way. And these are what I call very broad themes that I think apply to not only product people, but to.

People, uh, in business in general. Now, what I thought would be very interesting is to double click in and really zoom into, okay, what are the skills they're going to be most required for product people? When we'd say product people, we were talking about designers, developers, creators, and entrepreneurs, people who are trying to build brand new products and bring them to the world.

So I am going to present you today with the first of three, and I really hope to get [00:02:00] your feedback on this. Tell me what you think. Because we're going to be making masterclasses really deep courses on each of these three skills that we think are essential for 2021. All right. Let's get into the first one.

And that is growth marketing. Now growth marketing is really Tivoli new over the last five or 10 years. And, uh, for someone like myself who spent a great deal of time in the advertising world, it was. Really a breakthrough. Uh, when you know, it was all of the marketing, uh, skills and practices of a digital world, what kind of collected into this banner, this marquee of growth market.

It was kind of super helpful in pulling it all together. And here's why, because as marketing and advertising experts, we generally focused on very traditional metrics. Reach and frequency, [00:03:00] basically get your brand, get your message out there and try and grab the attention of as many people as possible.

Now, what happened after you got their attention was not really in the consideration? Yes. There was some direct marketing, uh, agencies and experts, but. They were much smaller than the traditional brand advertising television, uh, ad making people. So. Here's the thing with growth marketing growth marketing is about the full funnel.

It is about the end to end journey of the user from when you don't know them to when they are so keen to tell the world about you. And that is a full and complete journey. It's a full funnel. And traditionally in advertising and marketing, we had a real focus on just the first two. And that's why it is so [00:04:00] important to put our heads into the world of growth marketing and break it down.

Now, just for this show, what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you an introduction just to the funnel and give you a kind of sense of what it might be. And I'm really keen to hear back from you what you'd like me to include in the masterclass, because I'm really excited about this proposition. Okay.

So let's talk about the funnel, the. Growth marketing funnel is built up of two major parts. Some people like to include five steps in the funnel or six. I'm going to give you the full six. And this is famously called the pirate metrics because it's three, A's followed by three RS. So it's nice and easy to remember.

So here we go. Uh, first part of the growth marketing funnel is all about awareness. This is the beginning. This is making sure you reach enough people. [00:05:00] Then we go to acquisition. We, you know, we've got to acquire them, but just because we've acquired them, brought them to us. We still need to do the third step.

We do. We need to activate them. We need to get them to do something with us. Then we need to get them to do a transaction with us. That's where we step into this kind of second area is called revenue. And as we build this relationship and we provide a product and a service to them, we then need to. Next step part five, we need to retain them.

Okay. So this far we've got awareness, acquisition and activation. That's the top of the funnel. The bottom of the funnel is obviously revenue and retention, but there's one more referral and referral is obviously all about people introducing your product or service to others. So. Here's the interesting thing.

What you need to do is open your mind and think about the growth marketing funnel as this complete journey, this [00:06:00] complete journey from awareness right through to referral. So I'm going to give you six questions. Uh, that relate to each of these steps, which will help you get a little bit more of a sense of what we mean in this funnel.

Okay. So awareness, if you're sitting around with your colleagues and saying, how's our awareness, we'd be asking how many people are we reaching? How many people are seeing us and hearing about us? Are we in the right directories? Are we on Google? Are we. There in the universe, whatever, uh, awareness, touch points that might be relevant, then obviously where it starts to get really intense listing is where you actually start to acquire them.

And for example, let's use an example of bringing them to your website. That's a classic question of what you might ask us. How are we doing on acquisition? Which is like how many people were getting to the website. We look at our reach and look at our acquisition. There's a very important thing that there's a rate of conversion.

[00:07:00] All the people that know us, how many of them are we getting to our website? In this example, it's a very good acquisition question. And then obviously activation huge, because this is where you would ask the question, how many people take the first and important. Step or activity with us. This might be a trial.

This might be a booking, a meeting, a service, an onboarding, whatever your activation mechanism is, that's really important. And so what you would do here is you would look at your funnel, look at your total awareness, ask. How many of those people are coming to our website, that gives us a sense of acquisition.

And then how many of those people take the first step and then we've got activation covered. So that's the three A's, that's the R F um, the, a part of these pirate metrics that you used in growth marketing. Now, if you've got the three A's, it's followed by those three other [00:08:00] ares, and that therefore gives you that big Hardy har pirate metric now.

Let's get into what those are. So first thing is following up from activation is how many people actually start paying for our service? How, how, and when do they pay, how much do they pay? These are the key revenue questions. And then obviously once you start having. Uh, your customers and people paying, you need to work out.

How many of them are coming back for a second, third, fourth, fifth time. How are you retaining your customers? That's obviously the fifth and important part of the funnel. And then at the last part of the funnel, which almost starts to. Kind of loop the process back to the beginning again is how many people refer their friends and their colleagues and their network to your business.

Because if you're getting a really good referral rate, then you're in business because that brings people to your website who [00:09:00] activate you start purchasing from you. So they have it. That is just the tip of the iceberg for growth marketing. It's a super important, uh, piece of the puzzle because here's why, if you have built a product, you will have poured so much energy effort, time, money, and resources into building the product.

And you cannot afford for it to be the best kept secret in the world. You've got to get out there and start building engagement with customers. You have to really start driving people through that funnel and converting at each step. So, this is why all good product builders need to have this growth marketing mindset doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be a growth marketer, but what's really important, I believe is that the difference between product and marketing is narrowing.

It's actually getting closer and [00:10:00] closer, because if you think about some of those key ideas that we discussed, how many people are taking the first step, how many people come back another time? How much do they pay? Are they referring people you could say, well, have these marketing questions or are they.

Product questions. So the lines are blurring. So even if you're a serious engineer, developer or architect, it's incredibly powerful to have this frame. This lens is a view to how to make the product successful. Because obviously the more people we get, the more value we can give to users, the more value we can give to the business itself.

All right. That was a quick dash through the world of growth marketing. We're going to be launching a course on growth marketing. So make sure if you enjoyed this podcast, jump over to bottom-up dot IO, where you're going to find it 16 free courses right now that you can take. So anyone who's a product person jump over there.

There are lots [00:11:00] of free courses, and we're really looking forward to your feedback on the growth marketing. Alright, that's a wrap. Bottom up skills.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass. And I'm the CEO of quality tenants and we are there. Ladies and gentlemen. The final pot, the 12 pot of our unstuck series, where we really face the biggest challenges that product managers face, and we try and find solutions and answers to these problems.

And in the last show we dealt with the top of the funnel, and today we deal with the bottom half of the funnel. And we ask ourselves, how do we keep our customers? Now, this assumes that the product is live. You've had problem solution, fit, product, market fit. This is all really part of the distribution and conversion fit and, um, asking ourselves some critical questions about how customers are behaving.

Are we creating enough value? Are we capturing enough value? This is the really big question. So there's three ways to go about [00:01:00] answering this question of how do you keep your customers? And like the top of the funnel, the second half of this funnel is built around. Retention revenue and referral three R's to match the three A's that are at the top of the funnel.

Now each of these areas, retention, revenue and referral, we'll have some key questions. And so I'd like to talk about those key questions. I'd like to. Really dig into those and, um, present to you our way of thinking about keeping customers. And I really do hope that this inspires you to serve your customers, create value for them.

And if you do that, you're going to have a fantastic little part. Okay. So let's start with retention now, retaining customers, you know, sometimes. Uh, retaining customers is a kind of a tricky process. Look, if we've worked really hard, we're sort of a bit relieved when we actually got a customer, but then the work starts all over [00:02:00] again because we have to retain them.

And look, if we've done a good job, chances are somebody will see our product. And I know wait for it. They're going to copy it so very quickly there will be competitors. And once these competitors, people will undercut you on price. So you've got to retain your customers. And the key question to ask is how many people come back a second, third, 10th, time to our product.

Now, when we break down retention, This is really good. Cause th th somewhere in retention, there's this real truth, uh, to the product. And that's really finding out for ourselves, how much do people come back, which is a proxy for how satisfied are they? So you might want to, um, uh, really ask yourself. Are we really satisfying, not only the early [00:03:00] adopters, but here's the important thing.

The early and late majority, this is really, really important. Now another big metric in retention in, uh, on top of satisfaction is going to be your churn rate. Um, now your churn rate is how many customers, uh, out of every a hundred customers, how many are leaving you and within. What sort of time period.

This one is really important to get into. Obviously it's a bit tricky in the early stages of a company because you haven't had a lot of customers leave because it, frankly you haven't had many customers, uh, to begin with. But this retention rate is, is really, really important because it's such a clue because if you can see a good cohort of people coming back regularly, Weekly, maybe daily to your product.

Then this is such, I mean, you should be relieved when you see that. Um, if people are using it as what happens with most products, they use once and never [00:04:00] return, that's a terrible retention situation. So you really want to get over that hump of getting them back for that second or third time. This is really, really important.

Now another part of the, this funnel next up Dan is okay, how many are we retaining? How many people stop paying and how much do they pay? This is really, really important because. Sometimes we make the mistake of vastly overestimating, how much our customers are going to pay. So key revenue metrics to have in your mind is what does it cost us to acquire a customer?

And then what does it cost us to get them to first purchase and does their average monthly revenue. Map out on an annual basis. And if we grow at this rate, at what point will we be a viable business? This is really, really important because [00:05:00] you know, when we think about revenue, the other thing here is that the acquisition costs could be out of control.

So what I mean here is that, look, we've got customers that are paying, but actually let's say each customer pays $5 a month. But it's costing us $10 to acquire them. Then you've obviously stopped studying to have a problem. So what do you want to make sure that, you know, if a customer lasts, uh, let's say customer spent a hundred bucks, uh, on their first two purchases and it costs you $20 to get them.

Can you afford, is that a viable cost of acquisition? This is a really important thing because a lot of early stage companies find that their acquisition costs are much higher and that whilst they are having revenue, they're not making any profit. Like there is no margin in the business to say it differently.

So this is why revenue's really important. Why retention is very important. Now [00:06:00] I want to get to, uh, the, the last bit really important, um, part of the funnel, which is referral. Um, we know that a fast majority of people will be influenced by the most powerful, uh, model of customer acquisition, which is advocacy.

When people recommend your product or service to others, this. For every outreach has the most effective results. So what we often talk about in lean startup is your viral coefficient, and you want to try and get your product for every active customer to generate one complete new customer, because that viral coefficient is really good because it means if you.

Work hard and acquire a hundred customers. You'll have delighted those customers satisfied those customers to such a degree that they'll each recommend the product once [00:07:00] to another customer. So a hundred becomes 200 and then you can see how it sort of snowballs from there. So when we think about referral metrics, the King of referrals is MPS.

So if you want to understand how likely. Your customers to refer someone, do an NPS survey where you ask them this question, and, um, sometimes you can follow up and give them an incentive. If they're in advocate, you know, in an advocacy status, am I really, really delighted with your product? You can actually give them an incentive.

Or a means to go out and, um, you know, refer your product or service to others. Now, um, you can do some other things. Like you can look at your, um, building, sharing into your product and how much social sharing people do. It's good. It's not as good as the NPS. Because, um, you know, sharing, um, has slightly different characteristics to MPS.

[00:08:00] Um, but it's still a decent metric to look for. And, um, there's a whole practice around referral marketing and how to carriage customers to refer your product to others. Well, there you go. For today. We've looked at retention revenue and referral as all ways of keeping the customer and keeping your customer is a very close relative of getting your customer.

And that used to the three A's awareness, acquisition, and activation coming together, that six parts of the pirate metrics funnel, which is a great way. To put growth marketing at the heart of your product. I know this has been like a rip roaring quick dash through these key challenges we face as product designers, creators and builders.

I really hope you've enjoyed some of the things we've talked about and how they've really helped you. Um, maybe remind you of some things or brought you some new thinking on how you can build a better product, how you can [00:09:00] create more value in the world. All right. It's been great to do this series. I hope you've enjoyed, uh, the key challenges of product management, and I hope you're just a little bit more unstuck and you're on your way to building something great.

All right, this is the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom Mount skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO of Qualitas and we are at the second last episode of our unstuck series, and we are asking a mighty. Big question. This question trips up a lot of startups. In fact, a lot of grown-up companies get stumped on this one.

And the question is, how do I get customers for my product or service? Now it is, um, really. A big challenge because we often spend so much time working on designing and building the product that we often neglect this question. And in the previous episode, we talked about the launch strategies, which was really the start of.

Getting some customers, but I want to give you a framework that will help for not only getting customers, but in the last episode, in the next one, after this, we'll ask, how do you keep customers? But we're going to break the [00:01:00] customer question up into two parts, and we're going to talk about how we get customers.

And we're going to use some thinking that is growth marketing. Inspired now you might've heard of growth hacking growth marketing. Let me tell you a little bit about those. And then I'm going to give you three key questions that represent three steps in the growth marketing funnel. So growth marketing is quite disruptive in the world of marketing and advertising because.

The historical way that the marketing world has sort of tackled, um, you know, launching products and selling products is they try and make as many people as possible aware and, uh, tell them to go to a destination or to a retailer. Um, and this is kind of what we call the top of the funnel, but what's really quite interesting is that growth marketing is enormously [00:02:00] disruptive because it says, well, that's only.

Like one third of the funnel, there's still another two thirds. And in fact, the only way to think about the funnel is in whole. So you think about the end to end cycle, that customers, that audience, um, go through when they actually experience a product or a service. And, um, so much money gets spent on the awareness and the reach stage in traditional marketing, that growth marketing is like, Oh no, no, no.

We run the full funnel. And every step of the way in this funnel is a key moment of conversion. So conversion is the magical thing inside the funnel. This funnel is made up of six steps and at each step you're looking to convert as best as possible. So I'm going to introduce to you the funnel and we're going to use the first three steps in the funnel.

Uh, to tackle, how do I get customers? And we're going to use the last three steps on how we keep [00:03:00] customers. So this is going to be great. So make sure you've listened to, by this episode in the following one. If you want to see the whole funnel, it's kind of big. So I thought for the podcast, let's make it two parts.

Okay. So you got a funnel and you want to reach as many people as possible and go through a series of conversions with them. So I'm going to break it down. Um, but first let's talk about the name of this funnel. This is called. The pirate funnel. The one that I use it is called the pirate funnel because when you actually take the acronym of the six steps in the funnel, it's are just like a good pirate.

So it's a R R R. That is the pirate funnel. The first three A's stand for awareness, acquisition and activation. Okay. Now they all come in a logical sequence, so let's break them down and let's talk about. What really matters in each of these stages. So awareness let's imagine [00:04:00] we're running. Um, and, uh, we've built a SAS software as a service product, and that's the context of these questions.

So we've got the product. We've just launched now we're on the mission to go get customers. So the first step is asking ourselves what's the awareness look like? How many people do we reach? And for me, the, the key key key thing here is it's all about. Being present in, in the case of a SAS startup, it starts with Google.

Um, so the key question is how many people are you reaching? Are you even in Google? And you start to see here, that awareness starts with being find-able to being. Present out there in the world because you know, so many people forget, even some of the basics of what is crucial to making sure that people are even aware of you.

So let's go through like a win. [00:05:00] Um, and then this is really where you build your brand. So you're going to want to make sure you're on a you're indexed on Google, but also you're going to find all sorts of marketplaces to launch a product like product hunt or beta list. Want to be in there. Step further.

You, if you're a SAS, you can list yourself in all sorts of directories, um, where people review SAS products, G2 being one of the bigger players. So awareness is all about being listed. Uh, if you're running paid, how many impressions do you get? Um, you know, you're really looking, uh, For SEO as being a big practice in your awareness.

The other thing here is that as you get more mature, you do want to see some more sophisticated advertising things like retargeting. And if you're on directories or review sites, you might even have affiliate partnerships to drive that reach. So that's really the top of the funnel. So [00:06:00] that's a witness that we're talking about.

So once you've got that awareness, you need to drive people to your website. This is what we call acquisition. So as you start looking at the acquisition part, this is like, okay, how many people are visiting, visiting our site? So, um, you might see people, um, turning up, uh, visiting your site, bouncing on your site.

You want to start looking at what content they're looking at. Um, you know, what are the. Um, uh, what are the things that their behaviors that they're doing on your site really starting to discover? What's interesting. A big clue here would be, um, What is the most popular content on your site? What's getting the most indexing from search, obviously.

Um, you know, we shouldn't forget part of the awareness is social media, so you should be on LinkedIn and Facebook and all those millions of other social networks. You really want to be driving that engagement with your content, [00:07:00] um, with your services and then comes the next big step. This is activation activation is super important because it activation your really presenting your customers with the first step in the relationship.

This could be a trial. This could be a freemium signup. Um, this could be some sort of request to fund demonstration. Um, this could be any sort of metric that you have for activating the customers. The first step. It's not necessarily the full value in a transaction, but it could be something that feeds into your funnel.

Maybe it's a webinar who knows. But what you see here is this clear funnel, awareness, acquisition, and activation. And the key question for each of those goes, how many people did I reach? How many people visit our website [00:08:00] and how many people take the first step? Now, what you'll notice is obviously there's going to be some attrition here.

So. And, you know, if you reach a hundred people, you might get 22 website and only five take the first step that's okay. Because there, you see the conversion rates and your job in terms of getting customers is to improve those conversion rates obsess on the conversion rates, make those numbers better.

And that'll force you to come up with innovative new ways to engage your customers, to drive them through the funnel, to drive them through the funnel, better, more efficiently to create more value for you as a business who this is a big one. How do I get customers? Make sure you have the awareness, the acquisition and activation.

It's the first three. A's. Of the pirate metrics, uh, funnel, it's all part of this universe of growth, metrics of growth marketing. A fantastic world is pretty, it's still pretty new, uh, growth [00:09:00] marketers are very hard to find. They're almost as hard as product people. Um, but if you can start getting your three, A's going, you'll be all set up for the three hours, which will be in our next episode.

So if you keen to know more about building brands, building products, head over to bottom, up.io, where you're going to find all sorts of free courses and master classes. Okay. That's it. For another episode of the bottom-up skills podcast, that's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcasts I might pass in as I'm the CEO of quality wins, and we are three quarters of the way through our journey, into the toughest product management challenges. And today we're asking the question, what's the best way to launch a product. And boy, if you've made it this far in the journey, this means you've got problem solution fit.

You've got. Product market fit. Like, you know, your early adopters are satisfied with the product. Now you really want to launch this thing. And I want to propose to you a rather, uh, controversial way of thinking about launching and the background has, I've seen so many people waste time, money, and effort doing spectacular product.

Oh, business launches. I mean, I've seen people go to town and it just creates so much noise. [00:01:00] They get the celebrities in the hype, in the media and the Instagram influences, and there's so much noise and you should really be focused on your product and its users and you get carried away with everything else.

And often people say the, the, the startups that get the most hype often fail the most. Um, I'm not sure if that's true, but it feels. Like it could be a real truth of the product world. So let's look at the key word when you want to launch your product. The key word is small. That's right. I want you to launch.

Small, uh, I launched a product way back in, Oh gee. When was it? 2009. That, um, was so big that the, the, the server crash too much demand we had over a million uses in the first hour. And I think we were probably ready for 10,000, not a [00:02:00] million. Um, Yeah, it just got too big, too much. And look, let's take a leaf out of Facebook's book.

They started small, they went from campus to campus launching Facebook and well, I don't need to tell you how big Facebook is. So here's the thing. There are lots of different ways to go small. In fact, there's roughly five ways to go small that you can build up with before number six, which is the full launch.

So first of all, if you take. Uh, lean startup thinking, uh, to a tires form. I mean, You can start your, your, your launch strategy be you can be the pre-order. Um, now you could struggle to get enough interest in your pre-order and that would actually challenge the notion of whether you have product market fit.

You may not even have problem solution fit. So pre-ordering is a great launch strategy because you can do it well in advance and it helps you understand, do you really [00:03:00] have something that people want, because if you're selling this amazing solution and nobody's up for that. Then you have quite the problem.

Okay. So you've got, pre-order going. What's another way to launch small and this is another good one. Don't see this nearly enough family and friends now. Granted family and friends usually, always want to say, yeah, the product's great, even when it's not because they, they feel compelled, but launching with family and friends can certainly get some bugs out of, uh, new products.

And it's such a safe way to have sort of, um, you know, a small group of people, uh, test your product and no harm, no foul. Um, if things don't go right, but look. Let's be honest. Um, if they can come on as sort of, I dunno, be the test is in, in some respect, that's really, really helpful and certainly saves you a lot of grief versus, you know, the classic big launch.

And [00:04:00] then, um, you know, nobody can access the product cause it's full of bugs. So number one, launching small could be start with a pre-order number two family and friends. The third one could be is that you may have identified. Uh, a small group of early adopter users who would be keen to test your product and you can do what we call a closed user group.

So invite only, you know, maybe a hundred or so people can come use your product and, you know, you might make it free for life for them. Um, and it can be contingent on them providing some feedback and being available for maybe a couple of questions or an interview. So that's the third one closed user group, really smart way to get expert advice on your product.

So that's the first three ways that you could go small instead of making the huge mistake of going big. Remember my pitch to you is Facebook went from [00:05:00] college campus to college campus. There was a white list. It took a long time. But that's how they scaled the program. And if you compare to Twitter, when Twitter first launch, I remember it was full of bugs.

You, we used to have that whale. I think they used to have on the web page, it was always down because there's too many people using it. So starting small is really crucial, but I still got more ideas for it. Another startup and launching small idea is start with some influences. So you might reach out to some folks that are real experts in your category or your industry, and say, look, we'd love your feedback and we'll give you some preview materials.

Um, there might be some, uh, deal that you can make there, but you really want to get their feedback. You will be amazed that when you say to someone, Hey, I think you're an expert and I'd love your feedback. People are pretty willing to give you feedback, um, because it's a, it's a bit of a compliment. So that's the fourth, the other three, just to [00:06:00] remind you of those closed user groups, family, and friends, or the pre-order great ways to launch your product because you can start small getting re grip on the product, make sure it's doing the job.

Make sure it's satisfying your users and make any refinements. Now the fifth way to launch small is to launch with a partner. So you might have a strategic partner in a similar area. Um, that could be a really good partner. So if you're a gym, you might partner with someone that makes gym gear, um, and you might make your product or service available only to the customers of this partner.

This is a good way to restrict volume. It would be a fairly good way to get some early adopters into your product. And what you can see with these five is all of them are deliberately starting with a smaller funnel and then working your way out. So pre-order is going to be the smallest partner launch is probably the biggest [00:07:00] in terms of, um, user volume that you can expect.

Now, have you try one, two, or all of these as ways to start small? You'll save yourself a lot of grief because you know, really when you do those big launches, there's a lot of distraction, particularly if you're pretty early on and you're not really sure if you have problem solution fit are, um, better, still a product market fit, then you need to be really focused on the product and the user.

So you don't all these big fancy launches that a lot of distraction there. But let's say you got solid product market fit and you there's, this there's launch is almost the start of your distribution, conversion fit. Um, and your big push, then you can go. Part six, the full launch national URL. You want to get the press there.

You want to get all the right people there. You want to have promotions at the go paid advertising the whole enchilada. Um, but you should really only do that after. You've really challenged yourself to look at those other [00:08:00] five ways of launching small. I know, I know it's so exciting to go to those big launches, but I can only tell you it's a whole lot of distraction.

Okay. So there we have it. How do we launch? And I hope those, those five ideas, the pre-order family and friends, close user group influencer, only partner launch. I hope they all really give you some inspiration. Now you might be able to launch in a smarter way. Well, there's only two more episodes left of the unstuck series, you know, challenging ourselves with the most challenging questions.

In product development. I hope you're enjoying this series and that's it for another episode of the bottom-up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass ins I'm the CEO of and we are talking. Product market fit. This is a big one in the journey of our product full of challenges. And that's why it's featuring on our series that we call unstuck, which is the guide for product managers on how they can tackle the toughest things in the world of product management.

Now, product market fit. Is a huge step, a huge milestone, uh, in the life of your product. And, um, there's lots of different ways to make sure you've got it. And today we're going to dig into a couple of ways you can use it. Um, this is the, the product market fit and all sorts of tools that you can use to kind of unlock it.

And to answer that question. So I want to discuss with you. Sort of the three pillars [00:01:00] of getting that product market fit. Some of these you may have in fact done when you've got your problem solution fit, but the reason I'm bringing them back is it's really important to double check that you've got all of these done in order to say you have product market fit.

And sometimes for example, I'm working on a product right now and I. I think we've been testing with users, uh, for six months across problem solution fit and product market fit. And we just keep testing. So it's not like you only do surveys at the start. You can do them right throughout. And it's really important too, to always be testing and learning through the journey of building a product.

Okay. So there's three big areas. There's surveys and interviews. Number one rapid prototyping. That's number two, and then a feature driven minimum viable product. That's the third and final one, the biggest one in terms of workload. So I'm just going to break all of these down. [00:02:00] And share with you. You know, some of the things that I look to do always just to feel confident about the product, I'm always building product on behalf of others.

So when I'm working with my clients, it's really important for me to feel that I've got the job done here, whether you're working for clients or working for investors, or you're doing it all yourself for your own new product, these are the essential things you need to do to have product market fit. Now I'm assuming at the beginning, you will have.

Tested out the problem and the solution a little bit with some interviews and, um, some surveys and, um, what I would definitely be looking to do in terms of best practices here, just to make sure you're on track is to have really good screening questions, um, that really identified the different segments of your users, because you will often find that.

The audience that you perceive as your customer is made up of [00:03:00] different parts and the sooner you find out those different parts, the better, because often one of those is the real customer, not all of them. So if I was building a new podcasting app, by the way, which I feel that we're in desperate need of, um, I think.

Podcasting is booming, but the way we listened to them as in the dark ages, um, anyway, that's a different topic. Let's say we're building a brand new product, a podcasting app, and I was doing a survey. I would be looking for my screen and to try and, um, pull apart the different segments. So it's most likely going to be on a usage.

And if it was my screen, a question would be. What this describes your current podcast usage, and there might be four options here. Then they might say I'm hooked. I'm like listening every day. I like podcasts. And you know, I remember when you know, I listen fairly regularly when I remember, um, [00:04:00] a third option might be, I've listened to a few, but nothing on a regular basis.

And the fourth one might be. Put what, and might not even know what we're talking about now, to give you an example of why this is so important for product market fit. It might turn out that the heavy users are not your target market. Maybe it's in the middle somewhere. Maybe it's those that like podcasts or those that have listened to a few, you might discover that the reason that they're not using podcasting more regularly is they find.

Uh, they experienced the discovery of new podcasts really hard, and that they actually only have one that they listen to. So if you can solve discovery for the, uh, lower usage segment, that might be a bigger market opportunity than the heavy early adopter. That's why surveys and interviews are really, really important.

Now, if you want to [00:05:00] feel really confident in your problem, solution fit and get some early indications on it, you can actually make like a poster or a landing page for your product idea, and actually test that really early on through the form of a survey. And this is all, uh, quant, uh, kind of research or quantitative research.

The qual side of this is face-to-face interviews where you ask. Lots of questions, but you tend to get more into asking them. Why, why do you want any of us in occasionally? Why do you have any, uh, do this or that? Tell me more. That can be very revealing. Okay. So that's the quantum qual research to effectively surveys in interviews.

Very good way of confirming that your product as problem solution fit and really gets you on the way to product market fit. Now, before we jumped into MVP, we need to talk about rapid prototyping. This is where you might have a video. A demo of [00:06:00] your product, totally non clickable. Um, you might even try like crowdfunding an app.

Um, you might try, um, some, uh, showing bits and features from your product or the big two are the concierge MVP or the wizard of Oz. These MVPs. Either, uh, create the customer experience and it looks like, uh, it's been all done automatically, but actually, um, it's all happening manually in the backend. And a classic example of this was zap Zappos.

They created a web shop for shoes and, um, they had no inventory. They would actually only go and buy the shoes once the user placed the order. Um, so. The reason that this is, um, so good, this sort of concierge to NVP is you don't have any cost of inventory. Um, you're not making any [00:07:00] money, but that doesn't really matter because what happened in the case of Zappos.

So many people ordered that. They said, Hey, we better get some inventory. Cause there's really high demand here. So that's rapid prototyping. Now the biggest one I want to get into here is MVP. And I call it feature-driven MVP because sometimes, you know, these, um, fake or manual or the wizard or the concierge MVP, they're kind of closer to rapid prototyping in my book.

Um, I think a feature driven MVP is defined by. You're writing code, uh, or someone's writing code, even if it's like a no-code or low-code app, but this really closes the discussion on product market fit. Now, in this case, you want your core user to be able to complete a task on the app. It could be with InVision, but most likely it's going to be with code and.

It's gotta be good [00:08:00] enough in a sort of a rough form. It's going to be good enough to satisfy the user when trying to do the task. Now, if you have a feature driven MVP that does that, then you can put on all the bells and whistles and go. To market with a fully built product. But the whole point here is you're trying to actually do as little of the product, um, as possible.

And you only build when it's been Falla dated and this task completion through an MVP is an essential, uh, I would not advise skipping this part. This part can give you so much more because you might find that in the real world, You just are not able to help users get the task done. So don't go building a startup like Eric Reese did 40 million bucks, five years, and nobody needed a product.

This is the whole point. The minimum viable product is there for you to [00:09:00] double-check to test, learn, to validate. Do you really have something? Are you really solving the problem now? If you get that done, the world is on fire. You are in a great place. A lot of products never get to this stage or they skip it and only find out that they should have done it in retrospect.

So I hope I've shown a bit of light on how to test your product market fit. Make sure you have enough surveys, interviews, some rapid prototyping, and most importantly of all, make sure you have an MVP. All right. That's it for our little dive into the world of product market fit. If you want to know more about it, head on over to bottom-up dot IO, lots of free courses, jump in there, sign up, and we'd love to hear your feedback and how that helps you build a better product.

Okay. That's the rep of the bottom-up podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass on his own, the CEO of quality tents, and we are talking about problem solution fit today. This is all part of our product management series called unstuck, where we actually dig into the toughest challenges that product managers face. And today we're going to talk about the problem solution fit now.

Um, there is a very, very good way of testing, uh, problem, solution fit. And, uh, before we get to testing it, For real, and I'm talking in the best way possible. You're going to need to have got one thing done. And we covered this in an earlier episode where we had the value proposition, canvas, and we were using that as a tool to frame the problem and the solution.

So if you're not familiar with that, I strongly suggest you jump over there and have your problem solution Matt, or said [00:01:00] differently your value proposition, canvas. All right. So you've got a world of the customer. You've got a world of your product. You're really convinced that the customer has a problem.

You've got a solution, but you want to make sure that they fit together. You may have tested some of these in isolation. You may have used some interviews and surveys to get the big picture together, but you kind of want to. Test that this all comes together and I'm going to propose the way that is the most effective high fidelity way of validating.

And the answer is rapid prototyping. That's right. Rapid prototyping is all about creating some sort of light sketch. Or model of the full product, but the, the beauty of rapid prototyping is you don't have to build the full product, because if you think about the spirit of lean startup, it's all about build and write as little code as possible.

Um, and [00:02:00] you don't want to build anything that hasn't been tested. So rapid prototyping is. Bang on absolutely bang on. So it's a really powerful way to do that. Testing and validating I was talking about. So. Step one here is that you don't want to fall into the trap of building the entire product until you've really tested it until you're actually experiencing a high degree of confidence in this product.

And so rapid prototyping will give you that. So it's all based in. You want to build like just enough of a model or a sketch of the product and the way, you know, you've got enough, is that whether it's a whiteboard or a sketch on some paper or some digital tool, like sketch Figma, Adobe XD envision that it.

Stimulates sufficient amount of your, your, your [00:03:00] senses. And it really kind of suggests the product now. You know, you might be using paper. I mean, I've seen this work with paper, I've even seen it work with hula hoops. Ah, it's crazy. The point here is that you will be amazed that when you give customers the context of the task or the job to be done, that they will go along with you when you say, okay, I want you to imagine it's nine 30 in the morning and you want to order some groceries and.

You have them sitting in a studio, um, downtown. But if you give them the context and say, you want to order on your phone and you just pass them the prototype on the app, or you ask them to click on the paper and say, imagine this is an app, and I want you to click on the sketch. Where would you click?

Where would you tap to get going? Now, this really sounds a little bit ridiculous, as I say it. But the crazy thing here is it works so [00:04:00] well. So users only require sometimes as little as 20% of the actual full product of the full stimulus to evoke what we call. The direct response. And once they have a direct response, they using it and it feels like the real thing feels like is the key key here that, and then the, if they have that, you can judge their ability to complete the task and then you can get some amazing feedback.

And the reason the feedback is amazing is this is completely different to focus groups, focus groups, invariably will ask people, um, I want you to imagine you've got a grocery ordering app. Would you be interested in this, that or the other? And what happens is, you know, you've got five people in a room with a facilitator and they have to imagine, well, the quality of that feedback is far less than if you say, okay, I want you to [00:05:00] actually conduct the task of ordering the groceries because once you see it, Like that you get a direct response, not an indirect response, like a guess or imagination, you actually put them in the situation.

And this is so powerful. So you can use a whiteboard. You can use paper. Or as I mentioned, there's lots of digital tools. You're trying to avoid building the whole product because you only want to do that once. You're really, really confident that the product is the right product and it's worth building.

And so many times we see products that get built that were not worth building. In fact, this idea of rapid prototyping, it's used a lot with design thinkers and folks in lean startup. Think about lean startup. The guy that wrote the book, Eric Reese spent five years, $40 million on a failed startup. And that's why he wrote lean startup.

He was like, I built a [00:06:00] product that nobody wanted. They raised $40 million for a product that nobody wanted. And he was like, I want to stop. That from happening for other people. So he wrote lean startup all around the idea of test and learn in small bite size pieces, rather than do the big, outrageous, huge investment, big product, no testing only to realize nobody wants the product.

So. What are the different types of prototyping? Well, you can do a very light diagnostic prototyping. This is almost role-play if you will. So you can do, uh, an exercise of, um, mystery shopping, or you can play it out at customer support diagnostic solution. This is how you find out the rule pains and problems they have in the current alternative, um, that they kind of use to get the job done.

So that's diagnostic prototyping. Now before we get to using some light [00:07:00] digital prototyping tools. There's another important step you can take, which is you can create moments or journeys that describe your solution. You could have like a journey on a whiteboard or with post-its, um, or with posters, you know, so sort of the, the proposition, if you will, um, and you can take these moments and validate, would this be.

Fantastic. Would this create sufficient value for you as a user? And this intermediate step is really good because maybe you see that the user journey is made up of five parts, which would really inform how you might go and build some of the digital prototypes. Now the key thing with digital prototypes is there they're sort of faking the experience.

So the trickier is it looks and feels a lot like a finished app, but actually in the backend, there's no database. It's so fake data and it's. Pretty restricted in what it can do and where you can click. But these sort of digital prototypes are great because if you've done the proceeding steps in [00:08:00] the rapid prototyping, what you've really done is you've created something that looks and feels quite finished and can give you a lot of important.

High quality customer feedback, because you really propose to them. I want you to try ordering bananas with our new grocery app and you would, they would be able to click and order those bananas. And then on the basis of this, you can find out. Did it get the job done? Is it a product that they would pay for?

And the biggest test is would they recommend it to a friend and you can do all of this and no code got written. And that's the beauty because it means it was quick. It was efficient. And let's say you get really positive feedback from this. Then you can move to the next step, which is MVP. But we're going to talk about that in the next show.

Back to our central question. How do we test problem solution fit? Rapid prototyping is really good because you get much closer to the experience of a product without building the product that saves you time and [00:09:00] money. And that's really good when you're at that problem solution fit stage. Okay. So we've dived into the world of problem solution fit.

There's still a lot more to come. As we build our product and we tackle some of those tough questions. If you've still got more inspiration and energy head of it, a bottom-up dot IO, where you can get everything, you need to build a great product, lots of free courses and master classes. All right. That's it.

For the bottom-up skills podcast, that's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality tenants and it is great to be back. We're kind of at the midpoint of our adventure. Into getting unstuck that's right. The toughest challenges you're going to face as a product manager and we're right in the heart of all of the people stuff.

That's right. Today's question is how do I build a product team now in the previous show, we asked ourselves, how do we recruit a product team? So we're assuming you've got the people it's now about making things work and, um, You know, the funny thing is this, you know, you're kind of exhausted. You just managed to recruit a bunch of people, but actually now you've got to go build that product.

So the adventure has just begun. And I think that there are, um, a couple of things, uh, that Patrick Lencioni wrote about in a [00:01:00] book called five dysfunctions of a team that I see are the, really are the greatest challenges of teamwork. And every single country I've lived in, it doesn't matter. Australia, the Netherlands United Kingdom, the United States of America, the dysfunctions of a team are all pretty similar.

So let's look at what it takes using Patrick Lindsay and his model to build a high performance team. And these product teams are dealing with really complex matters. Particularly if it's a first-generation product, there's nothing there, nothing exists. You're you're building. Something out of thin air, which personally is super exciting, creating something out of nothing.

But, um, it's challenging because everything needs to be built, wait for it for the first time. And that add is some hard stuff. Um, so you've got to have some foundational [00:02:00] ways of working together because both work and life overall. It's a team sport. So it doesn't really matter how sharp their product design skills are.

If people are not working as a team, then you ain't got nothing. So let's ask ourselves, what does it take to create a high performing team and what are the signals of a dysfunction in a team? Okay. So. Number one, the foundational idea for a high performance team is trust. And when there's an absence of trust, people, really fear being open and vulnerable with each other.

And if you're not trusting of each other, pretty much nothing is going to happen because people are airing those sort of. Fight or flight modes and that's really poor for it, for a team. So, um, yeah. [00:03:00] How do you, how do you get over this sort of absence of trust and it starts with you, the leader, it starts with you being vulnerable enough to share the challenges that you face in the limitations that you have.

Now, this is quite contradictory to how a lot of people think. They should lead, but actually when you show that you're not perfect. When you show that you're prepared to take a risk and to be open, um, this will make people feel so much safer. They'll breathe a sigh of relief because they've probably got things that they're working on, that they find stressful or challenging.

And it really is wonderful when you can lead the way and say, Hey, you know what? I'm working on some stuff too. So that's how you create the trust amongst a team. Now another thing, uh, that will challenge a team is the second part. And that's the fear of conflict, [00:04:00] you know? What you'll see in some teams is they'll kind of pretend to be all getting along, but underneath all that, there's all sorts of passive aggressive stuff going on.

And people can't embrace diversity. They can't be that productive because there's this artificial harmony. Um, and you know, People have to have that safety to argue the merits of ideas and, and PR uh, insights and facts. And you should encourage different points of view, because if you can agree to disagree and still respect each other, then this is the healthiest thing for a team, because maybe the direction of the product's not quite right.

And if people feel safe enough, To challenge and to argue, uh, the direction of the product. Well, that's, you're going to be so much healthier for it. So I would challenge you to [00:05:00] encourage all of your team members to have a say and really, I mean, don't have a meeting where people contribute zero to the entire meeting because then they shouldn't be in the room.

So everybody should have a say when you're talking about the big challenging topics of the day. So those are the first two. You've got to increase the trust and, you know, get rid of this fear of conflict and, and get people to argue the merits of things in a, in a safe and respectful way. Okay. But there's three more, three more things you can do to have a high-performance product team part.

Number three is all about commitment. And often you can see teams don't really buy in to the idea, right? There's a lack of clarity or a lack of support. Um, and they're just not really sticking with major decisions or directions that are in [00:06:00] the company. So you got to get everybody on board. It's not only creating clarity, uh, in where we're going, but.

Communicate your expectations of what each and every individual is expected to do, and to invite them to sign up for that, because if they don't sign up, then I don't know how you're going to get the results. If they're not signed up, it's just going to be a bit of theater. So that's number three commitment.

So that comes off to the fear of conflict and the absence of trust. So if you've got trust, good conflict, good commitment, know. Three out of five does just to, to go. The next thing you've got to go for is accountability. This is number four. We need to, you know, a lot of people like to be in a comfortable place, right.

And not have difficult decisions or stretch goals, but you got to have tough conversations when people don't deliver [00:07:00] and do the big advice here is have them early and be consistent in them. Okay, so this is the fourth one accountability. And lastly, we need to pay attention to the results. Now the big blocker here is ego and politics.

People like to claim their individual goals and not really support the overall team's goals. But actually, if you want the team to succeed, you need to talk about the goals that we have as a team and to bring them into focus. Okay. So attention to results, accountability, commitment, conflict, and trust.

These are the big things it takes to have a high performing team. I know this one's a lot. This is heavy duty stuff. It is all born of a framework that comes from Patrick Lensioni who wrote five dysfunctions of a team. And whether you're using agile, scrum, or Kanban or whatever, These team [00:08:00] characteristics, these high team, high performance team characteristics come true.

So if you are really interested in this, you can check out our managing people, masterclass it's all free, and you can find that on bottom-up dot IO. So there you have it. Uh, this is all about getting the team working in concert with each other and building a product that worth is worth building. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the bottom-up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality tents and we continue our journey in getting unstuck. That's right. We are getting into product management and asking ourselves what are the toughest questions and what may be the answers of. Building creating and managing a product.

And today we are at the stage where we think about team. And the question for us today is how do I recruit a product team? And I can tell you that it's not the easiest thing in the world. Even if you're quite well-known for your product work. It actually still remains really hard. And I want to tell you.

The story, uh, of trying to recruit a team and my advice that after all these years, it's still a challenge for me. And I've got, I think three [00:01:00] steps, uh, is perhaps the best way to describe this on how you might build a team. Now, before we get into those steps, the, the rule case I want to make too is, you know what?

I will talk a lot about the different skills that you need. Design thinking, lean, agile, rapid prototyping, and all of that good stuff. You need to be able to do analysis strategy, write code design, use Adobe XD use envision. Dev ops Java, you name it. All of those are great skills to have. Um, but really the thing that creates the magic in the team is the culture.

It's the way we talk and behave with each other. Um, it's the vibe, you know, it's how it feels to be together. And, um, So because of that, I think it's really important to remind [00:02:00] ourselves of starting with step number one, which is the vision. So if you're going to recruit a team, you need to have a vision of the product that you want to build and why it matters.

And if you need any help in framing, your why statement definitely go. And read a guy called Simon Sinek and it starts with why, because people do not buy what you do, they buy how and why you do it. And so the big thing to start with, if you want to recruit a team, do not start with, we are using angular and Java to build a great new application, to process more data for users.

That is not going to get people excited. You need to have a vision of how you're going to do it and why it matters. Why will this product matter in the world? You need to answer questions, like where is [00:03:00] the value? Why would I give up a weekend to work on this product? What is the impact that this product is going to have?

And. This might sound a little lofty, but the real truth here is that it's all fine and good times, and everyone can have the right skills. But when you hit those challenges, those barriers, the speed humps said differently. When you reach the Valley of darkness, when things are not going right, if your product team.

Buys the vision of what they're finding for the positive impact that they're trying to have with this product, then they'll stick around. They'll go the extra mile. They will go above and beyond when they build the product. And then I certainly just won't abandon you and quit that's for sure. Vision first, this is step one.

You have to have a vision, [00:04:00] the big picture of answering the question. Why does this product matter? Because if you don't have that, then you're going to recruit people that at the first sign of hardship, that'll be gone because they're not finding for anything. It's too hard. There's lots of jobs for product people out there.

So. Yeah, you're toast. So you need to have a great articulation of your vision. And I think the way you get to vision said differently, it's having a purpose, um, or said differently. Again, us being able to answer the question, why does the product matter? So this is step number one. If you want to recruit a team, start with vision and be able to talk about it and demonstrate this vision.

Bring it to life. So this is number one, the second step. And again, this isn't going to be the skills thing. This isn't going to be like, you need to know Java or you need to know Figma. No step number two is to [00:05:00] outline the behaviors that you want your team to have, because. I will tell you that let's take Java.

For example, let's say your project needs Java developers, which a lot of projects do. The thing is if your Java developers or even your designers, if they cannot do two things above all others, then it doesn't matter how good they are at their professional skill because their behaviors are out of whack.

The first skill is communication. People have to be able to communicate. And the second skill is collaboration working together. Now these two words are often bandied about, but really they are essential. So let's break them down and ask what they look like. So you know how to actually grab and recruit the right people and ask the right questions [00:06:00] when you're in the interview about how they communicate and collaborate.

Okay. For me, the essence of communication is a couple of key things that you're looking for them to do. Number one, do they listen? Now, a lot of people just want to do the talking. They just want to be right. And actually what you really want to hire for is people that love to listen so they can get a sense of what the person on the other side of the table is actually talking about.

So listening is a critical communication skill. Secondly, you need to see them choosing the right model of communication. Is it verbal? Is it written, is it a call? Is it a face-to-face that they're choosing those channels. Right. And lastly, in terms of communication, and this one is the big dark secret of communication that they confirm.

[00:07:00] That they have been understood. So products are very complex and often very abstract in the beginning. So there's a lot of, uh, you know, packet loss when people are communicating people, uh, uh, not really getting it or, uh, people are telling something, explaining the product in the way they perceive it, but they're not thinking about how the person on the other side needs to hear on sand, see a witness, the pro the product now.

When they're communicating, you can have a little checks and balances here by making sure the person understands what you've said and the way you do that is ask them to tell it back to you. Ask, tell me, okay. What, tell me back what you just heard. And that's a really good way of making sure you've got the right people in your team.

So those are the kinds of things you want to see in good communicators and good collaborators. I think that you want to see people who are unselfish, people who are quite empathetic to the [00:08:00] people around them, and that love to build on ideas to shoot them down. You don't want people holding on to things, polishing them up, not sharing and kind of working in silos by default.

You want collaborators, people who are prepared to share, they don't always have to be right, but they're really open to good feedback. From their peers and from their colleagues. So big vision, full of purpose and why. And then these two key behaviors, communication and collaboration, you really start to get a good team.

And then step three is make sure they have the skills. Now, whether it is a designer developer, new business customer, customer support, doesn't matter. The key thing here is make sure. That you check that they really, they didn't, the vision doesn't have to be their life's, uh, mission. Right. But they have to be engaged and compelled by [00:09:00] the purpose behind the product or the company.

And then they have to display some of these key behaviors and of course have the right skills. Now, if you make sure that when you're recruiting, you have the vision, the behaviors and the skills, I'm absolutely sure that you're going to have a team that's full of potential. It can go out in the world and make great things.

Now talking about making great things. If you want to know more about that, making great products in the world, go to bottom-up dot IO, where you can get masterclasses. On teamwork, managing people, you name it, everything you need to build a great product team. All right. Uh, that's it for the bottom up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO of and we continue with adventures in product management, we're tackling the biggest, most challenging questions that will come up as you create, build and manage your product. And today we are tackling the big old question is.

Do I have a solution to the user's problem. Now, prior to this, we looked at what are the problems our users face. So should definitely check that one out, but this time we're going to the other side of the value proposition canvas, we are asking ourselves, what do we propose? Are we actually solving something here?

Because really in the end of the day, if you understand the jobs that your customer is trying to get done and. Pains they experienced in the gains. They're looking for, if you know all of that, then what you can actually do is map your [00:01:00] product or service to those and that mapping exercise. If you're really objective about it can ensure that you have a really good product.

So I want you to check out the value proposition canvas. You can do that over a bottom up.io. We have a free masterclass on lean, so you can check that out. And on this value proposition canvas, I described for you earlier, what the world of the customer is pains, gains and jobs. But on this side is where we actually map the solution.

And there are three things that we map. The first thing is the pain relievers. What are the things your product had doing that addresses? The pains of the customer and actually relieves those pains. The second thing you need to have is your gain creators. And this is a strict argument for how you're creating the benefits that your customer is looking for.

And these should correlate directly to features within your product or service [00:02:00] so that therefore when you zoom out. You have a proposition. And when you can connect that and balance this with your customer needs, then you will actually be on the way to having problem solution fit, which is a critical first stage of your journey in your product.

Because if you've got a solution to a problem, then you can go out in the world and build a product for a market. But before we get to all that, I want to take us back to the example that we're using. And we were talking about Airbnb and what we were doing when we mapped the customer side is we saw, you know, yes, it's great, uh, to, to use Airbnb because I can meet.

Ah, interesting people get a local experience. That's pretty cool stuff. And, um, the pains though is like, Oh, I'm not really sure it doesn't come with a big guarantee of a hotel. Who am I staying with? Where is it? And this is all part of having. Um, you know, a [00:03:00] wonderful vacation or getting some affordable accommodation.

Um, so that's the customer world. So let's have a look at what the product does on the other side. How's it relieving those pains? Well, first of all, they vet both hosts and guests. So this goes a long way to mapping against some of that uncertainty that people feel and also sharing space with, uh, Uh, dang, uh, strangers.

You know, the other thing that they do is they give a really strong guarantee on the quality of the, uh, the accommodation. And, um, they also kind of back it up with, uh, financial compensation of, uh, your bookings. If they get canceled by the host now, Part of the, the specific thing about staying with people you don't know, they'll even give you the, um, the guarantee that if, if people are not good hosts, they'll be taken off the platform.

So what you can see here, this is like a good description of, um, [00:04:00] pain relievers. Okay. And those pain relievers need to map to the customer pains, or you don't want to be relieving pains for some other user group that is not your customer. Make sure that you can really literally draw a line between the pain relievers and the pains, because that's a bridge from the product to the customer.

Okay, but let's not stop there because, you know, we talked about all these wonderful things people are looking for when they use the Airbnb hap. Well, um, how do we meet those needs? Well, first of all, there's some pretty wacky, exotic homes, so you certainly can get some unusual things on Airbnb. Um, You know, there is some really, um, um, affordable options.

Maybe they're not the nicest of places, but if you really need to watch your wallet, then actually Airbnb will come in, particularly in off-peak times, way cheaper than a hotel. Um, [00:05:00] now the other thing that they do is that they create all sorts of flexibility, um, through their pricing and feature. Lists. So you can say, look, if I need wifi or a swimming pool, whatever you want, you can filter the criteria that way.

And it's, um, really powerful. And if you think about it, uh, very few hotels, even today in 2020 offer you that sort of filtering and range and assault and for you to get the most out of your vacation. So what you can see here is. These are the pain relievers in the gain creators of Airbnb. They do a lot to make it feel safer and certain, and they certainly give you lots of flexibility and some, some really wonderfully novel places that you'd never get from a hotel.

So you can kind of see the picture coming together here. And this comes back to two essential parts of the overall service of Airbnb. [00:06:00] One is that they create a marketplace for renting out short-term living. And two, they aggregate, uh, on their platform, all the activities you can do in a city. So beyond what they started with, you can now get all sorts of wonderful city experiences that really help you meet interesting people and get a real flavor of the local happenings in a town or city.

So they have it. So this is how, you know, how you map solving the problem for your user. Now, this should be done in conjunction. This whole proposition should be done with the customer profile. So the gain creators must directly map. To the gains that you understood your users are looking for. And just in the same way, you're paying the leave as much directly correlate with what is in the pain's area.

And if you have a big pain on the customer side, that's not being addressed, this is a huge flag that [00:07:00] you need to consider this in your prototyping as to whether you can create a service that doesn't address that. So this mapping exercise is what we pulled together as a value proposition canvas. So good.

I've been using this for years and years and the beauty of it. Is its simplicity. It's so simple. And you can have a couple of tips here. If you have different segments, you can have different value proposition canvases for different segments. So obviously in the case of Airbnb, they have a host and they have a guest.

Each of those would have a value proposition cameras. Cause they're quite different. One's B2B, one's B to C, right? So. Interesting thing is you can have a lot of variations based on your segments and these should grow and change over time. And it's such a good way to start your journey of building a great product.

And just a quick note here, if you are really getting into this, this is a subset of a wider canvas called the lean [00:08:00] business canvas. You should check out the lean business canvas because that goes beyond the problem solution and gets into all the customer channels. It gets into. Uh, the costs, the revenues, the unique value proposition, the unfair advantage, all sorts of good stuff.

And that is probably closer to the full venture. Um, mapping that on the canvas. This is really cool too, to the product itself, but it's another great part of the lean startup methodology. All right. Well, this has been our little adventure into exploring solutions. To use, uh, problems. And I, I really, I cannot tell you how important it is to be very rigorous and thorough as you go through this, do it early and do it well.

And then down the track you'll really have great fun building a product because you'll be really solving a problem that your customers have. All right. That syrup of the bottom-up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality tents. And today we are talking about what is the problem that our users have some more out there in the world of product management, whether we're creating a first-time product or make any existing problem, our product better.

We have to ask ourselves, what is the problem? Our users face now. The interesting thing here is this can change over time. And in terms of first-generation products, I see a lot of people guessing what problem they're solving. So do not underestimate the need to ask this question, not only in product creation, but to continuously remind yourself, test and learn what problem you're really solving.

Because too often, I see people guessing. And if you're guessing the problem you're [00:01:00] solving well, if you think about it, everything else that comes downstream of the problem, I, the solution, the product features, the service, everything will be built on, I guess, and chances are, that's not going to be a great product.

So let's visit this question. What really is the problem that our users face and how do we. How do we frame that? Like what's the checklist? Well, the good news is that Eric Reese and the lean startup team created a really powerful, yet simple tool called the value proposition canvas. And I can't tell you how useful this is.

I've used it a lot of different times. And what it essentially does is it weighs up two things. What is our customer? And what is our proposition so differently? What we do is we get into some real details that help us frame problem solution. Now, if we think about the world of the [00:02:00] customer, they experienced pains when they're trying to get things done in life.

And they're also looking for some gains as well. So these pains and gains are all part of the jobs. To be done. And if you can frame the jobs that your customer is trying to get done, the pains that they experienced and the gains they're looking for, then you've really done a great job of framing the world of a customer.

Now what's really interesting here is that, you know, this idea of a value proposition canvas, it's not a fixed object. In fact, it should be changing. Uh, all the time, it should be very iterative. So it's a bit like your lean hypothesis that we mentioned in an earlier episode of this series, where we talk about the fact that as you test and learn, whether it's your hypothesis, your value prop, canvas, or your business canvas, these things [00:03:00] should be updating all of the time.

So. We're talking a lot about pains and gains in the jobs to be done of our customer. Let's just take an example. Um, so Airbnb, um, what are the pains people experience? Well, if, if you think about it, people are not sure if the, if the. Property, um, that they're going to be a guessing, they're not sure of the quality of it.

Will they be sharing a space for strangers? I mean, stranger danger is a huge problem for Airbnb. And then there's safety concerns. Those are the pains that you experience now. What are the gains that your customer is looking for? If they're trying to, you know, Rent an Airbnb. Well, it's probably a bit cheaper than a hotel.

Meet some interesting people, get local experience. Something's a bit more flexible than a hotel, something that fits them better. So they've got lots of options. Those are the, some of the gains that [00:04:00] they're looking for. And. What you could do is frame those against the, these main jobs to be done, which is hassle-free and safe booking of accommodation.

When you're on a holiday, a cheap accommodation, or if you are a host making additional money by renting out one of your rooms. So this is what you actually put on your canvas. And this is a really good snapshot of. The challenges and the mission that your customers aren't. So let's, let's remind ourselves of what it is jobs to be done.

And those tend to be the bigger themes of the user. And then as the customer goes to achieve those jobs, to complete those jobs, they bump into all these blockers and barriers. Sometimes they might be very practical or they might be. Uh, sort of emotional sort of like, um, you know, stranger danger, for example, for, for Airbnb.

[00:05:00] So then the last thing is the gains, and these are sort of the benefits or the reasons why people are doing this job. And in the case of Airbnb, it's like have a great, authentic local experience, meet some interesting people and lots of other reasons as well. But this is really good because when you play in this world, you're going to find that, um, this will change and grow.

And some of these. Well actually emerge as the big value drivers for your customer. So it could be primarily, there is one job to be done, and there's just only a couple of really key pains and gains. And if you capture all of those and by capture, I mean, you do interviews. You do surveys, you actually do some research into emerging needs of users, consumers, market trends, industry trends.

Like [00:06:00] we're not guessing here, like this, this stuff really has to be validated by all sorts of forms of research. Then you've got like the perfect snapshot of the problems that you'll use a faces or their needs analysis is to which it is sometimes called as well. Now this that I've described to you is the customer side of the proposition.

What we're going to do in the next shows. We're going to talk about the other side. Of this, which is really the proposition that comes from you as a product manager, as a product creator, a builder, a designer, we're going to get into how you answer that Cole, but what's really important here is that you accurately map.

These pains, gains and jobs to be done. I, I deeply call upon you not to guess these go out test and learn what are the problems that their users really face. And for example, if you're going to do a [00:07:00] survey minimum, a hundred people, if you're going to do user interviews, a minimum of 10 people, that's the bare minimum.

You need to have some certainty. Because your sample size has been significant enough. If you want to put things beyond that, then, you know, interview, you know, 30, 40, 50 people. And the patterns will become very clear on what they need. Likewise, if you do a survey, once you get up to 500 or a thousand, I mean, that that's great for like a national.

Product, if you're going to launch it and then you'll have this map of what customers need. And importantly, because you've put the hard work into that, the next step will be to map the other side, the proposition. And if you put equal work into that, then what you will get is what we call the problem solution fit.

That means you have. The problem that the customer faces in the solution that you propose and what we call this is a value [00:08:00] proposition canvas. Now, if you are interested in learning about the value proposition canvas, um, you should definitely check out our lean master class it's totally free. And you can find that at bottom-up dot IO.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm my passengers. I'm the CEO of Qualitas and we are flying through. How product management series called on stuck. That's right. We're tackling the biggest challenges that you're going to face as you build, create, develop, and manage your product. And today we're talking about who is the user of your product.

Now in the previous show, we talked about what's the idea. Now we're going to really drill into things and ask ourselves who is the customer, the user of this product or service. Now, again, I don't want you to dismiss this and think, well, this is all pretty simple, straightforward stuff, because it's not, frankly, you can never over obsess about who is your customer.

This question is [00:01:00] so powerful and you should keep coming back to it time and time again. And the reason is the more that you understand and the more you empathize with your customer, the easier it will become to serve their needs. And frankly, if you're solving a problem for them, then you've got a product that's worth building.

So just. Keep on obsessing. Who's our customer. What do they need now? I want to say that the biggest thing that I noticed in people, when we talk about who's the customer is how, uh, general, uh, they tend to be when describing their customer. I will often find that a lot of people describe their customers or their prospective customers as.

I dunno, just a very simple demographic description males, 18 to 24. Okay. And what else? They like gaming. Uh, huh, is that it? And that kind of tends [00:02:00] to be it. Maybe they can tell me what country they're in and what I want to present to you is in search of the answer to the question who is our customer. You can go so much more deeper because frankly.

There are four key buckets that you should be filling in, um, on your checklist for understanding who your user is, and I'm going to take you through them. And if you do this well, I think in the two less discussed. Uh, areas of customer profiling. I think you're going to find a lot of clues to developing a great product, but first let's get the two basic foundational, uh, areas of understanding our customer really down.

The first one is demographics. Now you can talk about aging, gender. Males 18 to 24, but let's talk about their annual income, their education, uh, or ethnicity. [00:03:00] They are, um, let's really kind of get into some more demographic profiling of them. Okay. So it's not just age and gender, which tends to be where most people stop.

So that's bucket number one, that's demographic, um, profiling. Now the other part that is an essential one is the geography now, um, what's really important here is that you can go beyond just saying they're in the us or they're in San Francisco. You can get down to, uh, establishing. Is it an urban or rural setting or suburban setting?

You can look at, um, what sort of climate, um, affects them in that geography. Um, you can even look at, um, what you define as being the regional, uh, radius. Um, are you looking at a town city, uh, County state level? There's all sorts of different, um, uh, permutations there. The key thing here is that, you know, for example, the [00:04:00] insight of whether someone is rural urban can create a lot of contexts to the way in which they might use a product or a service.

So go deeper on demographic and geographic areas. But what we're doing here is we're trying to go deeper into the question and to find the answer to who is Aero customer and beyond the first two, which are sort of foundational ones. There's two other areas that you should explore and that's their attitudes and their behaviors or so differently how they think and how they do.

And, um, we formally call this psychographic. And behavioral market segmentation. So let's have a look at psychographics. This is attitudes, values, interests, lifestyle, personality traits, and really big one. What motivates them. If you get into this, you get into a higher order of, um, understanding your customer and you can get to that big one that I mentioned.

[00:05:00] Motivations because the more you understand what motivates them, the more you'll be able to understand what happens in the other area. That I mentioned, which is behavioral. So behavioral segmentation of your user is how do they spend money? How do they purchase, how did they use products and services?

What do they think and do with brands now in these two areas, there's lots and lots of clues with behavioral segmentation. You can map. How your customer behaves with a similar brand product or service, you can look at how they spend with them when they spend with them. What influences their habits. Now that's really, really good because if you want to introduce a new habit to your customer or use it, you've got to fight for their attention.

And you've got to work out how to create enough value that they're going to stick with this new behavior. So that can all come from this idea of behavioral [00:06:00] segmentation, how they spend, how they purchase, uh, what sort of status they look to have, um, in, uh, the various products and services. So behavioral segmentation.

So, so far we've got demographics, segmentation, geographic, and behavioral. Um, and then this last one, psychographic. This is great because inside of this, as a lot of clues, um, to how they think what informs, um, their, um, choices for new new products and services or how they might use, uh, your existing products or service and an insight of understanding their attitudes, you can really come to terms with all sorts of issues that you might be able to solve for the customer.

So. Whether you come in through that behavioral window or through their attitudes, there's actually a lot to learn. So there's [00:07:00] so much in this customer or this user universe, when you're thinking about who is the user of our product, you've got their age and their gender and so much more in demographic.

And you've got those other three segments, geographic, behavioral, and psychographic. Now a great way to tell that story because you could run the risk. I'm getting a little overwhelmed with lots of data. What I would really recommend is to draw up some user. Personas. Okay. And user personas are just archetypes of who your classic users are.

You might have a couple of segments of customer and, um, you know, the key thing, uh, with these different segments is that you can express them as a user story. And when you do express them as a. Okay, so now let's talk about user personas. These are great ways of introducing the user. [00:08:00] And your segmentation in the form of a story, you can actually actually write a little bio, describe their personality, how they live their life, what motivates them goals and frustrations and all of that good stuff.

You can even talk about what brands they have affinity for, what services, and these really just bring to life, the characteristics of your different segments. So you might have a. Sort of advanced early adopter user versus like a, like a late majority user, two very different types of users of your service.

And you can tell them their story through a user persona, and this will be very good. At bringing to life that data, because you don't want to get buried in all of that data. Now, if you are interested in learning more about finding out who is your customer, you can get a ton of free master classes and courses over@bottomup.io.

And remember, we've got a [00:09:00] great design thinking must cost, which is totally free. So jump on over to Baltimore dyer.io and you get to know your customer even better. Well, that's it for this episode of the bottom up skills podcast, that's a wrap.

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Hello, welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast I might pass and say, I'm the CEO of and we continue the getting unstuck series, where we dive into some of the greatest product challenges. And today we're starting with this question. What's the product idea. Now I know you're thinking that sounds like a pretty simple question, Mike, but actually the real truth of things is that a lot of time people really struggled to explain their product.

They often will talk about it in terms of what other people are doing. Um, they might talk about it in terms of some of the technology behind it. But really what you see is that [00:01:00] if you can't start the conversation with a clear and let's hopefully guess that it's going to be a bit inspiring and it's going to have some value in it.

If you can't share the product idea, pretty much everything else that comes after that, it's a bit of a mess. So, um, having traveled the world of marketing and product. I believe that there is a really. Powerful best way to describe your product. And I would recommend the lean hypothesis. That's right. So from lean startup, there's this idea called the lean hypothesis and it's really simple structure, and it's a really great way to share your.

Product idea. So I'm going to talk about how to do this, and then I'm going to put this into context, show you some of the variations of how to share your product idea and I'll make the case for why this is so important, [00:02:00] but let's get into telling a product story, like telling the idea, and there's a three part formula to the lean hypothesis and here's how it works.

So what you do is you frame it as a problem. Then a solution and then the results that we would expect, and you can actually add a few things to it. If it's a full venture hypothesis, it's a full business explanation, but at its core, if you've got a product, you need to go out into the world and say, here's the problem.

Here's my solution. And here's the expected results. So let me throw one at you and let's see if this all makes sense. So classic example, here is a lemonade stand because we know our customers prefer colder lemonade in warmer weather. If we add ice to each cup of lemonade, we sell, we can expect higher customer [00:03:00] satisfaction and more sales.

Okay. So let's just break that down. So you've got this idea in this case, you're actually improving a product. So let's, uh, break it down. The problem was because we know our customers prefer colder lemonade in warmer weather. It's hot. People need something to refresh them. Well, good job that we have a solution.

We're going to add ice to each cup of lemonade we sell, and that's the solution part. So now we've got this simple structure of problem solution, and then we can propose the result. We expect, higher customer satisfaction and more sales. Now this is a great way to. Present your product idea in a really clear way.

What I'll do is I'll also, uh, in a moment I'll go on and extend that into a full venture hypothesis. So it's beyond the product itself, but the entire venture, but there's a key thing. If you've written your hypothesis, the good news is you're on track for going out into the world and [00:04:00] testing and learning and validating.

If this hypothesis is in fact, correct. And, um, I want to do a little build on this so that you can, um, be one step ahead. So if you have your hypothesis, it's a great way of explaining your idea. And if everybody says, well, look, what's next. It's, you know, it's early stages. It sounds like a good idea. Well, you would say something like this, and this is where you start thinking about what you're going to learn.

What you're going to test. You'd say if we are correct, we'd also expect that customer surveys. Would validate a preference for us that we might be able to run tests, to find them quantity of ice that maximize sales and that our net promoter score crease. So that was if we were correct, but if we're wrong, it might indicate that customer preference for cold lemonade might be influenced by other factors, such as the precise ratio of ice to lemonade.

The exact temperature outside the quantity of sugar, lemon juice and water in our recipe, or the price of the [00:05:00] trip. I think from your competitor down the street, who knew that lemonade could get so complex, but the point here is this is how you would take your hypothesis into next step. So you say, Hey, listen, I don't have all the answers.

I've got this idea. And what's really good is that you are now presenting. Your hypothesis, you have a vision, but you also have sort of the next steps as well. Now, if we expand this approach and we think about it from a venture perspective, what we do is we actually just kind of frame the context a little bit more.

We've talked about problem solution result. So now what we do is we talk about, um, a formula that presents the. The customer or the persona or the segment that's part one, and then their problem situation. That's part two. Now what's really interesting is you then propose the current [00:06:00] alternatives that people look to to solve the problem.

And this is really important with the venture, because then you can ask yourself, Hmm. Yeah. When I go to get refreshing drinks in warmer weather, that that option is not really there best. I can see some problems with it. So this adds a little bit more validity to a full venture hypothesis and also indicates some of the market possibilities as well.

Then you obviously have your value proposition. So we propose to offer this solution to solve this problem. And then we'll observe particular metrics in the product. So what's really fun about having these ideas framed this way is they can become the simplest way of tracking the growth and the learning that you have.

With your product or venture, because any good product or business is the sum of its learning. So this idea, or in this case, there's a lean hypothesis that you have at the start. It should change a lot. So over time you should [00:07:00] iterate in iterate because you're learning. And so maybe one part of your hypothesis, hypothesis, perhaps the problem or the solution or the customer segment.

That's actually proven to be incorrect, but that's okay. You've learned and then you've tweaked it. So here's another idea for a podcasting service that I think would be really useful. Here's the first variation and we're going to use the venture hypothesis, which just has that bit more context. Here we go.

So here is an idea for a podcast service. Podcast fans find it hard to discover new podcasts. Currently they talk to friends, you search and randomly sample shows. But if we offer the Google of podcasts, we'll observe success through metrics such as virality and referral conversions. Okay. So people are finding it hard to find new podcasts.

Now let's just play with a variation of this. What we're going to do [00:08:00] is we're going to change up the problem solution. Um, and we're going to keep the other variables the same. So he is variation. Number two, podcast fans, find it hard to review and share their favorite podcasts. Currently they use messaging or Apple podcasts app, but if we offer authority for reviews of podcasts, Like it being the TripAdvisor of podcasts, then we'll observe success through metrics such as user registration and the volume of reviews.

So what you can see here is that we changed the problem solution set, and this might be a great example of how your product idea changes over time. So I really recommend that you use this lean hypothesis because it really not only helps you simply communicate your idea, but actually presents some really clear testing, um, uh, variables inside of this formula.

And from this, you can get things such as a high concept and elevator pitch and executive summary. All the [00:09:00] variations of ways of telling the story that you might like, but at the core, at the most powerful way of framing, what is actually your product idea? I really recommend the idea of a lean hypothesis because not only will it.

Get people excited, which is obviously going to be a critical thing as you start a new company or start a new product. But what it's also going to do is it's going to give you something that you can come back to and test time over time. And don't forget that this should not be beyond the estimated this idea of communicating your product idea, because whether you're recruiting staff, Or customers or partners.

You want to have a concise, you want to have a powerful way of communicating your product idea so you don't get lost in all the details because frankly, people just don't care, a clean, crisp, short, and concise problem solution with a result. That's the way to telling your product story. All right. That's it for the bottom up [00:10:00] skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality science and we are starting a whole new series. We're going to start talking about some of the essential skills for product creators, for product people. And I'm calling this series unstuck, how do we get unstuck?

How do we. Work in what is a very different world, uh, to 10, 20 years ago. And it's really a bit of a game of catch-up, uh, to be quite honest. And so I want to make the case for the change that is surrounding us as modern knowledge working professionals. I want to really make the case for some cutting edge practices like lean and agile and design thinking.

And I really want to show you, [00:01:00] um, a radically new way of thinking about those skills, uh, and how we might all survive in this crazy world in which we live. All right. Let's get stuck into it. And let's just talk a little bit about the big shift that's happening and without a doubt. Uh, you know, 2020 has only accelerated the shift.

I mean, you might really argue, you know, some people call it the fourth industrial age. I think of this as being a shift out of the industrial age to the digital age. Um, and let's talk about what that means. So in the old way of working people really had a focus on machines, manufacturing, um, stability.

Mass production, uh, listening to your teacher and all that kind of stuff, but were working in a very different world. Instead of machines, we're moving towards a world that's based on data [00:02:00] instead of manufacturing. The key thing is problem solving rather than talking about your own organization. We're really talking about how we integrate from stability to constant change from the factory worker.

To the knowledge worker and here we go. Here's some, here's some fun ones. So from capital being the biggest asset to knowledge for mass production to automated production from teachers to self-learning from top down, To bottom up. In fact, what I want to pitch to you is we've seen a huge acceleration of this shift to the digital age, to the knowledge age, and the only way to survive in this frantic fast-changing world is to in fact, work bottom up.

That's where the whole idea. [00:03:00] For the name of this podcast for the name of all of our e-learning, uh, experiences, it's all about bottom-up skills because you've got to work bottom up. Let's face it, things move too fast to be top down. You know, if someone says to me, write me a big 20 page business plan for this idea.

I'll be like, I'm lucky. If I've got enough time to do a lean business canvas, let alone a business plan. And the crazy thing is these old ways of working, which are very top down by the time you deliver that work, it's out of date. So this is the opportunity we can work in a bottom up Y and that's the most exciting prospect that we have.

So now, I'm making the case that we're working in a digital era in a era of knowledge. So we need new skills and I want to list for you the six skills, and then I'm going to present [00:04:00] you the essence, the core and the starting point of working in a bottom up way. So there are six different skills that I think are essential.

Six different practices, six different methodologies. One is lean startup. Absolutely essential too. Growth marketing three rapid prototyping for design thinking number five, agile software development. And all of that comes down to number six, high performance teams. That's all about culture. So, what I want you to have in mind is that if you do want to work in this new bottom-up way, these are the six areas of practice that you need to master.

You need to be able to build, measure, learn with lean startup. You need to be able to rapid prototype, you know, stimulate the senses of your users. You need to be able to conduct design thinking, [00:05:00] uh, which is all about empathizing with users. You need to then take those ideas and build them with small teams, which is the essence of agile.

Software development. The next thing you do is when your product is ready, it's all about growth marketing, and you've got to test every part of the funnel and it all comes down to those high performance teams that have their core engine is built around trust. Okay. Now, if you want to take all of those different skills and work out, what is the most bottom up starting point, whether you want to promote a product, build a product.

Create a profit model or build a team to do it. It all starts with the pains and gains of your customer of your user. And you have to understand what are the pains that your user experiences and how are you going to relieve those pains? What are the gains they're looking for and what are your gain creators?

And I present to you that if you know [00:06:00] those pains and gains you'll know the use cases for your product, You'll be able to build a hypothesis for your venture. You'll be able to build a team around the right behaviors, systems and symbols, you know, have the right culture. And when it goes to telling your story out in the world to promote it, you'll know exactly how to go and propose this service to the world.

So if you know the pains and gains of the end user, I make a case to you that you can build everything you need in a great business product and enterprise. You can actually deliver against those four PS product, profit people and promotion, and it will all come back to the most bottom, up to the most essential practice that you need right now here in a world that is so agile, nimble, and fast, where it changes the constant.

You need to know. What are the pains and gains of your user? What keeps them up at night and what services do they [00:07:00] need, what products do they need? And what's a product worth creating. So if you go out and do this in the world, you will find enormous success and you'll be able to craft something that delights your users.

You'll be able to find something that brings real joy. Not only to those that use your product. But I reckon you'll have fun as well. So there you go. That's my case for the most essential skills for product creators. It's not only about design thinking and lean and agile and all of that. It's much more than that.

It's about building these great teams, it's that, you know, that full picture that we have in the four PS and all of that comes down to the most essential practice of working in a bottom up way, which is knowing the pains and gains of your customer. Okay. That's the first of our new series of getting unstuck, the essential skills for product creators.

I hope that you've got some inspiration, maybe a [00:08:00] little practical tip along the way I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality tents, and this is the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom skills podcast. I might pass in this I'm the CEO of Qualitas and we have reached the final episode of our lean startup series. And we're going to put lean into some context. That's all right. We're going to put it in somewhat of a bigger picture. Because lane is such a great methodology.

It's such a powerful tool. Um, I'm, uh, as you have probably guessed from this series, I'm a huge fan, but I think it's also important to realize it does a particular job. And if you want to use it. There were different times and places to use it, but it also needs to work together with some other practices as well.

And so I'm going to try and map them all out for you. So it's a bit of an audacious undertaking, but I really think that this is a great exercise now that we've got a very good [00:01:00] sense of some of those key practices of the lean startup. Let's put it into a bigger picture. Okay. So let's take the challenge of trying to put lean startup into one sentence.

And I think it's the loop that we've talked about on this series. And let me pitch it to you. Lean startup is all about build, measure, learn. If there is anything. That can summarize the lean starter in just a few words. It's the loop. Cause it all comes from there. You know, you need to build your MVP. You need to make sure you have the right data.

You need to learn and ask yourself pivot or persevere. Which growth engine and so on and so forth so much inside of it, but it spins off, uh, this central point of build measure, learn loop. And I [00:02:00] think this is the real power because you know, the. The context here is that the old way of building software was what we call the waterfall approach, which starts with this heavy requirements and specifications.

And it differs all of the testing, all of the learning and measuring till the very end. And frankly, that's why it was becoming really an outdated process in such a fast moving world. So. Lean startup really, isn't an essential tool. Uh, if you want to build, measure, learn, if you want to test and validate, um, it's essential, but let's do it ourselves.

An exercise of two parts. First, let's make a quick inventory of some of the other practices. You need to build a great product, but let's also kind of put it, um, Let's talk about when they, uh, when they happen, [00:03:00] um, when they occur, when should they, um, be used within the journey of building and managing a product.

So I think something that's very close to this, uh, idea of build, measure, learn, which is in the lean startup, is this idea of rapid prototyping. Now, rapid prototyping for me. The the real core of this is that you test. If you can get the job done, uh, for your end users, by what I call stimulating the senses, the thing about rapid prototyping.

Cause you don't conduct, uh, sort of a traditional focus group and say to somebody, Hey, would you like to maybe consider this idea? Now you actually build a light version of it and you actually get them to try and complete a task to try to actually try and use this model, this sketch, uh, this light version of your product [00:04:00] and rapid prototyping, because it stimulates the sensors.

It gives you all this, uh, feedback. So you need to. This is really interesting. You actually need to do both the lean startup and rapid prototyping. So if you really want to build a world-class products, you need to have this practice of rapid prototyping. So where does this interact with link? Well, um, you build something, you don't have to build a full product.

You can build a prototype and then the results of which is something that you can measure and learn. Now, another thing. That really is close, is adjacent to rapid prototyping. And lane is design thinking. Now some people might actually say rapid prototyping is part of design thinking, but I like to elevate design thinking to being the following idea.

It's how you empathize with users, not only to prototype, but to survey, to interview, to almost be ethnographic, to be like Sherlock [00:05:00] Holmes, to really obsess about their world, their jobs to be done. So what design thinking does can help you develop a much better hypothesis at the start of your lean startup process?

So with lean it's like you're going to build a hypothesis. Okay. Well, if you use a number of the practices from design thinking, you can start already much closer to success if you use design thinking, because let's face it. If you, um, to say, Hey, I want to do something in financial services. Then, how do you know where you kind of kick off with your lean startup approach?

Well, I would always use design thinking to find out where the biggest unmet pains and unmet gains are existing in the market. Who's not solving some problems, what's, what's up for grabs. And, and then I would, you know, take the build measure, learn loop, uh, to that area. [00:06:00] Okay. So we've talked a little bit about how lean startup interacts with rapid prototyping and design thinking.

Um, let's now go to a big one. Let's go to agile software development. Now I think at the core of the agile software development is the idea of building small teams who have a focus on. A prioritization of working code over lots of lengthy kind of waterfall ESC documentation. Now those agile teams will work.

Probably using scrum probably with a two week sprint and you know, what they should build, measure and learn within that two week sprint. That's where the lean startup comes a great agile process. We'll have the measuring and learning from lane inside of it to make sure that they're. Team or building something that the user actually needs and [00:07:00] wants.

So that's the inter interaction there. Now, all of this will get you to a product that you launch and that's where you really, really, really need to go out in the world and to do some growth marketing. Now. It's really interesting here. I think you can argue that growth marketing takes a lot from lean startup and growth marketing.

Is this idea of you've got like a funnel. Which starts with, you know, generally awareness and goes right through all the steps to customers, referring you to, to new customers. And this is the funnel and growth marketing obsesses about all the steps in the funnel, because traditionally we only focused on the early parts of the funnel.

It's got a huge test and learn, uh, flavor to it, growth marketing. It really used the new way of doing marketing or traditional, uh, brand marketing. Um, [00:08:00] and again, once your product is live, that's when it's time to use it. Okay, so I've hit you with five big ones. So we started obviously with the lean startup, but we went to rapid prototyping, design thinking, agile software development, and we just talked about growth marketing.

Now there is one more and. The reality is that all five of these, let's say methodologies practices. They're all done by PayPal. No matter how obsessed we are with all of the skills, mental models that come with them. What we've just talked about is, is no one human individual. Does all of this in a silo, in a tower in isolation, all of this work is done in teams.

So we have to talk about culture [00:09:00] because culture is what drives teams. So if you want to put the lean startup into practice, if you really want to inspire, motivate, and get people really. Moving in the right way, then you really do need to consider. This idea of how you build high-performance teams. And we talked a lot about this in our agile masterclass, so I don't want to get too distracted because you know what I'm like, I'll get, I'll get all excited about this and start doing an agile masterclass and what is meant to be a very short, um, but, uh, succinct, um, uh, Little podcast, but I do want to attempt to, to pitch you this.

Um, I think there's a couple of ideas, um, that came from [00:10:00] some really fantastic work by a guy called Patrick Lencioni. And, uh, his thoughts were around the dysfunctions of a team. So how I want to wrap this up is I want to talk about. Five characteristics that you're going to need an a team, not only to do lean startup, but to do all of these things.

So here's a quick look at this. I think you need in your team. If you want to do great at lean startup, if you want to do great at any of these things, there needs to be trust between the team members. And that always starts by the leaders demonstrating vulnerability. You know, holding up their hand and they say, Hey, I didn't get this right.

I'm going to do better next time. And I think the second thing attain needs is the ability to have tough conversations to embrace conflict. And then when they do that, when there's been rigorous [00:11:00] conversation and argument, then you can actually get behind the best idea and you can all be accountable for your contribution to that.

And lastly, You can men obsess about the results trust conflict. Commitment, accountability and results. That's what it's really going to take to do lean startup. So whilst it's so cool to think about it. This is a mental model what's really crucial is that you actually know that human beings are going to have to do this.

They're going to have to put it into action. So it really, you really have to pay attention to not only the skills, but the behaviors too. All right. What a journey, huh? Uh, agile putting context. Uh, I hope you've enjoyed, uh, really dimensionalizing agile and lean and design thinking. Um, it's. Such a great universe, but most importantly, today [00:12:00] what we've done is seen where we place the lean startup methodology in this greater universe of product tools, methodologies, frameworks, and practices.

And I hope this really does give you a little bit of inspiration, a little bit of practical advice for you to go out and to build a great product. All right. So there you go. I might pass since I'm the CEO of Kuala tents. This was the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass since I am the CEO of Colton's. And we, again, ask this question, shall we pivot or persevere with our product? And this is an okay central, uh, critical, a fundamental idea inside of the lean startup. And we are going to dive into it. It is. I got to tell you this one's a good one.

And you know what? I honestly think it is so underestimated because I see way, way too many times companies persevering with products, services, and experiences that really should have been pivoted. And what's really fascinating is if you actually look a lot of successful companies, they're made up of a series of really well [00:01:00] thought out rigorous decision-making around this choice between a pivot or to persevere.

So I'm hopefully going to decode and unlock this for you today. This is a very. Very important, uh, piece of the lean startup. Um, it is an essential thing to embrace. Just it's going to help you build a better product and it's going to, as you would only expect from Eric Reese and the lean startup, it's going to give you some very strong accountability on how to build a better product to make something that's actually worth using and worth building.

Okay. So a little bit of context here. When we talk about this pivot or persevere question, it's all done in the context of learning, right? And it's the build measure learn loop. That is the lean startup. And I got to tell you it's all iterate, iterate, iterate, continuity. You don't [00:02:00] just ask this question.

Once you ask it all the time. Do we pivot? Do we persevere because you're in a continuous cycle, a continuous loop of growing your product. Step-by-step question by question, proving out your hypothesis or disproving your hypothesis and building a new one. So let's, let's kind of try and bring ourselves into what the pivotal persevere question looks like and how it works.

Okay. First let's just get the definition, right. A pivot is, you know, if you think about it, it's a change in the strategy without changing the vision. So what I mean by that is you can have this huge vision. To help a particular customer segment. Maybe it is to fix a big problem in the [00:03:00] world. That's great that doesn't have to change, but how are you going to get there?

Right. What's the strategy for doing that? That can change a lot. And the pivot is this moment where after measuring. We changed the hypothesis and we try a new approach that might yield better results. Okay. So let's unpack, unpack that a little bit. That one's pretty, pretty deep. So, you know, you, you, you, you're building a product.

Um, let's say it's a podcast app and you have this idea that there's not enough conversation and commenting and sharing of podcasts. It's all a bit ad hoc and it's too hard. And your vision is that you want to get the very best, uh, relevant content to people around the world. You think it's too hard to find there's too much hidden treasure.

Um, there's all these rough diamonds hiding out in the world and you want to make it easy for people to [00:04:00] discover new podcasts. Okay. That's your vision of the world and you think people will be much happier if they, uh, if they get access to lots of different podcasts, but you might have a particular strategy for maybe you emphasize the commenting of the podcast, or maybe it's the sharing of the podcast or the liking.

And you might try this as a strategy in your prototypes, in your MVP, and you might find. That let's say you did it all around reviews, but people just don't want to write reviews for their podcasts. Maybe they don't want to write it because they're too busy listening and you can't do two things at once.

Maybe that's what you discover. So you can still stay true to your vision of helping people discover new podcasts, but maybe. Instead of doing it through the commenting it's through liking or maybe your strategy is not to focus on the [00:05:00] liking, but there are different ways of doing it. Maybe there is an algorithm that measures your consumption and you don't have to do anything in that creates a recommendation engine, just like Amazon.

I mean, I, I'm getting a bit excited here about this product actually, but my point is this, you could go so many different ways of. Having a strategy to realize this vision of a precast discovery service. So my point is that you might test one of these and you may discover that the strategy is not right, and you're going to try a different one.

Then hopefully that will yield better results. That is a pivot. You're like we tested the route. We just couldn't get the results. Not enough. People were reviewing, liking, writing, sharing the podcast. So, you know what. We are going to try an [00:06:00] alternative strategy to achieve the vision. Now what's so powerful about pivoting is that if you go to Jeff Bezos, CEO, and founder of Amazon, he says, be stabbed on your vision, but flexible.

On how you get there. And this is exactly what Eric Reese says in the lean startup too. Like, don't be too attached to the strategy and, Oh my gosh. Do I see people so attached to a strategy, particularly in the corporate world, people selling a strategy and then it's like, it can never be changed because that's what we promised to the boss.

No, I think you should do a differently, you should promise a vision. With a plethora of strategy, possibilities that you will test validate in order to discover the right one. Okay. So we've dealt with the first half of this question, the pivot, right? So you can stay true to your vision. You can change the [00:07:00] strategy and I just keep testing, looking for results.

Now what's the other alternative to the pivot persevere. This means a totally different situation where you've got this vision. You've tested a strategy. And the results look pretty good. Some might even say encouraging. Now, this is where you really need to persevere. Get really forensic and rigorous, go deep into all the little tweaks that you can do.

And, uh, I remember. Working with a great creative director in the U S and he always had, when he was persevering with a great idea, he always had this, uh, visualization of, um, a point system when we would make a great, uh, Television ad. [00:08:00] And you'd say, you know, you started a hundred and every, uh, every time you change it, you need to be pushing the quality towards a hundred out of a hundred.

Likewise, you don't want to make too many changes and start sending it to the negative. So in this case, I want you to imagine that you have. Some early stage results that give you a, like a 60 or 70 out of a hundred. And what your job to do is if these numbers look good, you want to continually see gradual improvements through your perseverance.

So you're testing your product and you're like, Hey, the engagement is slowly but surely continually increasing and compounding. So, if you go back to our previous episode, we were looking at the engines of growth within lean startup. You would want to see an improved usage frequency. If it's a sticky [00:09:00] product, I would like to see an improvement in the firewall coefficient.

If it's a viral growth engine and you would want to gradually, but surely. Improve your cost per acquisition for a paid product. This is what you want to do now. Here's the trick. Here's the gotcha. There is no scientific standard to making that pivot or persevere decision. It is question of judgment. Okay.

So. It can be, um, subjective. I wish it was more black and white, but here's a rule I would encourage you to consider. You should pivot. If you continually get diminishing results of improvement, uh, less [00:10:00] increments of improvement. If you start to flatline after several rounds of testing. On your product, if you're still.

Kind of at a 60, 70 out of a hundred and it's getting harder now, you've kind of explored all the options and you can't get into the eighties or nineties out of a hundred. This is a moment where you're, you know, this stagnation, this is where you have to ask, have we achieved a sufficient result or are we struggling?

And we're running out of momentum because if you start to nod to those questions, then you need to consider. Um, pivoting when you should persevere, is that each time you test, you're making some level of improvement and you're starting to see against whatever your measure is. Hey, you know, customers come back.

Once a week or at least twice a month. Hey, each [00:11:00] customer is almost bringing an entirely new customer or we're at 1.1, uh, as a viral coefficient. Lastly, Hey, we've got $5 to pay for an acquired customer. And we started, our budget is five and we started paying 10 and injustice. A few weeks. We've got that down to six.

Well, I would persevere with that cause it looks like your momentum, your velocity is pretty good, but it's always when you're flatlining and it, the results just not quite good enough. This is the moment to ask the question, pivot or persevere. Now, just lastly, there's all types of pivots that you can make now because I made this point that so many great companies, uh, you know, Started doing something else.

Uh, Twitter was a podcast service, for example, um, pivots are actually a really standard [00:12:00] thing. It's really normal, no problem. And it's really important to embrace it because you know what, sometimes we get way too stubborn with our products and we just stay on a thing because that's what we promise someone.

That's what we raise capital with. That's what we promised our bosses, or I just think that's a good idea. Well, why don't you just say, look not happy with the results. Don't feel like we're quite there. I'll go and do a pivot and see what that yields me. Maybe I come back to the original idea, but let's try some different options and you've got plenty.

So the, probably the biggest two. Of the zoom out and the zoom in pivot. So zooming out is where you've started doing a small feature solving a small problem, and you're like, Hmm, maybe we're not solving enough of the use cases. So you zoom out and say, Hey, we're going to be a bit broader. We're going to try and do a few more things so we can give a high level of [00:13:00] satisfaction to the customer.

So that's what we call zoom out. Now the inverse of that is a zoom in where you tried to do too much. And actually PayPal is a great example. They tried to be an online bank. But emailing money to your friends. That was the idea. So they zoomed into that feature very important and really fun. If you think about it, what could be if we zoom out zoom in or somewhere in between really exciting, um, because a world of possibilities, um, you know, open up and look.

There are so many other places you can pivot on. I won't list them all for you. If you would like to see them all jump on over to bottom-up dot IO, where you'll see all of our master classes, you can get a whole deep dive into this. You can get the decks. It's totally free to register. Um, you can get over there, but just a couple of areas.

You can, you can, I want to wet your appetite. So here's a couple of areas you could consider pivoting. [00:14:00] You could change your customer segment, or you can stay with your customer, but just change the need. You could change platforms. You could, um, charge in a different way. You could go from SAS to one time to retail.

You could switch your engines of growth. You could change your channels. You could go from email to social IOT, whatever, or actually you might even find that. You need a different technology approach. All of those are legitimate pivots. You would look at your venture hypothesis as your starting point here.

You would use that as a way to, to play with factors. And we did a whole episode on those. So you can just go into our archive and dig that up as well. If you are interested in that, so there you have it. The big question, pivot or persevere. I really do help, uh, that this 10 minutes together, you got some inspiration or some practical tips on how you can ask [00:15:00] this question and make a better product.

So to all the designers, creators, builders, and entrepreneurs out there, I really do encourage you to jump over to bottom-up dot IO, where we're all about giving product people, the skills they need for their growth and for their products to grow as well. All right. I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality Qualitas and that was another episode of the bottom-up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass in this. I'm the CEO of quality tents, and we are going to talk growth engines. That's right in the next installment of our lean startup series. We're going to talk about how to grow our product. And you know, the interesting thing about growth is it's absolutely essential for a brand new product.

Because it's going to start out a little smoke. So we really need to grow because a sign of growth is a sign of demand for your product, which means you're kind of solving a problem out there. That's actually worth it. Solving. And that's really the pursuit of lean startup to build products that matter to solve problems that are really worth solving.

And there's many different ways that you can grow your product. And we're going to [00:01:00] talk about those. I'm going to give you some examples and I'm even just to get a little meta on the topic. When I talk about how these different versions of growth actually can be combined. Bind, but I did want to just take a moment because as you join us on this lean startup series, it's a great book by Eric Reese.

I thoroughly recommend that you grab it. I w do want to kind of put everything into a little bit of context. Yeah, importantly, there's half a dozen or so episodes that come before this one in the lean master class where you'll get some great tips, hints, uh, suggestions on how you can validate your product, how you can test and learn.

And I do want to make sure that you go and have a listen to that. If you enjoy this show, you should definitely check out, uh, the shows on. A minimum viable product venture [00:02:00] hypothesis, the build measure, learn loop. So, you know, really do, um, go back and study those if this peaks your interest and don't forget, we've still got a couple more.

Uh, episodes as part of this lean startup series. So make sure that you, if this is really, uh, helpful this show, make sure you go and check those out. And if you do want any more information on, uh, lean startup as a methodology, we've actually got an entire masterclass at bottom-up dot IO. It's absolutely free.

And I'm really encourage you to check that out. Um, there's a lot of good stuff there. And if you like that, there's actually a lot of others over a dozen different courses on there. All free, go check them out. Bottom-up dot IO. All right. Well, I mentioned that there were three different engines of growth.

They are sticky, viral and paid. So three different engines of growth. And we're going to talk about each and every one of those. [00:03:00] Um, so let's get into what this idea is. On a sticky, uh, growth engine for your product. So the starting point here is you've got a product. It might be a SAS product. It could be a paid app in the app store.

Um, whatever it is, and frankly, It can be both digital and analog. I want you to imagine that your growth engine, the way the popularity of your product grows is through being sticky and inherently. What we're talking about is this paradigm that when you're making the product, when you're managing the product, your focus is on making sure that customers come back and use the product or the service as much as possible.

Really high on engagement, lots and lots and lots of use. And there's a couple of, uh, key metrics you can use to know if you're doing that. But [00:04:00] an example I'd love to give you is, um, You know, a service like Dropbox, uh, they really depend on, um, people came back and using the product a lot because, you know, you're, you're paying some money every single month for your storage.

Likewise, you might argue that the likes of Snapchat or a CRM tool, Zendesk, or even Uber, they all have a sticky requirement to them. They've got to get their customers coming back time and time again. So. Really important because if it's sticky, you will grow. Uh, you know, if you go back to the example of, you know, lean startup, superstar, Dropbox, they know that if they, uh, have lots of people using the product regularly, people are going to stick around and pay that subscription fee.

Uh, some might say the same paradigm exists for Zendesk. It's a paid B2B service. Really important that people stick [00:05:00] around and use the product. So this is in the world of being sticky. Now, how might you measure if you're actually hitting the Mark? I mean, there's a lot you can measure. What do you measure if you want to know if you're being sticky?

Well, I think there's a couple of ones, first of all. The the most important one here is in terms of engagement, what is the usage frequency? You know, anybody in this case, who's got a sticky growth engine you're going to be looking to get well beyond once per month as a usage frequency. You want to have them coming back as much as possible.

Now there's some other kinds of more customer lifetime, uh, uh, metrics that you can use. You definitely want to look at your churn rate. Now what's a symptom of a very highly competitive environment is you will see competitors are churning through customers. Great example is mobile [00:06:00] providers. So let's think 18 T in the U S let's think, uh, BT in the UK or.

Yeah, perhaps Telstra in Australia, these kinds of companies are always churning because there's a little differentiation between the products and services. So what happens is customers jump from one product to another, from one provider to another, and that's what we call churn. And what you want to avoid here is having a leaky bucket.

Like you win 10 customers, but you lose eight in the same. Uh, period, if you're doing that, then the net effort is you've only increased two. So what would be really good is if you can win 10 and keep nine, uh, that would be some much better economics for your sticky growth engine. Now, you can also look at your, uh, rate of retention or your rates of acquisition of customers, uh, particularly, you know, For more mature products, you want to [00:07:00] try and retain customers for more months.

So you might say our average customer lasts. For 14, 16, 18 months. If you can expand that lifetime, uh, make the product more sticky over a longer period of time, then you've really got something. So this is really powerful because then you can look at these data points and ask yourself, are we being sticky?

Enough. Okay. So that was the first one. That's the first engine of growth that was sticky. Let's go to number two. That's viral. Now viral is super, super interesting because it's essentially this idea that when a customer comes on to the product or service that they actually will recruit another customer.

Really really interesting idea. Sounds simple. It's actually pretty hard to, to design for. I'll tell you that much. And, um, a great example of this is obviously, uh, Facebook now. Um, you know, [00:08:00] what's interesting just to play with this. I think Snapchat, who also. Has to be sticky, also needs to be viral. And I want you to consider this, that it is not a mutually exclusive system.

You can have the requirement of being both sticky and viral, but let's stay on track with the viral for a moment. So another, uh, service that has quite a viral nature is PayPal. And if you look at the commonality between Facebook, PayPal, and Snapchat, they're all creating networks. Or marketplaces as really interesting.

So what happens is Facebook, PayPal, and Snapchat all get better. If, as a user, you recruit another user to the platform. So what's kind of fascinating about this is this is both the strength and the weakness, particularly of social networks, so they can grow incredibly fast. So, um, a [00:09:00] great, uh, additional example here is tick tock.

The reason, uh, that they get this unparalleled growth, it's incredible growth. Is that the network just gets better as each user recruits more users. This is what we commonly cur or call network effect, and obviously products that have network effects in them can achieve really incredible scale. Like the ones that we've mentioned.

So the question then becomes, if you think this is interesting and you're working towards it, what's the data point. What's the metric to look at. And here's where I'm going to introduce to you. There's a very, very important lean startup metric. It's called the viral coefficient and that's the number of new users and existing user generates and your aim for a good viral growth engine.

Is that at a minimum, every [00:10:00] customer recruits, at least. As full and complete new user, it starts to get pretty exponential if every customer attracts two or three customers, because then you have this network effect, this sort of snowball effect for your product. So. That is, um, really, uh, the benchmark of this second engine.

The viral coefficient is how you can build a viral growth engine. All right. So we had the first one sticky second growth engine viral. What's the third one. This one is paid and paid is the club classic. E-commerce a Shopify store. And the way it works is this is you go out into the world. And do you generate leads or by customer leads and the key thing that you want to do, if you're a retailer, whether [00:11:00] you're a direct consumer brand offering, whether you're an aggregator retailer, whether you're a bespoke, uh, little, uh, you know, side hustle, service drop shipping.

Whatever the key thing is for the cost that it takes you to get that customer, to get that lead, to get that click, that cost is less than what it takes to build margin into the product. Meaning if you've got. $5 per sale to acquire your customer. The key question is, can you buy media? Can you generate those customers for $5 or less?

Now this sounds so damn simple, right? But this one really trips up, uh, startups and scale-ups [00:12:00] because here's what happens. A lot of companies. Don't even realize that their growth engine is paid. And so they go out into the world and realize that, well, they're not really sticky enough. They're maybe not viral enough.

So they go to the paid engine of growth, but yeah, then here's the real aha. They realize that they can only afford $5 per acquisition. That's all they can afford. But it actually costs them 10. So this is what we call CPA cost per acquisition. And this is the essence of the paid engine of growth. Can you acquire them for less than your budget?

Can you acquire them at a really steep investment? Right. Or are you stuck with a situation that the keywords you're bidding on are credit expensive, [00:13:00] um, funnel and conversion on site too low. So you attract 10 customers, but only convert two or three. This is really at the heart of the growth. Engine of paid.

So there you have it, three different models, sticky, viral, and paid. There are all the essential drivers of growing, building your product, your service. And as you can see, you can have a little bit of each, but you have to make sure that those. Key data points that I gave you, usage frequency, the viral coefficient and the cost per acquisition.

As they work respectively across paid viral and sticky, you need to make sure you hit those numbers. And what lean does as a methodology is it keeps us accountable to these models. By using these data points, it's super accountable. It's [00:14:00] scientific as Eric Reese would say. So there you go. Three engines of growth to build your product.

These are essential paradigms to understand in the early stages of building a product, I hope you found this helpful. Maybe give you a little bit of inspiration, and if you would like more inspiration, head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you'll find everything you need to know to build a wonderful product.

So there you have it. I might pass as the CEO called tense, and this is the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello, welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality runs. And here we are, again, it's lean startup and we are going to discuss measuring product fit. And boy, is this one going to be good? Because when I first discovered these three levels of product fit, it made so much sense similar to when I discovered rapid prototyping and how helpful that is in the journey of building a product, this measuring fit.

Uh, thinking, and this three-step framework I'm going to take you through is fantastic. So there's actually, there are three types that I'm going to take you through. I'm going to discuss how you actually achieve that fit. And I really want to place it in perspective. So that you feel [00:01:00] that you know where you are with your product or service and how you might build out, um, through these three stages.

And, um, this is going to give you the chance to know where you are on this journey as a designer, creator or entrepreneur. Okay. Step number one, there are three stages of fit. The first stage of fit is what we call problem-solution fit. Now, this is largely making sure that the problem that you, uh, might have in yours.

Business idea, product idea. You're actually just want to make sure that the product problem that you perceive we've actually existed for users now, right? The reason why this is so important is we so often guess that a problem exists and it's a very famous adage that so many products, uh, solutions looking for problems.

Um, and. What I'm encouraging you to do here, when you think about the problem, solution fit is to go out and make sure that the problem [00:02:00] solution fit is actually there before you do anything else. Now, obviously the previous episode, we talked about MVPs and how you can test your ideas. What you would want to do to bring the two episodes together.

If you're looking to create a problem, the solution fit very early stage, that's the problem exists. You want to go out there and you want to recruit potential customers or users, and you want to determine through a survey or through an interview, or even if you're just doing a diagnostic, discover how their world exists around a given problem.

So, this is large, if we think about areas of expertise, there's going to lean heavily on user experience in design thinking, because you're going to have to have empathy for the user and, um, What you will do is you'll use a tool code, a value proposition, canvas. This is a very good way to map what the [00:03:00] problems and solutions might be.

And this breaks down into a number of different areas. And if you want to know more about that, you can head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can get all our free masterclasses on design thinking on lean on agile, because we break this down a lot more than we're doing just on the podcast. So back to value proposition, canvas, this will have the user's pains and gains matched to how you relieve them and how you create gains.

And so I think, um, A way to think about your approach here with these recruited users is it's all about discovery. You just want to be one curious cat, does this problem really exist and be honestly be tough on yourself? Because the worst thing to do would be to go out into the world and build a product that was built on a problem that actually didn't exist, or maybe the problem exists, but the solution was a guess and you [00:04:00] didn't actually validate, is this the right.

Solution. And so I think a great way to think about the journey of stage one problem-solution fit is it's a search for desirability is the solution idea that I have the thing that's going to solve things. Is it really desirable? Like when people hear the idea of like, Ooh, that sounds good. It's like Uber taxis, but better, faster, cheaper, safer.

Oh. Yeah, well, that sounds pretty great. And you could just riff on this for, for ages, but you really want to make sure that you've actually uncovered a really strong problem and a really strong possibility on how you might solve it. So let's assume you've got your problem-solution fit. You can move to stage two.

This is called the product-market fit. Now at this point in time, we're starting to adopt some pretty serious of lean thinking, uh, some pretty serious product management. [00:05:00] And what you're really looking to do here is to use a couple of tools. You might have a prototype. You might even be at MVP. You might be, have a little bit of code now.

Uh, you might have a landing page, something up and working. And at this point you want to use that stimulus to validate product-market fit. And the thing that captures that thinking is going to be what we call a lean business canvas. And this goes beyond just the problem and the solution, right. It's going to look at everything, including your customers and your segments, and, you know, value props, unfair advantages, but it's also, and this is why it's getting more on the business side.

So also going to have, you know, revenues and costs associated with doing this idea. Now, when we talk about with whom are we testing in a product-market fit, we're actually going out to early adopters. So we go out to them and what we want to do is have them successfully complete a task because [00:06:00] that's when we know that we actually have product-market fit.

Yeah, we had an idea of the problem solution. Then we put it into action and early adopters did it. They were happy. They were satisfied and you know what? They were prepared to share to advocate and to create what we call the viral coefficient, which is where for every user you attract, they bring in another customer.

So I think this is a slightly different mentality. Um, you know, obviously you're still going to be curious here, but do you want to have a real strong bent? For validation. Do we really have something you really want to make sure that this is a viable and feasible product? The idea was desirable. We saw that in a problem-solution fit, but now can we still deliver on that promise, but also be viable, right?

Make some money. And two, is it technically feasible? Really important questions. All right. I know we're covering a lot of ground. You're like, Whoa, Mike, this is a lot. [00:07:00] Stick with me. We've only got one more stage to go and that's called distribution conversion fit. This assumes that you've done the first two levels of fit.

Okay. So we're all good there. Now we previously, we, we really convinced early adopters. Now it's all about working with your large-scale mass audience and you are using your paid at your earned and owned media to grow like crazy. Growth is the key here. It's the key mentality and you want to achieve growth through seeing traction for your product and profitability for your product.

So you want people to really love it and be bringing new people in. But if you have to pay to acquire your users, you need to make sure that you can cost-effectively acquire a customer, and that you don't have some really expensive cost of acquisition, which is really going to hurt your growth. So this is distribution conversion fit and together this journey of problem, solution fit, product, market fit, and [00:08:00] then distribution conversion fit.

It's the life cycle of a product it's so clarifying when you sit back and you look at these because really it is quite phenomenal that years and years of hard work with lots of people and effort and. So much testing with users, it fits so nicely into this three, uh, stage, uh, the process of product fit. I hope what you see here is that if you continue to test and learn, you'll enjoy the discovery of problem-solution fit, getting that real validation for product-market fit.

And then it's like to the moon hit for growth, uh, in distribution conversion fit. This is, uh, I really exciting journey. It is vastly underestimated in terms of time and effort. It ain't easy. Let me tell you, but what I can tell you if you are aware of where you are in the big picture here, these three stages of fit, then you know what to be testing [00:09:00] for what to learn from your customers.

And with that insight that you get from customers, you can truly go out and build. You know, a product that has real impact, it really serves a purpose in the world. And surely that's what we all really want when we think about it. Building a new product or service or community experience at a business who knows.

Now, if, any of those challenges seem interesting for you pop on over to bottom-up dot IO. We have a lean master class over there and plenty of other ones and they're all free for you to use, to learn, to build the best products you can. Well, I've hope you've enjoyed this journey. Product fit.

It's really so powerful. Um, I hope you've got some inspiration to go out there and to test something today. So there you go. This is the bottom-up skills podcast and. [00:10:00]

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO of confidence. And today. We're going to talk minimum viable product. Yes. Building a minimum viable product. Otherwise known as an MVP is such a good way to test your product idea. And what's neat about it is why build.

The entire product, whether it's digital analog, all that code or that infrastructure, why build it all. And then test when you can test really light versions, uh, light ideas, sketches models, prototypes, you name it, uh, really early in the process. So you can get a better idea of if your product really works for the user.

So today we're going to discover all the different [00:01:00] ways you can test and learn surveys, prototypes, or even feature driven for minimum viable product. So we're going to get into the good stuff. Now, the first thing I want to say here is some really hardcore lean startup folks would, um, Not always want to do surveys and interviews, but frankly I really liked them to kind of set the scene and to get you kind of comfortable with the market that you're going in, the segment that your customers and so forth.

You can do a lot of rapid prototyping and a lot of, uh, testing and learning after that. But I find it can give you some very, very good insights. So I'm stretching this concept of what can be the minimum viable product to include, uh, surveys and interviews. Um, but of course, we're going to talk about some prototyping and of course we'll get into some, uh, [00:02:00] MVPs.

So I'm going to break down each three. Types that I've just bucketed for you and we're going to get into them. And hopefully this gives you some inspiration about how to test your next product idea. Okay. Let's talk about surveys and interviews and how they can help you test your product idea. Now, uh, you might hear these formerly talked about in terms of quantitative and qualitative research.

Well, they really talking about is a survey, which is quant and qual. That's the interview. And you're looking at either doing surveys or user interviews. And I want to share with you just a couple of really cool tips and tricks that I've learned throughout the years and some best practices to help you get the most out of testing your idea.

Without a doubt. If you're going to do a survey, one of the most important things is your screener. And I love to use a screener as a way to create a [00:03:00] segmentation of my audience, of my customer, my user. So let's just take this idea that, um, we want to develop a new app for, for getting podcasts onto a smartphone.

I would have a screen that starts the survey. Asking them a couple of different ways to describe themselves. And this will help me understand not only some usage insights, but it will, might give me a little bit of a sense of which segment of all of the podcast, listeners and users might be a market for my product.

So I would have something like, uh, on the survey. First question is, you know, what, which best describes your podcast usage? I'm hooked. Um, I like podcasts. I've listened to a few shows or lastly pod. What? And obviously you can expand them on these and give them a context, but this could be really powerful because I might discover that people who like podcasts would listen more if they had [00:04:00] particular features or experiences.

In their podcasting habits and then I'd be off to the races. I've got something to build a hypothesis around. Um, some of the other questions I'd love to ask is, you know, what's the biggest pain that you experience, um, what trips you up, um, and, um, In a second round of, um, uh, surveys and interviews, you might start getting into asking people to evaluate an idea or a visual asset that is, uh, almost a poster.

If you will, for the, for the given product solution that you want to build. And do you ask them to write it out out of a scale of 10, 10 being amazing one being not so crash hot and you can propose something and ask them how interesting is the proposition? How likely would they be to share it or how likely they might be to try the product?

What's really interesting. These are all very good early indicators of whether you're [00:05:00] onto something with your product. So there you go. You don't have to build any code or you don't have to build any physical product or distribution. You can just get in front of users, either through a survey or interview.

You can ask some of these questions and you're actually already starting to test your product. Now, let's say that goes very well. And you're pretty excited, uh, from your interview and or your survey. And now you want to build a lightweight prototype and, uh, this is really gonna help you see if you've got a.

Problem solution fit. And you might, uh, have a product demo. This was famously done by the guys at Dropbox. They just made a video of their product. And so many people liked it. They then decided to build it, or you might get into bringing the experience to life through different what we call versions of a minimum viable product you could have, uh, you could crowdfund it.

So just think about Kickstarter. You can put it up there. The product's not [00:06:00] built. You might have a. Picture or profile prototype that you show, or you might get in front of real users. And frankly, this is some of the best stuff where you do what we call either a VP or wizard of Oz. Um, the concierge, when I want to focus on, because that's actually what Zappos did when they launched, they actually needed to test whether people would even buy shoes online.

So what they did is they made a website and they only fulfilled orders. If someone actually purchased and they had no stock and then they would run down the road, buy the shoes and send it well, pretty soon they got so much response that they actually validated their hypothesis through their MVP and then three that they were ready to take it to the moon.

So, yeah, this is the second bucket. This is the rapid prototyping. We've got a whole master class on rapid prototyping. So if you're interested in that head over to bottom-up dot IO and you can sign up for the free master class that. Now the last bucket is [00:07:00] building a feature driven MVP and, um, The reason I say that's different to a concierge or wizard of Oz.

MVP is you're really moving into to test a new level of, uh, user experience. And it's generally much more work than the earlier two buckets. So we had bucket number one of testing of MVPs. Survey or interview that's number one, number two was prototyping. All right. Number three is building what we call feature driven MVP.

Now this is particularly good for software folks, people building digital products, and there's two things you really want to do here. You want to test either for. Task completion, which is a very, very, very strong indicator on your product. Can they get the job done? And if you want to take that to its highest order where you're actually really starting to get, uh, product market fit is when not only can you bring an early adopter to your feature driven [00:08:00] MVP?

Not only can they complete the task, but where they actually would recommend it. To a friend they're so satisfied that they would actually be prepared to not only purchase this given product or service, but actually they want to share it with a friend. And if you can get to that level with your MVP, you can have enormous confidence to go out into the world and actually build your product.

For real, you might want to raise money. You might even want to get people internally. If you're at a large enterprise to get behind your product. So let's just zoom back and look at what, where, what we have is our opportunity with MVPs surveys and interviews. Great. Start hardly any effort, lots or award prototyping, a bit more work, but it gets better.

You get a lot of rich feedback, particularly when you think about those. Concierge MVPs. And then you can really get into a [00:09:00] feature driven MVP where you can really know click-by-click. Can they get the task completed? Um, are they satisfied and would they be prepared to tell somebody about this experience?

So I've given you sort of a broader look at minimum viable product. The key thing with all of these is they help you avoid building an entire product before you test. Because who would want to go to all that effort only to find out that you're actually not solving the right problem. Maybe you're talking to the wrong segment, who would want to waste all that time and effort.

What these three different types of MVP do for you is give you the opportunity to check, to validate, to test, to learn. This makes you more confident and the way you achieve that confidence is you're, de-risking your product. You're actually like. I've actually seen with my own eyes. This really works. And it's enormously important because [00:10:00] your stakeholders or your investors can be more confident, but so can you, and this will fill you with that energy to keep charging along on one of the hardest things in the world, which is to build a brand new product.

Well there, you have it. Uh, that is our, our little look at building minimum viable products. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you really got a nice little thought suggestion tip or a trick out of that. There's plenty, more ideas and advice for you and you just head over to bottom-up dot IO and you can get all sorts of free master classes.

All sorts of goodies to help you build a great product. All right, thanks for listening to the bottom-up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons. I'm the CEO of tents. And we are continuing our journey, our adventure into the world of lean startup. And today we're going to talk about the mill build measure, learn loop. Yes. It's going to get pretty loopy and it's really important to get into this idea of the loop that is inside of the lean startup, because, you know, if you think about a completed product, that's shiny polished.

It's been through all sorts of prototyping, MVP, it's the full deal. And if you actually look at it, it's actually, you can break it down into literally hundreds of small little tests that have been done since day one. And the [00:01:00] power of this loop is that if you learn each time you build something, you measure it.

Actually, you know, what the product gets better. Uh, you de-risk mistakes, you don't make assumptions. You start to shift from guessing to knowing you're more confident you have more insight. And you know, at the heart of this is the opportunity to, um, really. Enjoy the process because let's be honest, building a product with very, very complex.

So together on this episode of the bottom-up skills podcast, let's decode this scientific method that's behind it all. And let's see how we can continually test hypotheses and, you know, really embraced data, uh, in the use of these little kinds of experiments you could call them. So that we can really, uh, be onto a good thing to know what users desire what's technically feasible.

And honestly, let's make [00:02:00] sure that we've got a viable business offering too. This is all at the heart of the build measure, learn loop. Okay. So let's think about, um, this loop, this loop is something that you could do. Uh, from everything to some of the core functionality inside the app, to the name of the service, everything you can build something, put it through some sort of test with users.

That's that's really, really important. Then you say, okay, let's look at the data and ask, what did we learn? And then once we've worked out, what we've learned, we can then start to inform our next decision. So this is the build measure, learn loop, and you just keep doing this. And I think a great signal inside of any product team is how much they're learning.

So they don't have to hit the home run from day one, but you can be really sure that I'll get that if they're learning. And so using this [00:03:00] loop as the key tool to do it. So you got to start with, you know, obviously a fundamentally good idea, and then you've got to structure that into a hypothesis and I'm going to.

Yeah. Tell you a little bit about how to do that in a second. And then you've got to go, okay. Let's work out. Um, how are we going to measure it? You collect some data after you've tested it. Now it's really important that you always test with users. Um, don't test with yourselves as product owner, because you're going to be full of bias.

Now you've got to really, really test with real users. And then you're going to have to make some, some decisions based on the data and, you know, challenge yourselves about what you've learned. Um, Ask yourself, do we revise? Do we stop? Do we persevere? Do we pivot? There's all sorts of, um, ideas here. Now.

Here's the thing. You can do that with each, uh, core feature each, uh, user story. Uh, or you can start to zoom [00:04:00] out and apply this to the business itself. And so you can see some really significant pivots, uh, have happened from businesses that end up winning, uh, providing a service that was, looks nothing like where they started because they used this loop and they kept learning all the time.

And actually they abandoned their early ideas. In fact, most successful startups end up succeeding. In an idea or a version of the product that is radically different to where they started. So it shows you how much learning is really crucial because we often don't really start with the best ideas, even though no matter how good and no matter how talented we are.

In fact, sometimes we've got some pretty rotten ideas, but actually if you use this loop, You can look at your, whether it's a logo idea, product idea, or venture idea, just look at it as a starting point. And if you continue to learn, you should get incrementally better. [00:05:00] Now there's a lot inside of this loop and I want to focus on something that's going to come back a lot in this series, which is like, what's the hypothesis.

And I really like this because it just helps me simply structure a product idea and its proposition to the customer and to the user. And inside of this hypothesis can be certain. Parts, uh, elements or aspects of the product or service that we can test and will change a lot. And I'm just going to take you through what this might look like, so you can get a good sense of, okay.

I know there's a loop. I know we're going to build, we're going to measure, we're going to learn, but I'm going to give you, um, the structure of, uh, of the venture hypothesis. So you can start to wrap your mind around it. So this is an example of our structure or template that you could use yourself. So I want you to imagine this is a venture hypothesis, a [00:06:00] business idea, a product idea, and here we go, a certain persona exists and they have a certain problem scenario, situation.

And currently they're using certain alternatives to kind of get this job done. But if we offer our time target value proposition, our solution, right? Then we'll observe success through key metrics such as onboarding engagement, et cetera. So this would be. Basically your idea in a nutshell, and let's just break it down and see what is inside of the hypothesis and see how we could break this apart and test it.

So the first thing you'll notice I mentioned is a certain persona exists. They said differently, a certain customer, a certain customer segment exists. Well, that's something that B can be tested because you're going to want to go for [00:07:00] a. Let's say health obsessed 40 year old men. Let's just say, that's your persona where you need to go out and actually validate that th there are a lot of health obsessed, 40 plus men in the world, and then you'd have to go to the next part of your hypothesis and they have a certain problem.

Okay. So you can go in test the problem. So you can do a lot of, uh, very, um, simple interviews and surveys to actually qualify. Does this problem exist? Is it the biggest problem and is it a problem that they really want to solve and therefore would be prepared to pay for this problem scenarios? The next part of your hypothesis that you can test.

And again, this is, remember this is all inside the loop. You're going to build, measure, learn. Each one of these things, you build something you actually measure and test it with the user, ask yourself what you've learned, and then that informed what you build next. But [00:08:00] we're not done with the hypothesis because you'll remember that the third part, after we say a certain persona exists and they have these problems, we then say, currently they are using these alternatives.

And in here are lots of clues to either what you should do. What you could do better than what's currently on offer, or you might have to go radically beyond because they're currently meeting the needs of users. So understanding how people get the job done today, even if it's far from perfect, really essential as part of your hypothesis, and really, really crucial to go into test, to learn, um, put it through that loop.

And then you say, if we offer our value proposition, what it's, what's going to relieve their pain, what's going to create their gains. This is our hypothesis. Now you can test this solution. And in particular, I really encourage you to test your value proposition across all the things we [00:09:00] discussed earlier, whether it's surveys, interviews, uh, prototypes, uh, product ideas, whatever it is.

Make sure you test it and make sure if you actually do test it, does it get the job done? Would they be prepared to advocate for you to share it with others? And we'll talk about viral coefficients and all that good stuff later on in this series, but really test your value proposition. Now, if you are doing these things, so you're.

Dealing with a certain persona, you know, they've got a problem they're currently using alternatives and you're providing this new solution. Then we'll observe success through these metrics. So this is a really core lockup. Of your build measure, learn hypothesis. This is a core lockup of the loop that you're continually testing.

Cause there's a lot of things here that can go up and down left and right. And that last one, that was the metrics. Maybe it's how you're acquiring customers, how you're onboarding them into the system, how they're [00:10:00] going through the process. Are they, are you retaining them? Are you getting revenue from them?

Are you getting recommendations from them? And there's more of that, that we're going to get into in this series. So this is at the core of the loop. You're continually building, measuring and learning in this loop to make sure you're building the right product to make sure you're building a product worth building.

And that's really the secret to lean startup don't guess. Learn know, understand, validate what you're building and this build measure, learn loop. This is really the engine of how you build a great lean startup. So, if you're interested in finding out more about lean startup, head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can get master classes on lean, agile design, thinking, old things, product and innovation and everything there is free.

So just sign up and you can download [00:11:00] decks and go really, really deep into the idea of building a product that people really love. Building a business, building a venture, a community, whatever mission you're on. You'll find. All the best product skills at bottom-up dot IO. Well, that's it for today. I hope you've enjoyed this deep dive into the lean setup here on the bottom-up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom line skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality tenants. And today. We are continuing our journey into the lean startup. And the topic of today's episode is everything about learning. Learning is so damn essential as you will have seen from the previous episode, the foundation of the lean startup is not guessing.

It's not just about having ideas. It's far more far more about. Execution and the key to this lean, uh, loop, uh, that we talked about in the previous episode, the key to making all these iterations work is learning. So [00:01:00] it's okay. If you don't have all the answers at the start. In fact, that's the essence of working in a lean and agile way that you won't have all the answers, however, you're on a quest to get them.

So the first rule. Of the lean startup is don't assume anything, make sure you test learn and validate and you know what you can actually test from day one. And that's the power of lean startup. You can test things like. Uh, the user problem, uh, the idea you have for the solution or how the experience of providing that solution may in fact work.

And there's a great tool set of tools, actually, a set of canvases that can kind of capture all of these learnings and they can be your North star to keeping on track and avoiding all the pitfalls of building a new product. So I want to tell you a little bit of a story about this idea of challenging all [00:02:00] assumptions.

And I've chosen to kind of famous lean startup case studies. One is with the, uh, shoe, uh, retailer Zappos, and the other is with Dropbox sort of unfair management, uh, service and both of them challenged assumptions. And here's how they did it. So is that part, um, Back in the day, the idea of people actually buying their shoes online and not going into stores was kind of a crazy idea.

And so Zappos could have made this huge mistake. They could have gone and bought a ton of shoes, put a ton of them in a warehouse. Can you imagine the expanse of all that warehousing distribution, inventory management, and so forth, they could have, you know, Encountered all of that risk, but they did something very different.

They used what we call a concierge MVP. They [00:03:00] basically tested the idea. They actually went and really just tested this whole assumption, uh, where people actually buy shoes online. So here's what they did. They went out and they built a very simple, rough and ready website and they held absolutely zero inventory.

In fact, one of the founders made a deal with a local wholesale shoe provider that they could photograph all their inventory. And if someone bought it online, they would actually go to. The, uh, the shoe company and, uh, purchase the shoes there and then, uh, shipped them off to the customer of zappos.com.

Now at first sound, this sounds really crazy to do what we call this concierge MVP, where you're basically doing everything by hand. And obviously one of the issues would be you'd be making very little money, but that wasn't really the point, the point of this test of this little experiment. Was how can we in a low risk [00:04:00] way test to the assumption that people want to build shoes, buy shoes online.

And so to certain point, they got so much interest. So many people buying that they knew, hang on a second. Were onto something, but they only invested in all that subsequent infrastructure and people, once they challenged the assumption, once they tested, once they learned, once they validated and they used this idea of a concierge MVP, and this is essential, lean startup thinking.

But let's take it even a level further with Dropbox. They didn't even concierge their experience or their service. They made a demo video, which they published in September 15, 2008. And it was. A fake product. This product could not be downloaded and used. It was a mood video. It was a concept video. The prototype was inside of the video.

Nobody could use it and they published it [00:05:00] and hundreds and hundreds of people saw it. And literally overnight, they got tens of thousands of people signing up. On their wait-list for the product, because just seeing the video was so exciting, it solves such a problem for them that they've got fires all over the place and they need some way to synchronize all these different files.

Dropbox knew instantly that they had to hit, they hadn't deployed the software, they hadn't incurred all that cost. They made a demo and you know, this is what we call the wizard of Oz, MVP, and other great lean startup concept. And this is all about just creating the illusion of the actual. Product that you intend to build, but you build a quick video just to check.

Hey, do people really want this? And this goes at the heart of lean startup and this idea of that we should always be learning. So what I want to do for you now is give you a little [00:06:00] framework of three sets of tests that you can be using all the time. And I hope that this helps you kind of frame the sort of tests and so that whatever stage you're at you can apply some of these tests so that you don't make the assumptions that lead to.

Bad products. All right. So what are these types of tests? First one you can do is you can kind of test, do users really have the problem you can test. What kind of overall need or jumps to be done does this fulfill, and you can start to play around with what if this solution existed? Would you be interested?

And all of these can be tested in surveys and interviews, or what's formally called a quantum qual research. And so the great news here is you can dip your toe in and actually see if there is a, um, some, some leading indicators. If you will, as to whether this problem really exists now. Let's assume you did those.

The next thing you could go and do is [00:07:00] start to actually test your product idea. And we talked about some of the concierge, a wizard of Oz, MVPs, some other things that are really classic, lean startup thinking you could create a landing page. For the product, which isn't, which isn't available yet, but you can test demand through the landing page.

Another one that can be really valuable is you could set up a go fund, me or a Kickstarter page for the product where you actually ask people to donate and look, frankly, if people see this proposition and aren't prepared to donate, well, then maybe you need a different product. So the whole idea here is that without building the actual product itself, the second bucket, uh, gives you the chance of testing your product idea without that time, effort and investment.

And the key thing here is that Eric Reese, the author of lean startup, he's like, you only want to build it once, you know, there's real interest, demand, desire [00:08:00] for it. And so very often. People build products that are not solving a problem that users actually have, or maybe it is solving a problem. That's not very big.

All of these tests that I've just mentioned will help you get a better feeling for, is this a problem worth solving? And it's a really important concept. Is this a problem worth solving? Now, let's assume you did a little bit of a survey in an interview. You tested the product idea. Now you want to shift into a different type of testing, some sort of prototype testing, and there's two things you want to test for here.

The first one is you want to test, uh, can users get the task completed? That's at the core, the essence of your product. And if you're building software, you know, I would really encourage you to use envision or Adobe XD to put together, um, a mock-up a prototype sort of a model or a sketch of the solution that you're envisioning.

And you will actually ask the users to complete the [00:09:00] task by clicking through on this, uh, digital prototype. Very good indicator. If you can see that users can get the job done. Get the task completed. It's a very good indicator that you've actually got a product with building. Now, if you want to really go a step further, you can start to write some code and build what we call a minimum viable product.

And I think obviously you want to ask users to complete a task, but. The thing you're measuring for in this sort of test is a bit more sophisticated. You actually want to look at how satisfied users are and how likely they might be to recommend this experience. It doesn't have to be flashy, not at all, but it's gotta be so good at getting an important job done and helping them complete a task that even without all that Polish.

The experience is so fundamentally valuable that they would recommend it. And you're often going to be doing with some, some early adopters. Now that's the end of the third bucket. So you can, your third bucket is building [00:10:00] prototypes. Uh, your second bucket is bringing, uh, testing the product idea. Uh, maybe some concierge thing.

Um, maybe some wizard of Oz is relevant for your idea. Or you can even go really early stage and just do some interviews and surveys. All of these will be captured, uh, in something that we call a value proposition canvas. When we focus on the problem solution fit like, okay. Customer has a problem. What are we proposing?

Does it actually relieve their pains? Does it create their gains? And, um, this is a really important care of us. I can't tell you how much I use these, uh, these two canvases, the first one being the lien. Um, business cannabis and the second one being the value prop canvas. These are really essential. Now I mentioned the lean business canvas.

This is a zoom out from the value prop canvas. So the value prop canvas is really going to give you problem solution. If you go into the lean business canvas, you'll [00:11:00] see everything from cost structure and revenues. But don't worry about all of these things. What is important to know? This is like the new form of the business plan and each of the areas and the, you know, depending on which version of the canvas you're using, you're going to see a, roughly nine or 10 boxes on the canvas.

Each of those contain things that you can test. And if you're always testing. You're all ways learning and that's how you avoid making assumptions. And you can start with certainty to go about building a product that is really worth building and delighting your customers, making sure you've got the right tech, but also make sure that there's a really good economic model inside of your product.

All right now, you're probably very interested in these canvases where, you know, you can pop up to bottom-up dot IO, where you can get all the information in the world around lean startup, design, [00:12:00] thinking, agile software methodology, you name it. It's all there. So bottom up. Well, I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the bottom-up skills podcast.

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Hello and welcome to the bottom-up skills podcast and my passions own the CEO of Qualitas. And boy today we've got a whole series. We've been to design thinking and agile, but today we start on a totally new chapter. We're going to do a multi-part series on the lean startup. And frankly, I'm quite the fan.

Of the lean startup. So in this episode, I want to lay some context. I want to give you a little bit of background to lean and what I'm going to hope to do is point out to you what really defines it, um, as a great. Method to use when you're going out in the world to build a brand new product. All right.

Let's get into it. And the [00:01:00] story starts with a gentleman called Eric Reese who wrote the book, the lean startup. And I really want to share with you the most compelling part of his kind of founding story. And, um, it all starts. With failure. And that's why it's so interesting. He spent five years as a co-founder in a startup.

They spent over $40 million in funding and they built a product. They didn't nobody wanted to use. Now for many of us, this is a bit of a heartbreaking, it's a bit of a gut wrenching experience to spend so much of your life building a product that it turned out that nobody really wanted, but being ever so stoic.

Eric actually used it as an opportunity to kind of dig into the, you know, the [00:02:00] rapid process improvement universe and dig up this, um, Idea of lane and to really reinvent it through the eyes of a startup and those startups are generally software based and moving fast in the modern age. So I cannot tell you how powerful this is as a starting point, because he's literally written a playbook that has.

Taken off it is absolutely, uh, a global phenomenon now in anyone. So largely not only in the venturing world, but the product world, even in the enterprise world, you will find that not only are people trying to be agile, but they are trying to be lean as well. So I'm very excited to share with you what he put into the lean startup and how powerful it really is because he's effectively.

Written the book he'd wish he had read at the start to avoid [00:03:00] those five years and wasted $40 million. So let's look in to the learnings from Eric Reese and the lean startup. So what is this thing? Okay, so it's a methodology. So the good, good news about methodologies is they tend to be step one, step two, step three.

They tried to be repeatable. And that's certainly the case here with lean startup and is particularly good at building products. People use it for building businesses as well. And, um, Sure. That's, that's fine. I think it stands alone as a great way to build product and it needs to go hand in hand in hand with many other practices, but I'm going to try and pick apart what it's very special at and where it contributes so much value.

So. As I said, it's a methodology for building products and it's, what's really important is we emphasize building the [00:04:00] right product. It's very fast. It's very iterative process. And it really strives to determine is the product viable. And, um, viability is an, a very important, uh, topic because if we really go and ask ourselves is something viable.

We're saying really are the economics going to work out? Can we capture enough value now to reinforce you? What? I think this is so important. It's actually, it's not that hard. To build a product that, you know, users find desirable, but where it really becomes challenging is, is it technically feasible? And from a business model perspective, is it viable and lean is so damn good at helping us work out.

Is this a product? And here's the keep it, is it worth building? This [00:05:00] is really, really important. Um, nuance in it. Is it really worth building? Because I know I've personally made products that may have been either. Feasible, uh, or desirable. Um, but that doesn't guarantee it's going to be viable, that there's going to be a good economic model.

Value's going to be created. Customers are happy and willing to pay for the product or service. This is where lean helps. And what's so special. And why I love lean startup so much. Is this all about learning? It's all about this journey. That is defined at not by, you know, do you have like this amazing idea, right?

Um, it's this total fairytale that we're told that someone has an idea and then that makes them a gazillion dollars, lean startup acknowledges the hard truth. It's in the execution. And to take you back to Eric's [00:06:00] story, he spent five years and $40 million learning that he didn't get the execution. Right.

So if you learn along the way, You are way on track of forgetting execution, right? And therefore, what's so great about, uh, the lean startup. It doesn't matter how little, you know, at the start, what really matters is your rate of learning. And that's why it's so, so damn important. So to frame this, before we move on to some of the important aspects of lean startup, this is a way to know.

If your product's gonna make enough money, is it truly worth doing? And this is essential because actually, you know, the barriers to entry to building product have diminished. So there's a lot more products out there. And there's also quite a lot of products that are no good, but that's a whole nother course and masterclass and discussion here on bottom-up skills.

So. Let's have a [00:07:00] look at some of the surrounding practices around lean that you may have heard of perhaps, um, you know, you may have heard of, um, lean manufacturing, which goes, has a lot of heritage in, uh, Japan. Obviously it intersects a lot with some of the, the agile practices at, uh, Toyota motor company.

So, you know, definitely check that out if you're interested in it. It also has another intersection with agile in terms of the practice of Kanban, which is really focused on, um, feature driven development. Um, traditionally not very time-boxed. Um, now another couple that you might have heard of is, uh, just in time, uh, just in time manufacturing, um, you know, this whole idea of trying to only consume the resources at the very end, and this is perfect because then you're not left with a whole lot of inventory [00:08:00] just sitting around in a warehouse.

So there's a lot of, uh, process improvement, um, and agile connections with the lean startup. And if you're at all interested in any of those, just have a look at that greater world of the lean method beyond lean startup, what we're talking about, but go into the lean method and you will find a world of different methods and practices there.

So let's come back to software. Cause we talked for a moment then a little bit about, you know, manufacturing. Um, and some of the other related practices, lean startup is largely and foremost for software. And prior to lean startup, the way a lot of software got built was using what we call the waterfall process.

Now waterfall created all sorts of nice structure and certainly in people liked it a lot. You'd start with writing and requirements, doc, what does it need to do then? You write the specifications of, okay, this is how we think [00:09:00] the system, the software will do it. You design it, you implement it. And then once it's implemented, you do some testing before you launch it.

Now in this day and age, that's pretty crazy. And there was all sorts of bad habits that got, uh, related to the world of waterfall. First and foremost, people would write a requirements that were. Uh, between you and me, they were largely just one big guests. And, um, often in, particularly in large organizations, because we have agreed the requirements in the specs, that's what we promised to the boss.

We can't do anything different. So what would happen is you would literally build systems full of guesses and assumptions that when put in front of users failed terribly. So there was a real need to do it in a different way. And the single biggest thing that lean startup has done has taken testing from the end of the process and [00:10:00] put it right at the start and then made it continuous.

And the beauty of testing with users validating all your assumptions and getting over some of the bias that you might have. Is it actually, you know, what. It de-risks things. It makes you more certain of building something that's actually worthwhile that helps the user that technically it's feasible.

And, you know, what creates enough value that there's a economic model it's, it's really worth doing. And that's how lean has totally turned a waterfall upside down. And you will hear a lot of organizations trying at the moment as they are in the midst of digital transformation. Being not only agile, but also using lean methodology is essential to get it right.

Um, and I'll tell you why. I think this all matters so much. I think lean startup [00:11:00] exists in the world and is, has so many fans because fundamentally we're in a world, as Marc Andreessen said is being eaten by software. It really is being eaten. And do you know what software. It's hard to do it, particularly hard to do really well.

It's particularly hard because it's so broad, comprehensive, there's so much complexity, depth, interconnecting systems into dependencies, inter operability. It is so complex. So you need to break it down into some small tests and to make your way through it in order to truly. Truly build something that works.

And the great thing about lean is it's all about don't write code unless, you know, it's worth writing and that should be music to any developers. Ideas that should be music to a design is here. Hey, let's not think about features unless we know actually they're solving a problem and that's really at the heart.

[00:12:00] Of what lean startup does. So if you're really interested in this, um, I want you to embrace the core lean loop, which is you build something, you measure it, you learn. And then rinse and repeat and away you go. And throughout that entire process, you keep testing. Good ideas, keep building good ideas. You will learn a bunch and just celebrate when things are not great.

That's fine. You've learned something. And ask yourself, okay, what did we learn and what are we going to do next? And do that. And you will be on your way to succeeding with lean startup. All right. That's it for the first of our lean startup episodes, I hope you really enjoyed this. If you would like to do any of our masterclasses on all of these new product practices, if you want to build your product.

Development skills, head over to bottom-up dot IO, where you can listen to the back catalog of the [00:13:00] podcast. You can get a whole bunch of free master classes and hang out with hundreds and hundreds of other people. Who are mad cane product builders. Design is creative and entre pinatas. All right, that's it.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm Mike pass and zone the CEO call the tents, and we are here at the final destination of our rapid prototyping series. And I thought, you know, we've been insanely practical for the last 10 plus episodes of this series. Let's step back a second and ask ourselves, why does rapid prototyping matter?

What on earth is this all about? Let's just remind it. When we're talking to our colleagues, to our friends, to our bosses, let's just remind them why this is such a great tool and why it's so relevant. If you're out there building a new product or service. So where do we begin? Well, [00:01:00] I think the elevator pitch here is when we think about why does it matter?

What is the value it creates? What is its purpose in the world? What, what, what is rapid prototype been doing for a soul? I think it's about the shift. It's from the shift of guessing what a great product might be to knowing what a great product is. And the power of this is that invariably, most people, when they sit in a boardroom, they get out PowerPoint and they guess what a product should be.

In fact, Sometimes hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars get spent on nothing more than a good PowerPoint deck with some groovy icons, some funky fonts, and just a guess. And that's so good and well, um, [00:02:00] you know, but you know, those ideas, in fact, this is really crazy. So many of the biggest products in the world.

The original idea they had was completely different. YouTube, Instagram. They were completely different things before they became these zillion dollar successes. And so even the best product people in the world are guilty of doing a bit of guessing. What it turns out is once people actually get a chance to use your product.

You start to know what actually solves the problem that they have, what helps relieve pains? What, what helps create gains, um, and rapid prototyping is the agent to move from guessing in the early days. To knowing. And I think, you know, who wouldn't want to do that because as a startup, then you actually know if you've got something and as an [00:03:00] executive in a large company, you can de risk your project.

I mean, fantastic. So it's all about giving us so much more certainty about the product services actually going away. And the reason that this is so cool is you don't have to go out and build the entire. Before you can actually test it. You can actually start testing immediately from day one. And this is great because if you just build like a model or a sketch, some sort of light version of the idea, you can actually get some great feedback.

And so you can start learning from the beginning and we can avoid that old school waterfall approach to building product where people spend so much time and effort only to realize they've built something that actually nobody wants. In fact, the creator of the lean startup, Eric Reese, he talks openly [00:04:00] about the fact that what inspired him to write the lean startup, which loves experimenting and prototyping by the way.

What he did. And he confesses that he was part, yeah, he was a founder of the startup that spent five years, $40 million to build a product that nobody wanted. Now, if you want to avoid that, regardless of whether your startups scale up or large enterprise start rapid prototyping, stop guessing. Start really knowing what people want.

And, you know, I've seen this across so many different types of companies, you know, I've personally been involved in rapid prototyping projects and products, which were for small startups. Well, for some of the largest companies in the world. So it works for everyone. And I just want to kind of double click on this and [00:05:00] tell you that I've done everything.

I've tried to think of the craziest variety of products that I've actually used rapid prototyping on. And this is, this is like, this is as crazy as it gets. This is the breadth. Of, uh, businesses you can apply rapid prototyping to. So I have done high-tech biometrical authentication for a bank. I've done media prediction algorithms for a consumer goods company.

I've done cancer detection devices for a large healthcare company. I've even worked with a famous fashion brand to create a whole new pair of jeans. And at the heart of all of these was rapid prototyping. My point here is simply it can be applied to anything, algorithms, high tech security, medical devices, genes.

Of course the easy [00:06:00] one here is like apps, products, services, digital SAS kind of things. Um, but it can be so much more than that too. So rapid prototype, I mean, anything can be prototyped. Take it from me. As long as you use the principles that we've set out in this whole series, uh, which we also said yeah, in our master class, which you can get for free online at.

At bottom-up data here and you'll actually be able to take the mass class for free as well as many others. So that's bottom up.io where you get to enjoy, uh, as going even deeper into masterclass, into rapid prototyping. So, yeah. It can work for anyone and it can work for anything. And the real hot of, of rapid prototyping is the chance to create something with the end user.

And it is a tool that you will find yourself coming back to [00:07:00] time after time. And do you know what, whenever you want to do something new, prototype it. Whenever you have an idea, ask yourself, how can I test it? How can I validate it? How can I learn if it really is the right thing, because too often people are leaving this validation way too late.

And look, I think if you're going to pivot pivot while the idea is still a sketch on a piece of paper, um, don't pivot once you've written the code, I want to come back to this story of Eric Reese, author of lean startup. He talks so much about the idea of experimentation and about validating. And this is what makes rapid prototyping.

So damn important. It's a leading central character in the movie of validating your product. And what's so [00:08:00] fun is you don't have to be a guru in Photoshop or illustrator. If you. Pretty handy with a pen and paper you're so on the way to doing great prototyping. So, this is really a tool that you can put in the tool belt.

And this is something that will take all the mystery and all the risk out of moving forward and doing the unknown cause Hey, building a first time product isn't easy. Yeah. Maybe you can take some inspiration. You can borrow from. A few products and services you've seen before, but you've got to pull it all together for the first time.

And that's where rapid prototyping is just so damn good. And I can tell you my last thought here is that I couldn't believe when Tom Shi. Introduced me to rapid prototyping and all those years ago, back in San Francisco, I was like, Oh my [00:09:00] gosh, this is the thing I've been looking for. How do you know if you've got a winner?

And he showed me how to prototype. You spent years at Google prototyping. And it was so revealing when he showed me rapid prototyping. And ever since then, I have been prototyping. All the time, every new product that I've been involved with, we've built prototypes. We've tested with users. And I can only tell you that's not only a great way to do rapid prototyping, but yeah, his whole methodology, this whole framework we have with bottom up rapid prototyping is at the very heart of it.

So I hope you've enjoyed this series. I've got a very exciting series coming up after you can have to come back and have a listen to that. If you want to know what that is, it will be at least as good as a rapper prototyping. Maybe a little bit better. So there you haven't, that's another episode of the bottom up skills book.

That's a wrap. [00:10:00]

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality science and we are at the second last episode of our rapid prototyping series. Here on the bottom up skills podcast. And today we're going to talk about one of the most important things around rapid prototyping, and that is working uses this real, real, real underestimation of what it takes to get users working in the right way with you to give you good.

Clear objective feedback, because let's be honest. We don't want them to tell us it's great. If it kind of sucks, we want them to give us great feedback. So how we approach the users that we're testing with, you might call them [00:01:00] consumers, customers, end users, audience, whatever you want to call them. It's all about how you work with them.

And I've learned a few key lessons, uh, having done so many of these rapid prototyping sessions. What I'm hoping to do for you today is share with you some of those learnings so that we can get the most out of rapid prototyping. Cause I truly believe this is an, in such an incredible tool to use when you're on the journey of building a new product or service building a business, no matter what it is.

Rapid prototyping really is a powerful tool to know if your product is actually, if it's any good. So let's start by making sure we're on the right page here. We've got to make sure before we kind of talk about how we work with them, um, which is to make sure we've recruited the right people to come and test our prototype.

[00:02:00] So you might have, um, some basic demographic criteria, you know, age, uh, where do they live and that sort of thing. And it's really important to make sure that you actually verify that the users you're testing with meet whatever demographic criteria is that you have. Um, Now another thing is that, um, just because they're a demographic fit, they might have zero need zero interest in the product that you're trying to test.

So you may want to screen them for what segment in your audience that they are in. And that is generally going to be whether they're in a consideration phase of purchasing a product or service, or maybe some more. You know, attitudinal, um, uh, vectors, like what they like, what their interests are, um, what they believe in, or, you know, you might even have behavior stuff.

So, you know, if you're targeting, for [00:03:00] example, uh, you know, young mums, um, that's like a really important life stage, which creates new behaviors. So you gotta make sure that, you know, the people that you've recruited are actually mums because that's the way you're going to get the feedback. Before we talk about, uh, how we work with them when they turn up on the day or whether they turn up on a zoom call to be a part of our testing, let's make sure we've got the right people in the room because we don't want to go to all of this work and effort and do all this great testing.

I need to realize we tested with the wrong people because that's. Can I make the learnings pretty pointless. Uh, so make sure you got the right people in the room. Okay. So they're in the room. Now an interesting tip that I would give you. If you're going to do a big prototyping session, maybe you've got a bunch of your colleagues, a couple of teams testing, different variations of an idea.

I think you should really have [00:04:00] a green room, uh, which is. A place where you can sit them down, where they can't really hear and see too much about what's going on. Um, that way then you can check them in, take care of them, make sure they understand the purpose of the day and so on and so forth before you bring them in for the, to the team for real testing.

So have a green room that works at amp. So treat. Now, um, what you have to remember is that when people are coming to test your product, to have a look at your prototype, you know, They're humans. I mean, it's a crazy idea. Yes, I know. But they're humans, so say hello, greet them, find out their name, give them a name tag.

Um, make them feel comfortable and the importance of them feeling relaxed and comfortable and that this is not some strange unknown dangerous event, but it's just a bunch of great product people trying to learn how to build [00:05:00] the best product. Once they realize, uh, that this is, you know, actually an experience that can be really fun and interesting.

You'll get along the way with them. So I make them feel welcome. And just on that note, you know, the crazy thing is invariably, I find customers. I really find it rewarding to come and test prototypes. Number one, somebody is actually really, really deeply interested in their feedback, which doesn't happen a lot.

And number two, I think they feel like they're making a contribution to a better product and they really are too. So this is why making them feel comfortable is really important. Now, another big part of setting your user up for success when you're in a prototype with them. Is to give them context, context, it's context, context.

This is really important because. We're often. So in our own minds, in our own heads with [00:06:00] our product that we know, uh, automatically, uh, what situations would call upon them, but your user, your user doesn't know. That information. So you need to provide them with the context and at the start of getting, uh, the direct feedback, that direct response from them.

Uh, you need to actually give them a task to do. I want your feedback on this user journey. I want you to write down 10 cards. I want you to tell me what the total loan amount that you can get from your mortgage using this mortgage calculator. Those are great, clear, explicit tasks that help people. No, where they are, what they're trying to do here.

Now, importantly, once you've given them the task, you might say something. Like it's nine o'clock on a week, day. You've got 30 minutes [00:07:00] before your next meeting. And we want you to use the online mortgage calculator. Tell us what the maximum amount you could get it. Now, there might be some other constraints.

Um, you know, you might do this test on a phone. So you say you're on the train, you're on the bus. Um, you can give all of this sort of context, but it's really important because if you give them this context and maybe you have a few props. Where you're testing your prototype. This is the secret sauce. So this, this is where you evoke the direct route response.

Cause you transport them to that world into that moment. So they feel like it's nine Oh two. I got the cup of coffee and they've got 28 minutes. To get this number before their first meeting of the day. And you will be surprised. The biggest learning that I have is that you don't need to put them on a train to get that experience.

Although that would be like incredibly fun. You can create an environment where they can [00:08:00] imagine it and feel it like it's the direct moment. And why, why does this omerta because if people are feeling comfortable and they're really seeing themselves trying to. Complete the tasks they're really clicking.

They're really thinking out loud, helping you understand how they'd go about it. You will find that they can work with sometimes just 20 or 30% of the actual environment in order to evoke this direct response. And the key thing. Because they're comfortable and they have the context, their feedback is not them guessing what it would be like to use the product.

It is evoking the response as if they're using the product. And this ladies and gentlemen, this is the secret secret secret to why rapid prototyping is so powerful. You create this light version of the product idea, like a sketch. And then you give them this context and make them feel welcome. This [00:09:00] will be sufficient to stimulate all their senses and they will in an effort to complete the task.

They'll actually give you feedback as if they were working with a finished product as if they were on the train. And that's why it's so amazing. And when you get that really early on in the process, it's so powerful because I realize, Oh my gosh, we thought about the navigation in the completely long Ray.

Oh, the way we present the loan amount, it needs to be like this. It needs to be downloadable and shareable. And there's all these considerations that will be a vote by the prototyping that you might never guess. Or it might take many, many, many more months, uh, to get there. So if you go out into the world with your prototypes and work with end users, make sure you have the right ones.

Make sure you. Greet them and make them feel comfortable given the context. And you will be amazed at what rapid prototyping can bring you. Now, if you want to learn [00:10:00] more about rapid prototyping, you can head over to dot IO, where you will get master classes on rapid prototyping and a whole lot more. It's all free.

So jump on over there and enjoy yourself. That's a wrap of the bottom up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality tenants. And today we're talking about the key roles. In a rapid prototyping team and we are well and truly deep into our series on rapid prototyping. And when you get everybody together to rapid prototype, it's really key that you pick the right team and you give them the right role.

So let's chat a little bit about this sort of cast of characters, if you will, that you're going to need and how that might really give you the insights and the learnings from your prototyping. Now I want to stop just by setting up a little bit of context here and, uh, just remind you of where we are in terms of [00:01:00] rapid prototyping.

You know, rapid prototyping is essentially just testing light versions of a product idea. Testing a sketch or a model that evokes an experience. That's a bit similar to what the finished product would be like. And the whole cheat here is you don't have to wait until the product's finished before you test.

In fact, you can test really, really early on. And what I found is that when you test really early on, you know, what you get all these hints that you would never have thought about to include in the product or to remove from the product. And that's really the beauty of the practice. And we've talked a lot about all the different characteristics and techniques and tools that you might want to use in rapid prototyping right now.

I'm going to yeah. Dig into some, well, some harder and lessons I might say, around the right people in the right roles you need to have when you do it. So the [00:02:00] first thought here is that you can of course prototype just by yourself with one end user now, um, For some of you who didn't catch some of the earlier parts of this series, it is essential that you test your prototype with the actual end user, the consumer, the audience, whatever you want to call them, you're testing with them.

And, um, this is really important because as creators of products, we get a little, uh, shall we say, enamored with our own ideas and, um, After a while we can kind of be a bit lost in the fog of our product. And we kind of think it's amazing, but the true test and the true judge of whether a product is amazing is of course it's the end user.

So let's talk about some of the other people that are involved. If we've got the end user and we're testing with them. You know, as I said, you could do it all [00:03:00] by yourself, but you're going to find it much better, much easier if you do it together as a team. So let's talk about who you want to have in the room, helping you on your side, on your team, pulling together a cool prototype, and helping you do the testing now.

Um, The most important thought here is having a diverse team. And, uh, again, I'm going to give you four archetypes of the type of, uh, people that you want to have in your team. And then we'll talk about the roles that they can play and how you guys can really embrace rapid prototyping. Now, the first one.

Is the, you know, the knowledge seeker, the FactFinder, the magician. Uh, so you want someone who's really good at the facts and the data. And the next one you want is someone more, a bit more like a campaign, lots of energy and positivity. You want someone who's a good understands or very empathetic? [00:04:00] What we might call the mediator.

And lastly, someone who's all about patterns and structures, the architect, um, that would be a really, really high-performance team. If you could bring those sorts of people, of course, they're all going to want to listen to the user of all going to want to listen to. The customer and the consumer, but those are some really good one's types.

If you want to make it even simpler, just make sure you have ideators. Yeah. Makers, um, people who come up with new ways of building the prototype and people who love bringing them to life. So I think it's really important because. You want to avoid groupthink particularly if you're a team that works together and you're working on a new product or service idea, you know, invariably, you're all going to think it should largely be done the same way.

And, um, that's only going to deliver you a very expected outcome. If you bring together more, what I [00:05:00] call the cast of characters, um, if you bring together a diverse team, you know, you really do get some magic through. That intersection of different culture idea perspective is really, really bad half or so.

Try and build a, I always call this cast of characters and together you can do all sorts of things. You can make prototypes and work with your end user. And get some really good outcomes. So this naturally kind of leads us to what's everybody doing? Like there are roles to play. So you're often in an environment where you have a 45 to 60 minutes sprint, where you're going to build prototypes, test them with users, and it's pretty intense.

So you actually need some pretty clear. Uh, roles to play. And of course over the period of a day, if you do lots of different sprints, you can mix it up and take on different roles as well. Um, I generally have always found that people really associate with one of these roles. Then I'm going to share with [00:06:00] you.

And, um, as a result of that, I tend to see people stay in that role for a whole day. Maybe even two days in a row. And that's okay. That's totally. Okay, cool. So what roles are there in a rapid prototyping team who are about to conduct a spring session, uh, where they're going to build prototypes and test them with users?

Well, I'm going to take you through them and explain some of the nuances to each of the roles. So here they are. We've got five main roles. The captain, the facilitator, the designer. The host and the scribe. Okay. Captain, it's all about getting us to the objective here and balancing all the information that you're getting throughout the process, knowing when we should stop when we should start, when we should continue, that's really the captain's role.

Now, the facilitator is really the guardian of the process and that. They're really checking on a few [00:07:00] important things. Are we testing the right thing? Are we listening to end users? And do we really, um, do we agree on what we just learned? And you'll remember that from a previous episode of the bottom up skills podcast, I talked about this key question of what do we learn and what do we do next?

I mean, the facilitators, making sure that that thinking process is really intact. Okay, so position number three, the designer, you really do need someone dedicated to the, if you will, the production of the prototype. And let me just say, this person does not have to be an art director, graphic designer. If you can draw a straight line and a, and a circle with pen and paper, then you're in, I think it's more important that we identify that it is somebody who is performing that role.

Now, of course, It is really exciting to have an [00:08:00] amazing creative or art director person joining your team in this role because they go quicker and they can bring to life in such great fidelity. You'll just have, you'll have your customers and uses drooling over paper prototypes. Let me tell you. Okay. Uh, so we've got three roles.

So far captain facilitator and designer. Now we're going to talk about the last two. Uh, number four is the host. Now the host is such a crucial role because it's often the first person that the recruit or the user or the audience, consumer customer, whatever you want to call them. That's a person who's going to test your project.

It's often the first person they meet. So the host is about greeting them, making them feel comfortable because you know, it's really important that when the user feels comfortable, then they're going to give you feedback. If they're not really clear on where they are, why they're there, what the purpose is, it can all get a bit weird.

So that's why the host role is so [00:09:00] important. And the last one, the last role to play in a rapid prototyping team is this scribe. Now scribes are really important because what happens is we get together, come up with an idea that's pretty exciting. Then we make it more exciting. Then we tested with the user.

We are off the charts. People are. So pumped and what you want to avoid is a situation where you get to the end and you realize, Oh, did anybody write down what we learned? And. That is something that you want to avoid. So the scribe catches all the, the learnings or the ideas, and maybe brings us back to a few notes.

Maybe there was a few friction points in the prototype that we need to come back to, to discuss and to refine. So they kind of keep us honest. So they have it. These are five key roles that should be played by a diverse team. Their captain facilitated designer, host and scribe. If you have someone doing all of these roles, [00:10:00] Throughout your rapid prototyping team, you're going to have an absolute riot.

It's going to be great. It's going to be a little tiring, but it is going to be full of learning. And that's what building a new product is all about. Now, if you want to learn more about rapid prototyping or building products, you can head over to bottom up.io, where we have a whole master class on rapid prototyping and a bunch of other places as well.

We've got design thinking. We've got agile software development. In fact, there's more than a dozen different free master classes. Just jump on over to bottom up.ai and your learning will be a bit off the charts. So there you go. That's a wrap here of the bottom up skills podcasts.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO of hollow tents. And we are talking success factors of rapid prototyping. We are, I think we're more than half way through this series on rapid prototyping. And prior to this, we've done a lot of very specific practical, sort of granular level stuff about rapid prototyping.

Now we're going to kind of elevate the discussion a little bit and talk about some of the fundamental principles. You have to adhere to when you're rapid prototyping. So, um, some of these I've covered throughout the series, I've tried to then package them up. I've added a few, uh, tips and tricks that are gonna help you succeed.

And I think this is really, this is a little bit the coaches, uh, prep talk before the big game. These are the [00:01:00] key things to have in mind. If we want to win at rapid prototyping, this is how you do it. Okay. So there's kind of four principles that will set you up for success with rapid prototyping and without them, the.

The result, it really diminishes if you're not doing some of these things. Um, and so this, this to me is just some of the essential things to have in mind. So here we go. Number one, direct experience. Number two, always be testing and learning. Three create compound effects. And number four is create user to use a recruitment.

Okay, I'm going to break those down and zip through them. Let's go through the first one direct experience. It is just so essential that you create a moment that looks like, feels like as close to how people would [00:02:00] use the product, the finished product in real life. So it's got to stimulate their, their senses.

You've got to give them a task. You've got to evoke this direct experience said differently. Please do not allow your rapid prototyping session fall into some sales chitchat. I'm pitching your idea. Sound good. You're not pitching. You're creating a direct experience. It really tests the idea. Don't just talk about it or guess this is not a PowerPoint conversation.

This is rapid prototyping. So that's number one direct experience. Testing and learning. I mean, the key question in between two rapid prototyping tests is, okay, what did we just learn? And what are we doing next? It's just so fundamental. If you can keep this positive forward momentum, you'll find that the velocity of your learning is absolutely fantastic.

Now. The way to test and learn is really based [00:03:00] off this last previous idea of direct experience. But if you have created the direct experience, there'll be so much to learn. And after you've tested with the user and to see if they could complete a task, you can, of course you can ask them questions, but again, don't try and lead the witness, try and be like Sherlock Holmes, asked the important questions and be thoughtful and really push yourself.

To always update change. I grow your prototype between tests. That will be a great way for you to continue your rate of learning. Now, the next thing is compound effects. You got to do lots of tests. You've got to do them close together and whatever, if there's just one idea here that that's important for you to take out is, do not have a couple of tests today.

And then wait another week for another couple of tests because you just, you got really, you're just making life so hard for yourself. Cause you have to try and remember. What did we learn last week? Where did we start off? [00:04:00] And you just get back in the groove and before, you know, you're finished again, you know, if, if you want to maximize compound effects, do four sprints of testing each day, two days in a row, and you will have an abundance of insight.

Okay. So it's all about compounding things as close together, getting that compound interest really short times between your tests and making sure that you move as fast as possible. Now use it to user recruitment. One of my favorite topics here. If you've got a product it's really starting to come together and you think, well, that was looking pretty good.

I think we don't need to test too much more. Aha. Gotcha. Yes you do. If it is really that good, then what you do is you asked a user who's just used your rapid prototyping, uh, experienced as they've used the prototype, they completed the task, then you say, okay, we would like you. To present and introduce this to a new user.

And just do it [00:05:00] all in your own words and what will be really interesting. You'll see how they have actually processed and synthesize the experience. They'll use it a lot of metaphors and analogies you might not have thought of, but this is a fantastic way to see how users might pitch other users to come and joining the experience.

So these are the four principles. If you're not doing these four I'd experienced test and learn compound effects and use it to use it. If you're not doing those. You won't get as much out of your time, rapid prototyping. Now I've got a whole bucket of tips and tricks here. I'm just going to pick a couple of quick ones that I like.

Um, one of em, it's, don't lead the witness. Um, what I find over the years is that the general nature of folks is to pitch the user the idea rather than letting the user test it. So don't lead the witness. That's advice. Number one, number two. You know, there's a couple of good ones in this box, focus on what [00:06:00] you learn, and there is no wrong I'm going to go with.

There is no wrong, you know, I think it's really important to, to go in with all sorts of ideas and possibilities may be spontaneously. You might get something unforeseen, a little bit of serendipity. Um, Yeah. I think sometimes when people hear about a test, they think about, you know, compliance or something like that.

No, there's really no wrong here because, you know, One of the ways I think about when a user doesn't like, uh, a feature and it's confirmed by several users while I'm like, great. We saved ourselves the time of building a feature that they don't want. I mean, that's, that's a good way to think about it. Um, so yeah, there is no wrong just go in and be positive.

Be open. Last one here is balanced. You're talking and doing ratio. Um, people really get it into rapid prototyping and, and doing sprint sessions and. There can be a lot of talking. And like, uh, one of the things [00:07:00] I see is, you know, a small group tests where the user, the user goes back to the green room so they can get ready.

And then they talk for like 10 minutes about what they just tested. And I'm like, okay. What did you learn? What are you doing next? Just be mindful that when you're rapid prototyping, you want to create as many prototypes. You want to test as many prototypes with as many users as possible. And we all have a habit of getting pretty excited and talking a bunch.

And then that just means you're not doing. So there you have it. Um, for principles, a couple of quick tips to set you up for success with rapid prototyping, you can see the entire list of tips and tricks for rapid prototyping over@bottomup.io. Make sure you get the, uh, Rapid prototyping masterclass and so free.

No charge. Just jump in there. You can get the deck. You can enjoy a real deep dive into rapid prototyping. So I hope you've got your success factors locked in and that's a wrap for this episode [00:08:00] of the bottom up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom of skills podcast I might pass since I'm their CEO of quality science. And we, again, I get mega practical in the world of rapid prototyping today. I'm going to take you through the step by step guide for when you're in. The moment where you're testing with users. And I can tell you, when you put a prototype in front of a user, it sounds very straightforward, but understanding, uh, as fellow humans is not necessarily the easiest thing, it can be tricky.

And, um, when the feedback from a user is a bit mixed, Uh, and you're really in those early stages, trying to work out what's going on. What I have found is that this five step guide is essential. [00:01:00] And particularly, uh, if you've got some newbies, um, who it might not be so comfortable, uh, hearing directly back from.

Users and customers, this will be a really, really essential for you, for your colleagues. And frankly, it just helps keep you on track. Getting to this famous step-by-step guide for rapid prototyping. But to set this up, I really want to present you with the moment. It's the moment of truth. And this, I want you to imagine you're with a small group of your colleagues, you're all working on creating a new product, and you're pretty excited.

You've recruited in end users who are the target audience, and you've presented them with a prototype. And you've asked them to complete a task. Um, you know, let's say I, I love using the, uh, mortgage calculator example. Let's say you've asked them to work out how much they can get as a mortgage loan.

What's [00:02:00] the loan amount. And you've got an online mortgage calculator where they can work that out. You've given them the task, you've set the context, they try to use it and then it doesn't work. Now it could be, they're giving you a voiceover as they click through the journey, or maybe it's their body language, or maybe at the end, you ask them after they've attempted to complete the task and the feedback could be mixed bad or just otherwise.

And you're like, Now I spoke about in the last episode, we just need to be open to this. Sometimes I see people that are just not used to receiving such direct feedback and, you know, let's be honest. When it's not great, it's a little, a little uncomfortable, but I'm going to give you this five step guide when you're rapid prototyping that will really serve as, um, sort of a set [00:03:00] of railway tracks for you just to travel along, hit your stations and get to central.

So the first thing I want to talk about is that, um, You've kind of got these five stages. I want to introduce those and then tell you how you navigate them. This is all to be used when you're in the moment you are creating the prototype to test with the user. It could be that the users are coming in in 10 minutes.

Maybe you're in the middle of testing. Maybe you've got one last test for the day. This five step guide will help you. Okay. So this first step in this is to understand it's all about unstained, where you are. Are we trying to understand that's the first step? Are we trying to ideate? Decide, build or test?

Okay. Understand ideate, decide, build, or test. These are the five steps. Now the reason these are so important is that often. People who are [00:04:00] building, creating rapid prototyping, uh, environments, creating prototypes, often misinterpret where they are in the process. So they might think they've really got this thing.

Um, but actually it's built on a really fundamental, poor understanding of the user. And that will just cause no end of havoc for you guys. So. Number one. Um, you need to make sure you can imagine. I want you to imagine you're ticking these off as I go through. Do we understand the user? And this is all about being open, being curious, and you really want to use some of the methods that I've talked about could be card sorting, role-playing, even user interviews.

You can really start to use those in your prototyping just to confirm. Your understanding of the user and their needs particular here, what do you want to understand? What are the pains that they experienced when they do the task and what are the gains that they're looking for? Okay. [00:05:00] So that's the understand once you understand where they are, you can then ideate and to ideate, you can ask questions, like what if we created the world's best online mortgage care calculator?

What is the loan amount that you got in that calculator was valid for 48 hours? Without having to go to the branch or you might ask how might, how might we or other ones are great, which are like, what needs to be to be true, uh, to create something. Um, fantastic. So this is, uh, where you really start to shift away from sort of the curiosity of the understanding phase.

Now you're getting creative. Yeah. Energetic in the ideation and everyone should play a role there. So, if you can take understanding of the user tick, we've got lots of ideas, the next thing, and this is really important. Very often. It's overlooked. You need to decide what we're going to build. Now, if your team's doing well, you can have a lot of ideas on the board.

So the question then is. What are we [00:06:00] going to build? So that's why we break out the deciding step as its own step. And you really need to have some critical thinking about, well, what are what's our evaluation criteria? And, um, I love to, uh, questions that could sort of help you create a kind of. Top 10 list.

What's the quickest to make. Um, so that's being super practical. Like what can we just pump out, make it happen? Um, and then the other question you could ask of all of the ideas on the wall, you could say, which ones can have the most impact for the user. Yeah, two very different ways in to reorganizing all of those ideas.

So you can decide what you want to make. Now it could be for the first part of the day, you work on the quick ones. And then the second half of the day, you go for the real big, impactful ones. When you're a bit warmed up or vice versa, that choice is really yours and deciding and discussing as a team is essential.

So [00:07:00] we understand the user, Ida did a ton of ideas. We've now decided which idea we're going to make. So now we need to build now the building is, um, really important because you need to bring the idea sufficiently to life in order to create the direction experience. And so what you want, I really want to do is have a bit of a list.

Um, you might have storyboards use journey maps, content. You might have some digital stuff, might have paper stuff. Uh, everything's up for creativity at this point, but actually more importantly here, it's all about assigning tasks within the group and getting people really productive because sometimes you might have a real doer in the group who wants to build everything, but, um, My experience has been that very rarely works because it's like everything's on one person.

And then the, the scale of the work is too high. They can't produce the prototype, the screens, the clicks, [00:08:00] the pieces of paper quick enough. And so the user testing sort of loses a lot of momentum, but. Decide what you want to build. And in what we just talked about then was that all right, make it clear a choice for what the form of the building is going to be and give out tasks within the group.

Everyone can play a role, um, so that you know what you're going to build. Lastly the testing stage. So, um, the most important thing you're sitting there, you've got your prototype. If you're really good about the first four steps, you've got your prototype. What do you need to do? You need to create a scenario?

Where is the user going to be? What are they going to try and do? What are the constraints they have? Um, so you need to do you have a very clear task ready for them, and then you need to be ready to receive feedback. To watch the use. You're not selling them at all. So you're just giving me a task and then you just.

Watch learn and listen. And then at the end of that, you might have some of your users actually [00:09:00] present the prototype to other users. Fantastic technique for learning a lot about advocacy and sharing, but this is how you really can learn a lot, uh, through the testing and get all those good insights you need to have that structure, this scenario, setting up ready for testing.

So there you have it. Those are the five steps. Understand ideate, decide building test. Now here's the key. If your testing is always failing, maybe you need to go back to the build stage and build the same idea in a different way. Is that kid's failing. Then you need to go back again and decide on a different idea.

Maybe use a different evaluation and criteria if none of it, that is yielding your results. And that's what I'd be stepping in to help you out to say, guys, let's try and fix this. I would actually go back to the ideation. And let's re ideate. Let's reimagine this. Let's go to it a different [00:10:00] way. And lastly, if we're still struggling, maybe the real truth here is we just don't understand the user.

So you could be seeing this as you go through all of this understand ideate, design, build, and test, and then you might have to go back a couple of steps because you were failing in the validation and the failings. Okay. There's really no problem with that. In fact, it's really good because you'll get better and better over time.

And before you know it you'll test, you'll get some green lights, you'll get some thumbs up and you'll be on your way to building a great product. So then you have it. Here are the five steps. I hope that this is something that you can bring to life in all of your sprints when you're rapid prototyping.

And remember that if you want to download, uh, the fantastic, uh, print out that we have of these five steps, we always put them next to teams when we're rapid prototyping. Um, it really serves as a handy guide for them. You can go to bottom [00:11:00] up.io, where you can get a full, rapid prototyping masterclass. It's all free.

So just sign up there and you'll be able to download that and use it at will in all of your rapid prototyping sessions. All right, that's it. For this episode of the bottom up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality and sound. We are well on the way with rapid prototyping. And today we're going to talk about some important thoughts. On how to actually do rapid prototype. And the crazy thing is that there is a really distinct pattern to conducting a sprint and to prototyping.

And there's a real journey to it. Any points of which can trip you up? Let me tell you. And, um, one of the key ways to get through all of that is having the right team. So today we're going to dig into rapid prototyping and how to do it so that you can be on your way to building a great product. Okay. Uh, the rapid prototyping journey.

[00:01:00] I mean, it is ridiculous. It's sort of mirrors the classic hero's journey starts off in such a good way. Uh, with lots of excitement, you're prototyping. Maybe you've got some great colleagues and creative people with you. And you're testing. And then all of a sudden, at some point in this journey, be confronted with the user saying, you know what?

I just don't like the prototype. I don't think the product idea is any good. And everybody in the team is going to look at each other and go, Oh, Now for first time, is this feedback, uh, can be pretty confronting, you know, like sitting with customers and having them say, you know what, I'm not into this at all.

Uh, I don't think this helps me is really confronting and it's a bit of a shock. And what I notice is that, uh, the idea of the customer has kind of become quite abstract, uh, for large [00:02:00] organizations. And so when they're actually confronted. Face to face person to person with a, with a user, with a customer saying, ah, this doesn't work for me.

I don't like the idea or whatever. It's like, Ooh, kind of uncomfortable, but it's, this is the moment where you can choose to embrace the feedback. And to work with it and to start to discover what it takes to delight them. And, um, it's really important that if you're rapid prototyping, remember that, you know, you would want to have three or four sprints in one day.

So, uh, you want to do it really close together. And I'm going to talk a lot about why that matters so much, but you don't just want to do one test with a user and then wrap up for the day. Uh, this sort of compounds. So what would be perfect is to do a whole series, like just to have an Epic day testing with users and you know, you're going to learn a ton, but the key to that learning is embracing that [00:03:00] feedback, particularly when either it's not clear or they're just.

Don't like it, because once you make the turn and start to discover what they do like and how it should work and why it should work in that way, that's when you start to move into this process validation and that validation will start you on a long journey. Now. The length of that journey is weeks and months.

Like, don't just think as you have one or two days of good prototyping with your users that you're done, um, I mean, I'm working on a product right now that we've been doing for over three months and we are still. Still learning new things. And we are one week from today, we will be launching and we're still learning new things.

So please remember that learning is a constant now often, um, what will happen when you're in a rapid prototyping sprint? Let's say for one, maybe two days in a row. At the beginning, [00:04:00] it's really all about learning. And then you will kind of shift more into what I call refining mode. So this is another distinct pattern to how we do it.

One embracing that feedback that I was talking about, but to knowing that you will, if you're doing the right learning, you'll get to a moment where you've actually like, Hey. I'm really confident. They like this feature or they like this product or service. Um, and then what you would do is you would move into what we call the refining mode, because what you need to do is tie up some of the loose ends about some of them, maybe the entry points in the user experience, you know, onboarding being a classic one.

Or completing an experience, helping them move into that advocacy part and sharing with others. But I want to give you this next idea. It's really one part learning followed by one part refining. And if you do the learning then refining you'll, you'll feel like a real level of satisfaction that you. You know, went [00:05:00] in, you learn a ton, found the things that worked, you validated those in your find them up.

So they might be ready to brief into a UX person to do wire frames, maybe even straight to a designer or developer. The important point here is make sure there's learning and refining going together. Now, the next thing I want to, uh, make sure that we talk about is this idea of the rate of progress. It is essential that you minimize the time between.

Testing the longer, the bigger, the gap between user testing with rapid prototyping, the harder it is to remember what you learned last time and the harder it is to discern the patterns in the feedback. If you test all day. And do 20 tests and every single one, uh, involved a user where they gave feedback, the pattern.

I mean, you hopefully have worked it out by, at [00:06:00] that point that you're like, wow, they hate this. They love this. We need to fix this. But if you're a particularly, you've got days and weeks between two different rapid prototyping, you're going to really struggle with the decoding of the pattern because you're just like, Oh, what did they say last week?

I can't remember, you know, It's just too much a, of a, of a gap and mint and too much memory or loss to make sure you do your rapid prototyping as close together as possible. And the thing that bridges each rapid prototyping test is the following question. What did we learn and what are we going to do next?

This orientates you to write quickly? What do we learn? What was working? Okay. How might we put that into the next test? How do we take it? One one step further. This is really important because if you do this, you'll get incredible velocity. You'll make a lot of progress and it'll be really, really worthwhile.

Um, [00:07:00] so what did you learn and what are we doing next now? The last thing I want to touch on is how to set up, um, a bunch of people, um, and how this is really important to rapid prototyping. We've talked earlier in this series about all the different types of prototyping. We've talked about creating direct response, which is really important.

So I'm assuming you've kind of got this now deep into your mind. And when now we've started to talk about these kind of more matter ideas, admittedly. About how to do these also, well, the rate of progress and making sure you're asking that question of what do we learn and what are we going to do next?

So now I'm going to kind of wrap up with how I would structure a team of people in a rapid prototyping sprint. And there's lots of good books on doing sprints and so forth, but I'm going to give you my go to a formula. And of course, you know, We're often tweaking this depending on the project or maybe some [00:08:00] time and availability constraints, but in a perfect world, this is what I would do.

I would build out from the sprint. So a sprint is going to be like a one hour session then where you've got prototypes, you've got real users, real customers to come and test them and to give them tasks, they're going to give feedback. And within that sprint, you want to look at doing six really good tests.

In a one hour sprint, if you only test once or twice, I would be really concerned about the productivity. I think there would be too much talking and not enough doing in generally speaking across a day, I would look to do four sprints of one hour. And the great thing is that means you've got four sprints.

Um, you know, you're easily going to work, walk out of there with 20, uh, tests completed, hopefully lot closer to 40 or 50. But that is a huge opportunity to learn. So you've, I got four sprints a day, each sprints, 60 [00:09:00] minutes, try and do six tests, post sprint. And in between those sprints, what you want to do is, uh, create time for reflection and preparation.

So I definitely want at least 20 minutes before the next sprint, just to get things ready. Just discuss things with my colleagues and in a perfect world, I would actually do this for two days in a row. So that would mean, uh, If you're doing four sprints a day over the two days, you've got eight sprints, you're going to get close to a hundred tests, done the path to take the winning product or service will be so screamingly obvious at this point it will be a slam dunk.

Um, so that would be my, um, my advice. I know some people do sprints for five days and whatnot. I like to go deep anyway, tense and just go really in the matrix, as they say. And then, um, that [00:10:00] tends to be, uh, not only really good for the, for the rate of learning the other weird thing from a practical point of view, it's very hard to get a team offsite for two days.

Um, three days is impossible. But I do think it is good to get away and to really bunker in for two days and just go deep into learning with customers. And my last thought here is on the teams. Um, you know, it's generally good to have at least two teams working on the same, uh, user experience, same product.

Um, and I would always, as a rule go no more than six people per team. Um, the reason for this is that once you get over six. You get this little thing, which recalled the bystander effect. Whereas there's too many people. Some people start just standing to the side, people start checking their mail. I'm not a good look, bad vibe, just bad all around.

And we don't want to waste their time either. So I would always say, look, if you can do it with five, I [00:11:00] think that's perfect. Um, six works never go over six for the reasons that I mentioned. So there you got it. There's some real stuff in there about understanding the journey of rapid prototyping. I hate more than anything.

Uh, I hope that I have helped you understand it's all about embracing that feedback. Good, bad, or ugly, and make sure that you're learning refining. And working with these small teams and going in a really lean agile fast way. And if you do that, I think you'll, uh, you'll understand this pattern that I've talked about with rapid prototyping and you'll will be on your way to creating a great product or service.

Now don't forget, uh, as always, uh, if you are interested in rapid prototyping or perhaps design thinking as well, we've got master classes that are all free for you to use. So you can just go over to bottom up.io and you can jump in there. You can download all the slides and the templates. [00:12:00] And we go into even more detail than this.

Alright. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the bottom up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO of QualityNet and we are in the third installment of our rapid prototyping series. And in this show, we're going to talk about creating a direct. Product response from a user that you're testing with and this stuff, ladies and gentlemen, this is some of the real good stuff.

I'm really getting into some of the magic of rapid prototyping in this show because, you know, When you're rapid prototyping and building all these prototypes and it's pretty intense process, uh, and there's a real art to getting the right feedback from a, from a user and making sure that your not getting misled.

Or making sure that they're not misleading, uh, themselves about what they are actually testing and what I've discovered over the years. There's a bit of a formula actually to getting the best user insights. So let's dig into the world of getting the direct response. The first thought here for me, uh, is kind of the cheat that you get with rapid prototyping.

And that is that you don't have to build an entire product in order to test it. Uh, that really, for me is. The magic of rapid prototyping and rapid prototyping enables you to get some really quality feedback early on, you know, kind of a simple, quick and easy manner. And this is great because you don't have to defer all of your testing until the product is finished.

Actually, here's the real thing. You can make it feel like a finished product for the user without it being. A finished product. So you can get all this really great feedback, which will help you build a better product. And we've lived in a world where the default approach. To building products, particularly with technology used to be, uh, informed by what they call this waterfall approach.

And, um, that would usually defer a lot of the user testing to the very, very, very end. And that always, uh, scares the hell out of me because that's when you get so many issues, um, all at the one time. Simply put with rapid prototyping, you can avoid all of that stress and you can work with a lot more clarity and knowledge upfront because you can create these simple prototypes that still give you really good feedback, even though the product is not finished.

And the reason this is, so is that the. Prototype gives people the opportunity to really respond to what the product may look like and how it may work. And it's completely opposite of how a lot of people do early stage testing, which is where the focus group and the problem with the focus group is everybody.

Sits in a room. So there's a lot of social bias and conditioning. Cause you might have, you know, four to eight people, users recruited, uh, audience. Uh, how are you? You want to call them that are being asked questions by a moderator. So you've got all these social pressures as to what you say is a bit of group thing, but there's something more important here.

You know, if you have a bunch of people in an office room. All right. In a meeting room and they're sitting there and they're asked the question, you know, how would you like a service that made a, that was like a digital mortgage service. So you didn't have to go into the bank and. They would have to kind of think about, well, I guess that sounds interesting.

And people would share stories of the hassles of going into the branch. If you're rapid prototyping, you would create a moment where someone would be likely, uh, you know, filling out an online, um, mortgage calculator and you would give them a prototype of the mortgage calculator and you would ask them to get.

The figure that the loan amount from the CalCare, you would actually set them a task. And this is what we mean by creating directly response. This is now we get great feedback and I'm going to give you the formula. I'm going to explain why this works and what you need to do in order to create this.

Because in the day when we go back to this mortgage example, it makes so much sense. I mean, Rather than asking someone, would you be interested in a, in a digital mortgage loan calculator or digital app for a mortgage? Give them the app, ask them to complete a task and experience. And then that feedback will tell you if it's a good idea.

And this, this is really at the heart of what we mean by creating the direct experience, getting direct exposure response from your users. So let's now go break it down and let's see how we can do it. Because remember the opportunity here is that you can create a prototype that feels like the finished product experience, but you haven't had to build it.

So as a creator builder, entrepreneur designer, developer, This is enormous because you can create these quick prototypes, get some feedback without all the risk of spending days, weeks, months building the product. All right. I've made the case that let's, let's see what it actually looks like. What is that direct experience formula?

Now the context to this, is it all about the perception of the end user who's testing? Okay. So we want to create a, the kind of thing following flow. We want to build a prototype that is as lean as possible. But does enough, uh, to create a, um, uh, a set of experiences, task features for the end user. So pretty lightweight, it could be pen and paper.

It could be using some digital tools like envision and Adobe XD. Now here's the key thing is when you have that prototype, that evokes just one little journey within the, in the product you need to add to that. The situational context. For example, if you're building a product for college students, you would have to say you're at, yeah, you're in your college dorm.

Um, it's two 30 in the afternoon. You've got 30 minutes before your next lecture. And we would like you to, uh, use the, uh, to get a loan amount from the digital mortgage app. You've got, uh, the job you've got your environment, you know, where you are. Go for it. So when you give them the prototype in that context, and particularly in that context, they know where they are, who they're with.

What's the time you've also set them a task to do. And therefore, because they're actually trying to achieve a task and remember they're not in a focus group where they're thinking, trying to guess how they would react. They are actually in. The situation. And therefore we have this great moment where they shift from, um, being an indirect experience and they go into the experience.

They're really looking for the buttons on the app to get the job done. And if you do enough, With your brief to them giving them the context in the task. And if the prototype is sufficient in terms of a basic flow, what you're going to have is the, uh, Evoking of sufficient sensory information, sensory stimulus that shifts them into the direct experience.

Now, once you've got them there, you will be amazed at, you can keep them there for 40 minutes, getting them to do tasks and getting feedback and revising and changing your prototype. This is. Really where some of the great moments you'll have with rapid prototyping. So let's kind of just break this down one more level, just so you really understand why the direct experience, um, can work for you and it can produce all these great insights.

So. You know, you want them to respond viscerally. You want them to respond to your rapid prototype. You want them to respond from the point of view, like they're there and they're doing it. And this is like really essential, uh, for them in order to give you this great quality feedback. So what you want to be able to do is when you have the prototype.

In your hands as a user, you need to touch it. See it here. Now you think this is a bit crazy, but even smell it and taste. It could be really powerful in evoking the senses. That's how you get the visceral response, the direct response. So make sure that you've got all the sensory environment working for you.

Sometimes we set up testing rooms to feel like an office, a college dorm, a doctor's surgery. You name it. Create that environment. So the test and this will really help users that will really get them into direct response, giving this great feedback, because they're no longer guessing how they're going to respond.

They really know because they feel like they're doing it. And that's the drivers of perception. So make sure that when you brief your user, you hand them a great product type could be a sketch, a, it could be a digital prototype, but make sure. You tell them where they are, what's the time and then give them a task.

And then they'll launch themselves. There'll be all the right sensory environmental conditions around them. And that will give you this visceral response. So, what does this mean? This means that you'll be able to get all this early stage feedback. You haven't had to go build some huge database. You haven't had to go and build applications or front end design.

You've been able to use a quick prototype. You've been able to get the experience like it's a finished product, but it's not. And that's the real opportunity that we have with rapid prototyping. It's all about creating. Direct response, no more guessing, real visceral feedback. And this will just create such clarity for you as you go on this journey of building a great brand new product.

So there you have it. Now, if you're really interested in rapid prototyping, we have a free master class on bottom up.io. I strongly recommend you go over there, we go into a lot more detail. You can download the slides and all that sort of good stuff. Um, but for today on this show, you've had the chance to understand why this idea of the direct response, um, and creating this direct experience, uh, for users is really one of the key ingredients to this success of rapid prototyping.

Alright. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the bottom up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality science, and this is our second installment of our rapid prototyping series. And in this episode, we're going to talk about all the different types of rapid prototyping. In fact, There has so many different flavors of this practice.

I mean, you can do it in all sorts of ways. High fidelity, low fatigue, Ellie, you can do it in situ you can do it in a studio. You can do everything from role play, you name it. There are so many different ways to apply it. I've been spending years doing this, um, and. It's wonderful. It's powerful. It gives you such clear feedback.

But what I find is a lot of people that I introduced to [00:01:00] rapid prototyping, um, find it a little bit hard to know where to start. And that's what I think this episode is really going to do is going to give you a hint, a tip. A nod or a suggestion towards, you know, the really what type of rapid prototyping should you kind of conduct.

And I'm going to explore that in all its different flavors. So let's get into it. The first thing I want to do is just make sure that we're all on the same page about, uh, what the prototype, uh, really is. And. The best way to explain it. It's like a model or a sketch or a light version of your product idea.

You don't need to completely create the product to prototype it. In fact, the whole idea between prototyping is that you're trying to avoid building any unnecessary elements in which. To conduct a [00:02:00] successful test. So you just want to create the lightest most essential version. It can be a bit rough. It can be a little raw.

It might not have a logo. It might not have all the fancy colors and, you know, wonderful stock imagery. It could just be very functional. They're utilitarian now. So that's what we mean by a prototype and what I want to give you as a, sort of a threshold by which you can judge D is your prototype good enough?

And it needs to create sufficient sensory stimulus. Uh, that suggests what the product might be. So people can give you. Real feedback. So let's break that down a little bit. Um, this sensory stimulus means you don't want people to do a classic focus group situation where everybody sits around the table and the facilitator tater says, how likely would you, um, what you want to do is if you want to test a [00:03:00] product, you want to try and recreate.

The real life situation you want to, you want to try and get real feedback. We are all familiar with products that come out into the world. And as soon as real people start to use them, we're all like, well saying, going to work and that's because they just haven't tested. I can certainly guarantee they haven't used rapid prototyping.

So you just need to create sufficient, um, sensory response. You can touch it, feel it, see it. Um, and it gives me a good sense of the product and it could be put into a situation where you said, okay, we'd love you to research your next vacation and find the perfect destination. Um, Give them enough in order to do something like that.

Or if it's like a banking product, make a cash withdrawal or transfer, there's a classic use cases and you can build some prototypes that do that. The key here with, with the different types is to understand. And the starting point is we're just creating a light version or a sketch. [00:04:00] Okay. Now on think of prototypes, generally being bucketed into three.

Particular types type number one, very early stage, and that's called the diagnostic prototype. The second type is the journey prototype. This is where you sort of paint a picture of an entire experience. And the third one is the experience prototype. And this one is where you are really bringing it to life.

And this might include some sort of clickable digital prototype. Okay. Diagnostic. Journey experience at three types. Now, the important thing is that you create different stimulus and you conduct different activities throughout these different types. Okay. So. What I'm going to do for you is, um, take you through some of the [00:05:00] ones that I really like, some of the activities and some of the stimulus, some of the prototypes that you would use for them.

So if you're doing diagnostic, uh, rapid prototyping, the key thing here is you're really early stage. You might have very, uh, early forming product ideas and you might actually. A prototype with real users, which is another key component of rapid prototyping. We don't just prototype and test it on ourselves.

We actually test it with real users and I've got a whole show about how to do that in the best way. Coming up later in this series. But the first thing you could do is role play. You could do interviews or one of my favorites is card sorting. Now, generally speaking, what you're trying to do in diagnostic prototyping is either to really define the problem [00:06:00] or to in a complex problem, such as personal finance, you're trying to.

For example, using card sorting, you would try and use some card sorting activities to work out. Which thing in this big complex universe of personal finance is your biggest pain or your biggest game. And in the case of card sorting, which has a bit of a personal favorite of mine, you actually ask someone to write down the top 10 things that frustrate them that are the blockers when they're doing their personal finances.

And then you can do a series of activities as, as a prototyping activity where you ask them to sort the cards in priority or biggest pain, or you can do some other ones that, which take the greatest effort, which costs you the most money, et cetera, et cetera. So you have all these different views now where you understand what really matters to users.

But what's interesting about this [00:07:00] as a prototyping exercise is you ask them to create. The stimulus and then you gave them activities sorting through different priorities or effectors in order for you to learn and validate actually what the problem they face is. And what you'll see is we go through this journey, we'll be moving more into what the solution looks like, but this diagnostic set of activities, interviews, role plays, and card sorting.

These are all ways for you to prototype and to confirm to yourself. To test and validate what really is the problem that we're solving. So now I want to move towards the journey and, um, what I want to do here is sometimes we want to call out just a moment in the journey, or we want to show someone the entire journey sometimes, um, you know, This type of a journey prototyping is you might show, uh, today personal finance journey, [00:08:00] and then you might ask them, uh, on that journey to nominate.

If they could solve one thing in that, and they could only solve one, what would it be? What you might do? It was a followup exercise is reorganizing journey and do a, what if and using this stimulus prototype of a user journey, and this can be on a whiteboard, right? You don't have to actually build all the products, just do it on the whiteboard and propose to them an alternate path and get their feedback.

Um, throughout the journey, you could pick a moment of transaction, uh, customer support and just using pen and paper or a whiteboard, bring it to life, ask them questions, ask them a task based completion questions to get their feedback. And the beauty here is that not only within the journey, but within the diagnostic testing.

You have not had to get out your laptop and code anything. You haven't had to illustrate an interface. This is all very low fidelity. And the important thing to [00:09:00] realize is the real reason you want to work pen and paper or person to person in real life is that you can move, adapt, change the stimulus incredibly quickly.

And because you can move so quickly, it means you can conduct lots of tests and get better, better, better feedback. So we've got diagnostic prototyping. We talked about card sorting there. We talked about the moment or the journey. Now, another interesting way to do this second type of prototyping journey, or the moment is you can do posters for each of the moments in the journey and test each of the posters.

And you can propose different solutions or features within that journey. So there you go. There's the first two, the third type of prototyping is experience and inexperience. Uh, this is where we actually might bring to life.
The [00:10:00] onboarding. One of the full features or if you've really got a lot of resources, you might try and get some of the essential features altogether within the product. It's at this point that you're going to start using digital tools and, um, some of the go tool tools here are fig sketch envision, Adobe XD Australia, uh, where you can quickly push to a device or a laptop.

Um, a, um, more refined, a higher fidelity prototype. Now the great thing about this is that you can do over a day or two of prototyping. You can might go through all three. Types of prototyping. Start with diagnostic, then did a moment and then finish on your second or third day with actual experienced based prototypes, which actually look fairly finished particularly to the end user or the customer they might say to themselves.

Wow. That actually. [00:11:00] Looks quite like a finished product, but you're essentially faking the products because it's all just clickable prototypes. There's no database or real application working, but it gives us sufficient sensory feedback. And so the user is really getting into the direct experience and there it's evoking real meaningful feedback from him.

So there you go. Three different types of rapid prototyping, diagnostic journey and experience diagnostic starting just in-person very minimal materials, maybe pen and paper, maybe a sticky note or two. Then we've got the moment or the journey. This is where we start creating stuff on white boards, creating moments and posters, um, maybe recreating customer support.

And then lastly, experience. This is when we start to get a bit more digital. We might have created a visualization of onboarding or maybe a whole feature, or even some of the core [00:12:00] product. You can get all it's done in two days. And I'm going to give you lots of advice on how you can use rapid prototyping in such a short time to move from guessing to knowing if you have problem solution fit.

Well, there you go. Those are the different types of rapid prototyping. We are well on the way now in this series about rapid prototyping, I hope you're feeling like you've got a bit of a grasp of the different flavors and dimensions and listen, don't worry if you're thinking to yourself. Oh, that is a lot of information.

Hopper that a bottom up got IO. Grab the free master class and rapid prototyping. We go into a lot more detail. Um, there you can really up your game and put prep rapid prototyping to work in your organization. Okay. I hope you've enjoyed this, uh, second installment of the rapid prototyping series here on the bottom up skills podcast. [00:13:00]

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass on this. I'm the CEO of quality science. And that's right. Folks. We are studying a brand new series on the bottom up skills podcast, and we're going to get into the world of rapid prototyping. We're going to tear this thing apart. We're going to decode it.

We're going to share it together and understand why it is so damn important. And today I really want to frame it for you. Define it for you, give you a little bit of context to do that. I want to start with the story of when I met a guy called Tom Chichi and Tom had spent a long time working at companies like Yahoo and Google, [00:01:00] and he changed my world by presenting to me.

This universe of rapid prototyping. And thanks to him. I discovered something that is an invaluable tool, um, and that is none other than rapid prototyping. So if you're building a product, then rapid prototyping is an essential thing to have. And. What it really does as an act, this idea of building a prototype and then testing it with a user.

He is so invaluable because what it does. This whole idea of rapid prototyping with your end user, with your customer is all about testing and validating your idea. It's seriously the best way to work out. If your product idea really does solve a problem for the user. Now the enormous benefit. That we get from rapid prototyping is that we don't have to wait until we've [00:02:00] spent all that time, effort, money, all that blood, sweat, and tears to build the product, and then to only work out, will anybody use it?

If you create a low fidelity version of the product, create a prototype, an early stage model example and put it in the right context. You can actually get incredibly good testing and validation feedback from users. And it is so, so good. It really, for me, it really filled in like a number of questions and doubts and concerns I always had.

When I was working on early stage ideas, when you just. And I'm sure you've had this too. You just don't know. Is this idea any good? I mean, it sounds good, but you're kind of thinking I'm not really sure. And I would say that if we go into the world of product design, particularly. Software and particularly, um, in [00:03:00] technology you'll often hear people talking about different types of product fit.

So you've got problem solution fit, product market, fit, distribution, and conversion fit. Now we'll get into all the other types of fit at different times in this podcast series and over the course of the many shows that we'll make for you. But today, when we talk about rapid prototyping, we're really talking about the first thing you need to find with your product, which is problem solution fit.

Now, this is the moment. That you actually have some evidence, some real facts that customers really care about. Certain things like they're experiencing some blockers and some pains. They're experiencing a great desire for a certain set of benefits or gains when they do a particular job. So if your product in the travel universe, [00:04:00] people want to travel to a destination of a particular type and they'll experience all sorts of problems.

Like not knowing which. A hotel or Airbnb to book, they're looking to, uh, experienced some gains like relaxation, adventure, excitement, and this whole job is about travel vacation and getting away. Now, if you're in that situation, what you don't want to do is build an entire solution, then test it. That's a very old school way of doing things as sort of the, the waterfall model, um, in the software world.

What you can do with AR with a prototype is you can actually test for problem solution fit. And so when you test whether user, this means you've actually created some evidence that what you're trying to fix is actually worth fixing and, um, That way you've defined the problem. And then you prototype some possible solutions and you learn which one is most likely to fit the problem.

Now [00:05:00] it's not an exact, you know, seal of approval, but if you've done this and if you really learn this, you'll get at at minimum, you'll get this amazing directional feedback from the user about, yeah, this helps. No, this doesn't help me. And it will help you put a lot of, um, validation into your product idea rather than, and this is the big thing.

What so many people do is they are guessing an idea. They have a guess at best a hypothesis about a particular idea that would be supposedly fantastic. And. All it is, is a guess what the embracing of rapid prototyping does is gives you a chance to go beyond the guests and to having a lot more closer to knowing state of mind about your problem solution fit.

And, you know, for [00:06:00] me, What that does is it does a couple of things. It orientates, you much more towards the user, rather than making some fancy good-looking, um, PowerPoint slides that impress everyone, but have very little evidence supporting this idea or this notion. I can't tell you how many people I meet.

Talk to, and when they know that I'm in the world of creating brand new products, the first thing they often will say is, Hey, I've got an idea or I've got an idea for an app. And you know, the interesting thing that is just in my bones is to ask this first question, how many users have you tested this way?

Whether it's a prototype or usability testing on an MVP. How many users have you tested with. And invariably, those that are really [00:07:00] blocked have done little to no testing, and those that are making good progress have great proximity to their customer. Um, so this is why, uh, it's so fun to dive into a world of rapid prototyping.

This is why it is so important in my life as a craftsman, as a builder of products. I need rapid prototyping and without it, I feel vulnerable. And like how many times have we tested this? And it's sort of mature. Sibling is as the product is really forming and shaping as you'd get into more usability, acceptance testing and that sort of thing.

But that's for a different show. We're just talking about really early stage trying to get a hold of what actually really works and, um, What the last thing I want to share with you in, in sort of framing, what is this, um, this art form, uh, this practice of rapid prototyping. I really want to [00:08:00] focus on this idea of perception right now.

The key thing is. We all suffer, uh, many bias, um, and, um, as builders and creators of products, we often think our products are amazing, but we vastly underestimate how little, uh, customers and users really care about our product. You know, we've spent all this time with it, we're in love with it, but the reality is often that uses are not.

Um, and so what you really need to work hard to do is to create. A prototype and to test it and to test it with the user and allow them to objectively give feedback. None of this, coaxing them through a focus group. No, we want to really test it. And at the core of this, we'll be asking them to actually do a task, complete a task, complete a job to be done [00:09:00] now.

Um, the reason that matters. Is the following. And I want to bring it back to perception. You can create a moment in time with rapid prototyping, where the user is working with a prototype and they perceiving the experience like very closely to real life and they can give you great feedback based on that.

Let me give you a little bit of a look into. What rapid prototyping needs to do in order to achieve that. And what you want to do is you want to create a prototype that's the essential feature. Um, and it might be some sort of a low fidelity. Sketch. If you want to go super, super low fidelity, it might even be, um, the highest fidelity I'd ever get I'm prototyping is with some form of digital tool like envision or Adobe XD sketch a fig.

The point here is make a bare bones, minimum [00:10:00] prototype. Don't Polish it up too much. Just get the basic raw functions working or even the illusion to them working. And we'll talk more about that in future episodes. Now you've got your minimum essential prototype and then you give the user the situational context.

It's four o'clock it's Sunday afternoon, you're on the couch. And you're thinking about booking a travel getaway. What I want you to do is tell me the hotel you'd most like to stay in and which city. That's a task and that's something that would feature in someone's orientation on a trip service. Now, what you want to do then is you want to set them up, um, as they would on a couch with a laptop and in front of them is the interface with the information and so forth, maybe a search function and some clickable features or a sketch where they actually tap on it.

And you present the new screen, the new slide. The key thing you're doing here is providing sufficient sensory information. You set the [00:11:00] context, you've given them the prototype you give them a task to do. And then the key thing is as they interact with that in interface, they're getting sensory feedback.

Things are moving, things are happening when they touch or click smell. See. Or hear things it's really important that we have that sensory a feedback, because what that does is the third a bit, and this is all around the perception is that the end-user perceives this prototype almost like a real, real life service.

It's what we call the direct IX. So what you've been able to do is organize the conditions in the environment. Through the prototype through giving them a context and a task to do giving the right stimulus that it's almost just like it was a real service and what is really amazing to learn about the human mind and the human condition is you don't have to recreate the user experience [00:12:00] perfectly.

It only has to be sufficient sensory information because our mind can do the role play. But what happens is when they interact with a prototype and they like something or hate something, instead of trying to think how they would react in a situation, they feel like they're in the direct experience and they are able to provide really good feedback.

Not. Conscious thoughtful, considered guesses, but they're like, Ooh, I don't like that. Oh, wow. That was really good. That would be really handy. If you get to the point where the end user with a prototype is experiencing what we call this direct experience, they will provide really meaningful feedback.

Because they're trying to get a job done. So the stakes become a lot more real. They give real feedback and then you can take that. You can incorporate that into your next prototype and hopefully the experience gets better, [00:13:00] better and better. So there you are rapid prototyping, a tool for getting out of the guessing game and getting into testing and validating your idea.

Getting to a world where you really have problem solution fit. That means evidence that you can get the problem solved. Okay. Well, there you go. That is our first step into the world of rapid prototyping. I hope that you're sensing lots of questions, interest, curiosity on. How we actually go out into the world and do something like this, because we are going to follow up with a whole series of shows where we're going to talk about the different types of prototyping.

We're going to make sure that you get that direct response that I was talking about, and we're going to go well beyond it into team structures and so on and so forth. Well, they have it. That was the first episode part of our brand new series of bottom up skills. We're talking about rapid prototyping.

And remember [00:14:00] this, if you are interested in doing a master class on rapid prototyping, you can get one for free on both. I hope you've enjoyed. This first of many series, this first of many shows on rapid prototype. I'll catch you next time.

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Episode 51:

Hello, and welcome to the bottom up schemes pass. I might pass it because I'm the CEO at QualityNet and we have got to the end of our agile software development series, and there is nothing more fitting than talking about a great scrum practice. It's cold. The retrospective. It's just a different way of saying let's reflect on what on earth we do just did in this sprint.

And the whole idea of doing a sprint retrospective is to make sure that the next sprint is just that bit better. So what we're going to do today is we're going to discuss. How to kind of celebrate wins within the team, discuss the losses and how we can use the retrospective as a way to create more [00:01:00] momentum.

For the following sprint. All right. So the spring retrospective, let's be honest about this thing. It is the first thing that gets canceled when everyone's too busy. And I know, I know it's easy to do and it's easy to justify, but it's so wrong. I mean, You need in an agile scrum project. I mean, man, do you need some time just to pause and say, okay, what did we learn?

I think the important thing is how can we do it better next time? And, um, this is really important because. If you do this at the end of the sprint, if you do a really good retrospective, actually doing the planning session for the next sprint becomes infinitely easier because you've already had a good chat about what happened and how you can do a better it's.

It's it's really, really important. [00:02:00] And, um, it's actually, even though you're formerly still in the old spring, you're already starting to commit to what you guys are going to do better in the next sprint. So this, just talk about this feeding into our agile software development series. And let's just talk about, um, the first and most important thing, and frankly, in a retrospective, as you would have in any type of project, you got to celebrate some wins, right?

You've got to celebrate some good work. Let's say someone did some work at a high quality, um, celebrate that. Call it out. Let's say somebody was able to deliver the work despite having to climb some sort of mountain. Maybe they were ill. Maybe they had to travel. Maybe they had to go over and support another project, whatever it is, celebrate the wins, because here's the interesting thing.

Um, let's say there's someone in our [00:03:00] team and they do something really admirable, make a really good contribution. And that's, for me, that's a win. We're all thinking to ourselves. Oh geez. It was really great that Joe blogs did that thing. Um, but the capacity to verbalize it, to actually say it is such a gesture of Goodwill.

It's such a great thing to bring a team together, to celebrate those wins, to celebrate not only what they did, but the effort that they put into it and, you know, Agile projects are not for the lighthearted. Um, they're pretty fast moving, pretty stressful. You gotta be at your best to get this thing done.

So celebrate your wins. But having said all of that, there's probably something that can contribute even more in celebrating your wins. And that's talking about the losses talking about stuff that didn't go right. [00:04:00] And you've got to create a safe, nonjudgmental environment in which this can happen. And I would always start by volunteering if you're a scrum master and you're running the session or whoever your role is within the team, always start by, Hey, I'm going to put my hand up.

I think I stuffed this. Um, and there's something important about leading. With humility and saying, I missed a thing. And I think you want to set the environment where everyone's accountable. Um, and everyone is safe to raise their hand and say, Hey, I want to do this better. I didn't do a good job. Now. The best teams, the best teams wait for this can be Frank about other people's.

Improvement areas. And this is delicate because, you know, Hey, we're all, we've all got egos, but [00:05:00] getting people in a safe cultural environment where they can say, you know what, Joe, I don't think that was the best. How can I help you do it better next time? That would be my advice to getting the most out of this situation.

So be Frank about the losses. And when we talk about wins and losses, I really want to come back to this idea I've mentioned before on the show. Don't just talk about what you did, talk about how you did it because there's good code, but then there's also things like good support. Good listening. Good communication.

High levels of trust. Those are the, how we do the code. And so you've really got to celebrate not only what you did, but how you did it. Now. Sometimes I see teams in an effort to be highly accountable. They set sort of really unrealistic goals for the next [00:06:00] sprint, my honest opinion here. And it's. It's not always what you want to hear when you're in a project that's not going great.

Is that you've got to set incremental goals. Don't set audacious goal from sprint to sprint because. Sprint's going well, uh, largely the result of good teamwork and good teamwork takes time. So when we think about retrospectives and setting goals for the next friend, I want you to go and ask yourself, okay.

If we could maybe only address one thing, let's just fix this one thing. Um, Hey, maybe you want your goal to be at number 150 now, or just say guys, that list, just get it to 60 for the next sprint. Don't go for the a hundred because I rarely see teams capable of that faster turnaround. It takes time.

Teamwork is incremental. There's trust, there's [00:07:00] communication, safety, accountability. There's a whole lot of good stuff in there, but if you're celebrating the wins and being Frank about the losses, um, Set some incremental goals set, set, a healthy stretch. Don't be crazy because you actually, one of the best ways you can get a team working well is confidence.

And you can build that confidence by them saying, Hey, you know what? Last sprint we did 50, this sprint, we did 60. Excellent more than a 10% improvement rock and roll. Let's keep it going. And I think that's the important thing because every sprint retrospective is immediately followed by a grooming session of planning session where you are actually re-prioritizing and setting the course for the next spring.

So there you have it. This is the retrospective, the very last part of the sprint. Um, the various essential thing at the end of one sprint that builds the connective tissue, the bridge [00:08:00] to the subsequent sprint. And if you can really get the right conversations, Going, if you can get people celebrating and being Frank, you will be amazed that over time you can really start to perform, uh, at a high level.

And this is essential because you're using something like the scrum methodology on your agile software project, and you're moving fast. But if you do all of the things, not only in the retrospective, but everything we've talked about. Organizing yourself, right. Having a real focus on working code and making sure that the team has a high degree of autonomy so they can move fast and really take ownership for the product.

You're going to have a great product, a business, a service, whatever you're trying to build. If you adopt this agile principle set and you use a methodology like scrum, it's gonna be electric. And if you really want to dig into it, you [00:09:00] can go over to bottom up.io where you'll find a full masterclass, not only on agile, but design thinking, rapid prototyping innovation.

We've got some cool case studies where we dig into all sorts of, um, successes, um, a couple of our losses as well from other companies to ask ourselves, what did they do and how might we do it better? Uh, so there's all sorts of goodies over there. So that's bottom up.io. It's all free. So just jump in and enjoy it.

And I hope that you've enjoyed this mega series. It was like over a dozen episodes that we've done on agile software development. I've hoped you really, really enjoyed it. I hope you've got at least one thing out of it. And I can tell you I'm actually working on a really exciting follow up series. So staging next week, because we'll be launching a brand new series.

But you'll have to tune in to find out what it's going to be about. All right. Well, that's a wrap for the [00:10:00] boater mop skills podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it. See you next time.

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Episode 50: Agile Practices: When do we get people together?

Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast and Mike Parsons, the CEO of . And today I got to say, we're getting to the wait for it. The second last part about agile software development series. And today we're going to be talking about when we get everybody together and you know, this idea of the let's get everyone together and talk about the product is fantastic.

I mean, look, let's just get people aligned. Let's get people going in the right direction, but these projects can very quickly, uh, involve a lot of people. And the real emphasis to success of bringing people together is all about when and how you get them together. [00:01:00] And I've had to do a pro agile projects with huge mega brands like Coca Cola, a Nike I Kia, and lots of really cool startups like radio up in San Francisco.

Um, and. I've learned. So, so very much, uh, about how to best divide up these moments. So people can have not only the time to understand, but it's also about the chance for them to contribute. And that is, um, I mean, that's a win, win. If people really are aligned, there'll be able to offer all sorts of help, uh, on your project.

And if you're building a first generation product, a business, a new service, you name it, you're going to need some help. So if we can get the most out of bringing people together, chances are you're more likely. [00:02:00] Okay. So let's dive into this and we're going to talk about. Four concepts. The first one is scrum.

The second is a demo. The third is a showcase and the fourth is a brains trust. Okay. So these are different vehicles that have different purposes that occurred different times. They go for different amounts of time, but they also have this purpose of getting people aligned, getting them on board with what's happening because the core team is going to be going like crazy.

They're going to be sprinting all the time, so they're going to catch people up. Uh, and that's really important if you want help, if you want support, uh, then people have got to have some. You know, rudimentary understanding of what's happening, otherwise it's just guessing. Okay. So let's go and jump into the first of these concepts.

The scrum said differently. This is your daily [00:03:00] standup. And as we talked about in a couple of the previous episodes, this is a fast daily session for the core team. That a good one is 15 minutes. I start to get worried if they go for 30 minutes, because then I think you're actually, you've, you've made the classic mistake in a scrum is that you start talking in detail about a thing when that should be handled offline in a separate session.

The scrum it's purpose is to understand. Are you on track? It's amazing message from you to the rest of the team. Hey guys, I promised at the end of the sprint, I deliver this and I can tell you I'm feeling good about where I'm at. And today I'm going to be working on this new feature and I don't have any blockers.

That would be the perfect contribution stand up and [00:04:00] sometimes, and it's okay if you have to say, you know what, I thought that this feature. That I have a dependency on would be ready tomorrow, but I've just realized it's not. So I'm not sure about what I should do for the back half of the week. That's a blocker.

Great. We can tackle that. So the scrum is asking, are you on track and the scrum master, it's their job to go out and help each individuals solve those, uh, blockers that they do have if they come up. So the scrum is only attended by the core team. Um, that would usually be. Somewhere from six to 12 people, um, depending on the scope of the product you're building, I mean, I've got, uh, projects running at the moment that have doubled that number of people in it.

Uh, but they're, they're pretty significant projects. I also have some projects running just on five or six people, so it really does vary, but I [00:05:00] mean, once you're building core application, You've got data specialists, application developers, UX folks. You're going to have quite a lot of people. Paul you've got scrum master BAS client binders, a whole bunch of people running around.

So that scrum is just so essential for, um, making sure you're on track. Okay. So that's the first part of getting people together and what we start to do. In the demo is we go beyond the core team. We might go to some executive sponsors and bring them into the demo. Um, we may even bring, um, some experts in, uh, we might bring, um, client partners, uh, clients, you name it.

Now the demo doesn't happen. Of course, every day it happens usually every two weeks and it's usually a perfect way to wrap up a sprint. And, um, I think you are [00:06:00] showing your progress as a team. But I think if you only share that, then you're leaving a little bit on the field there. Um, I think you can also contribute, and this is a high form of alignment to what you are learning, how your better understanding uses the nuances in how the application needs to work in order for people to be delighted, that kind of stuff that really gets you inspired, but also.

In a capacity to contribute. If you understand, not only what the team are doing and the progress they're making, but you understand that the sort of learning that, the wisdom they're building about this product and how it serves its customers. Now, unlike the scrum, the demo can go for quite a while. And I would say it the list of 90 minute thing, and you want to open it up and make it conversational.

I think from my experience, the biggest [00:07:00] temptation in the demo. To make a presentation where two or three people on the project talk at the others. The best demos I've been in, uh, are aware the product owners are bringing you into the conversation about the progress they've made, um, the ups and the downs and what they're learning.

And it should be so compelling that people are. Volunteering contributions, help assistance and support. Um, that for me is it's a great demo. It's not judging jury situation. And you know, you can, you can change the vibe by how you present your demos, how you set them up, how you orchestrate them. But I would just avoid like a super polished thing, because then you're just spending lots of time in your keynote deck and not enough time on your product, if I'm really honest, Okay.

So we've got scrum and demo scrum [00:08:00] core team daily demo, every two weeks core team and extended members. Um, we'll get to the brain stress in a moment, but they're often people you can bring along. But now let's talk about the third one. Now the third and fourth one and not formal parts of agile and scrum methodology.

These are classic Mike Parsons out on, and I can tell you that they help. So very much. Now the showcase there should be a monthly, um, uh, opportunity. It should be something where you demonstrate. The achievements of the team. And very few of the team need to be in the showcase, maybe the product owner and the scrum master exec sponsor.

And you're presenting to folks not only in your brainstorm, um, direct, uh, executive sponsors, but you can also have it as a [00:09:00] fantastic knowledge sharing, uh, opportunity between folks who are. Not related to this project at all. Now, what I tend to find is that, um, there are others in the organization really keen at my clients who are really keen to learn about agile, and they might not be involved in the project at all.

We use the showcase as a, as a chance to, you know, maybe get the CEO, um, uh, involved with what we've achieved. Maybe get someone from a, like, if we're working with the retail team, maybe we'll go over to a team that's totally different to retail. It might be sales and marketing might be yeah. It whoever and bring them in.

And it's a chance for them to see what's being achieved on the project. Not only on what we're doing, but how we're doing it. And that emphasis on the, how that's, where the knowledge sharing piece comes in, because then they can apply some of the agile principles and some of the scrum methodology. To their projects, but now let's [00:10:00] go to another, the fourth one, the brains trust.

And I totally stole this one from Pixar and, um, what was really cool. Cool is I just started working on a project with Coca Cola and they use brains trust as well. Yeah, that's the first time I've seen any client. Uh, having a brains trust, uh, style of meeting. Um, usually when I'm introducing these to clients, uh, it's all brand new.

So kudos to Coca Cola. This brains trust is where the product owner sits down with people who are not in the core team who are experts throughout the organization. Largely internal, maybe a few external and they literally say, can you please give me some advice I'm struggling with this or that. And it can be anything from the product itself to the [00:11:00] people, the business model to how are we going to learn, watch this thing?

And the brains trust are not there to judge they're there to help. So casting them is very important. So you might have someone. In an organization who is wicked smart and he, or she might not be available to be in the core team of the project, but you want them to contribute somehow. And the brain's trust is so awesome because they can turn up once a month.

45 minutes, you have a chat it's super relaxed. And it's all about the product owner being like, uh, in the search for good counsel. I mean, and you can offer them ideas that maybe can be followed up upon at a later time. But the brain stress is fantastic because what you've now got in these four scrum demos, showcased and brain stress is you've got four tools to interface with the organization.

The full set of stakeholders [00:12:00] and you can engage them appropriately and you can get the most, you can make sure the sponsors feel confident about the project that the experts are offering their contribution, that the daily team, the core team are highly aligned and that they're interfacing with, uh, their, uh, broader teams in demos.

Now I know this sounds like a lot. Um, and it is, it's a lot of meetings and you know, somewhere in there you gotta do the work as well. These will sustain the momentum, Goodwill, the knowledge and the learning of your project. And I really do encourage you to have this full spectrum of moments together, people together.

All right. If you're very, uh, curious to know more about agile software development and all the things we can do, Kline is brand new practice. We'll head over to bottom up.io, where you're going to find everything you need to know in the master class for agile software development. [00:13:00] And I think we've got over a dozen other courses on there as well.

And they're all three. So get over at a bottom up and you'll be able to enjoy them. All right. Well, that was our session today. Getting into how to bring people together. And how to get the most out of the organization. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the bottom up skills podcast and we'll see you next time.

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Episode 49: Agile Practices: Sprint

Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality wins. And we add in a talk about sprinting, and we're going to be talking about the agile software development card, but it might actually feel like you're on a race track running around. And you're a little out of breath.

Uh, so the sprinter, this is, you know, usually it's a two to four week, uh, development dash in an agile project. I think you're most likely to see, you know, at least 10 to 12 sprints in a full project. Um, maybe more if the product is fairly significant in terms of scope and, uh, one of the things that.

Really kind of sets up scrum so well for anyone in business is that, [00:01:00] um, the scrum methodology within agile really time boxes, the sprint, it can be in other forms that there is not this time boxing, you know, Kanban is the one that comes to mind there, but really. The sprint and time boxing is essential.

If there's a huge focus on delivering a project at a particular deadline. And so. Usually, as I said, two to four weeks, uh, I quite like the two week version, uh, insight generally. And I get to the backend of projects. We will, uh, encourage our teams to actually push a release every week just to keep up the intensity of the sprint.

So I'm a big fan of the two week. I wouldn't, I wouldn't go for four, just there's too much time. Uh, for momentum loss. Uh, so I've got three, three ideas that I'm going to share with you about how to get the most out of doing a sprint. And, uh, I'm really looking forward to getting into this cause this [00:02:00] simple technique creates a ton of value.

It's sort of a hidden accelerator teams. So let's get into the world of the agile sprint. So we talked about in the previous episode, the idea of the backlog, if this is a tool that measures something, what it is applied to is traditionally a two week sprint. Now this fixed length really matters because it just means.

There's nothing like a good deadline to get us moving. And two weeks I've universally found for years is such a good basis for a sprint. And then in a sprint, you effectively agree as a team like, Hey, what are we going to deliver for the next two weeks? And then you go do it. And that's really at the heart of the sprint.

And this is where you start to see the use of the backlog that we discussed. In the previous [00:03:00] episode, they come together, the backlog and the sprint. They're very fundamental concepts in agile. We got two weeks, let's look at the backlog and work out what we should do. So you got this two week period. How do you get the most out of it and how should it be organized?

Well, I want you to imagine that if you looked at the two weeks and let's just say, we're starting on a Monday, that Monday should be about coming together and planning and the very final second Friday, the last Friday of the sprint should all be about. Reviewing what just happened and in between all of those other days, your sprinting, like crazy.

So let's talk about each of days and I'll want to give you a sense of just what I see time and time again, having worked on so many projects, there's the patterns are super, super clear. And you know, the funny thing, when we're going to start with planning, [00:04:00] The planning and the reviewing is the bit that so quickly gets abandoned, um, in teams that are not high performing, they're perceived as almost time-wasters, but they're so, so damn important.

So let's talk about planning. You want to plan your sprint? I would say. We talked about that the backlog brings you priorities. I think a key part of the sprint is to introduce a conversation about dependencies as well. If you're working on a software project, Invariably, you can have a couple of things going on.

Maybe you're working on an Android or an iOS version of the same application. Maybe you you've got some micro services, a web services or API APIs running. Through your architecture. And if that's the case, there's a really a high degree of attention that needs to be placed on this idea of dependencies, [00:05:00] because you need certain web services in order to create certain functionalities inside of the application.

And what happens where teams get lost is working on a priority. Without thinking about the dependencies. And so it's really important that when you do start planning your sprint, you need to work out the dependence you have on perhaps third party systems, or perhaps you need to build past a, before you can generate part B or part C of your product.

I see this quite often as well. And so the art to your planning is not only saying, Hey, what are we going to do this spring? But understanding the dependencies. Cause they tend to have the following effect. Oh, Joe blogs is in. Can I have part B ready until Friday, but we want to start on part C. But [00:06:00] we can't.

So what do we do now? And this is the famous West stuck because we're waiting for Joe blogs. So make sure if you do that good. Say planning exercise at the start of your sprint. It will just go so much better because you've taken the time to think about what's going to be happening down the track now.

We'll get to reviews in a second, but sprinting sprinting is just so damn important. Um, and I'm going to give you a build on best practice. You should be having a daily, standup, or a scrum, uh, where you ha having a short brief, and then quite literally. It is often best practice to, to in fact, be standing up if you're in a room together because it'll go a lot quicker.

Um, you do not in a standup or a scrum, want to list an inventory of everything that's on your mind. You want to limit your conversation to, am I on track? What am I planning to do? [00:07:00] And if you have a blocker, you should bring it up. And if you don't have a blocker, that's okay. It's good. If you don't have a blocker, but.

This should be the cornerstone of every single day of the sprint, the daily stand up. Now, if you're working on something that's tricky or one of your constraints, time, resources, or scope are under a lot of pressure. I strongly recommend that you guys get together at the end of the day, two, a three or four.

O'clock this double touch, uh, point, uh, can sand a little bit, uh, Heavy duty, like another meeting, but sometimes that alignment is needed and I have actually used that project. So it's essential. Don't skip your standups or your scrums. Sometimes you may need to incorporate end of the day checkings and really allows much time for deep work or collaboration [00:08:00] throughout the sprint.

And I think that the there's a point here that it's not just about working in silos and, uh, working on your stuff. The other thing here is you need to be working, uh, In work sessions in collaborative sessions, there's nothing better when a designer and a developer get together to work on a thing, there'll be much more aligned.

It'll create efficiencies down the track. All right. So we've done planning, we've done sprinting reviewing now. W we're going to talk a little bit about, um, you know, some of the, um, The things that we see in more detail at the back of the, uh, a sprint. Um, we're going to talk about retrospectives in a following episode.

So I don't want to get into too much detail here, but here's what I do want to say. When you view your work at the end of [00:09:00] a sprint as a team, It should be open and collaborative and not judgmental, but there's an important tip here. It should be discussing not only what you did. But you also need to discuss how you did it.

Interesting thing I learned on a current project is we had a whole really diverse team. Some had not worked together before and in the sort of first quarter, first, third of the project. One of the big insights, uh, from reviewing a spring was we need to work better to understand different working styles.

We have one or two night hours or one or two early bird kind of types. We had some who like to spend a whole day in the matrix, others who like to break it up with lots of, uh, collaboration. My point here is [00:10:00] just talk about what you delivered, but how you delivered it and emphasis on how we did it together.

And, you know, you will immediately in your sprint once you've planned, then your sprinting and reviewed it. You live set yourself up for what comes next, which is another sprint. And that's the real beauty is that sprints should be iterative and consecutive and he should do a bunch close together. And you want to roll from spring to spring and you just, I want to get better over time.

You want to get more? Yeah. User stories complete. You want to close more shoes. You just want to be an efficiency machine by the end of your project. And if you will not seeing those improvements, then you need to improve the planning, all the sprinting, or perhaps the reviewing. So there, you have it, a big dive into the world of the sprint and you know, maybe I made it sound a little bit serious.

It's actually a ton of fun as well. And, uh, it's so good because you just see [00:11:00] what you have built together as a team so quickly. Cause it's usually just two weeks. So. It's quite inspiring as, as well. And I hope the planning and the sprinting and the reviewing tips I've given you will help you conduct better sprints in your team.

And I hope that helps you get the most out of the scrum methodology and agile overall. So, uh, that's it for our sprint episode. I hope you've enjoyed it. Uh, if you want to get anything more around agile master classes or design thinking, master classes. Pop over to bottom up.io, where you can get a whole bunch of masterclasses, absolutely free, and you can get into much more detail than we have here.

Okay. So that's it for the bottom up skills podcast. We'll see you next time.

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Episode 48: Agile Practices: Backlog

Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the CEO at QualityNet. And today we're in the fourth, last chapter of our enormous agile software development. Series here on the bottom up skills podcast. And today's topic is the backlog. Now this little old thing kind of matters.

Yeah. In an agile project. Um, a backlog is the, really the foundation of what everybody comes back to, to work out some important things. Uh, number one what's most, it was important in terms of the work that we are. Making right now could be design development. Wireframes user stories. This is really the essential piece, the [00:01:00] backlog, and as each individual in the team should know what.

They are working on right now and the backlog is the source of this. So what we're going to do is we're going to talk a little bit about the backlog and we're going to discuss how to get the right stuff in there, how to get the right details in there. And ironically, although a lot of people focus on the backlog for their current sprint, really.

The best practice with a backlog is to be actually looking at it, uh, in terms of what's after the sprint you're working in. So looking ahead and, and really this idea of being at least one or two steps ahead. So we're going to get into all of that as we talk about some of the best practices in agile and scrum.

All right. So there's little old backlog now. Um, if you're trying to visualize what this might look like, it's, it's simply just a list of work [00:02:00] of the key pieces of a product. And if you've been listening to this series, you'll obviously know that we're quite fond of JIRA and confluence at Colton. So you might want to check out those products.

Uh, designed and developed by a fabulous Australian company too. I might add. And, um, it's there that you'll be able to manage your product backlog and, um, I want you to, um, visualize a very rich task or that's ranked in order of priority. That's really, uh, At its simplest form. That's what it is. But if the right attention and the right effort is put into each and every one of these, so user stories, epics, and themes, then this is a really powerful tool because a whole bunch of cool things happen.

First of all, if you use a product like JIRA, you'll actually see from [00:03:00] sprint to sprint how good you are at getting those two dues done. And it gives you this information that will help you judge better. How to predict your time for subsequent sprints as well. So, you know, the, the key thing. When you think about your backlog is this list must be not only managed by your scrum master.

Everyone must be contributing because then the data is rich, then it's relevant. It's got context and it helps you when you've got a question, uh, about something in the backlog, then the requirements and the attachments and the rich data. It is listed inside of it. Can tell that story. I think a really good, uh, check.

For a backlog is if the backlog has been a bit neglected, the node of write-ups inside each of the user stories or each of the issues, um, you're going to [00:04:00] actually find that the information is not enough. And then the worst thing in the world happens. You have to send an email, you have to like get someone on text or give them a call and say, Hey.

You say that we have to do this right now, but there's not enough information, so I'm not able to meet. So if you have a backlog, I put time and effort and attention. Towards it, and it will serve you very well because everyone will know what matters. What's the biggest priorities right now. And here's the critical thing that we'll know what they're meant to be doing now.

And that means less clarification conversations about who's doing what. So as we talking about clog, uh, I'm just thinking about all of the things that I've seen in projects. And I think if I reflect on, uh, the three best pieces of advice that I can give to you about using a backlog, it's the following three, I think you [00:05:00] need to groom it.

I think you need to, uh, have high attention to the details. And I think you need to be planning already, at least one, if not two or three sprints ahead. So I'm going to dig into each of those now, but grooming devil in the details and working several sprints ahead. This is at the essence of the best practices of using a backlog in an agile software development project.

Alright, grooming. You know, for me, this is really interesting. We're not talking about going to the barbers. We're actually talking about software here, but what we need to do is get together and to really remind ourselves of what is really important for this product now. What's really, uh, fascinating here is how often teams find themselves working on things that are not the highest priority and in an [00:06:00] agile software development project.

The thing that matters the most is a working product. And the thing that matters the most within that is the essential. Feature Epic theme or user story, whatever the killer app is in your product. You start there, you don't start with the login. You don't start with privacy and disclaimer, you don't start that any of those, cause they're really straightforward.

It's all about knowing what is number one on your priority list. And that's what the grooming sessions should do. You should be getting together as a team and collaboratively talking about and evaluating together. What's essential in this product and therefore organizing the backlog, all the issues in the backlog, you organize them accordingly.

So pay attention to make sure that you are focused on grooming towards working code. And secondly, making sure that it's the essential features that are working, you know, [00:07:00] as I said, you know, logging in and all those secondary pages FAQ. Those things are not tricky. Focus on the complex things that add the most value.

And that's a great way to start grooming your backlog. Now, the next thing that I mentioned is details and, uh, When you start you're, you're, you're going to add a bunch of, uh, issues and user stories and epics and themes and all that good stuff into something like JIRA. And there'll be a bunch of write-ups and something like confluence, which will give a broader, uh, more Wiki or Google docs kind of context behind what's in the backlog.

But. The really important thing here is make sure that the issues inside of the backlog, these are the individual items that make up the backlog, make sure they're written written up. Well, I mean the classic thing not to do is just to have the heading a [00:08:00] title of the issue and then you open it up and it's blank inside.

That's no use to anyone. So take time to make sure that the requirements are written up that may be attaching or linking. Relevant documentation. And I, and I said this earlier in the show, just make sure that a third person who came to this, let's say it's something for a developer that they could read this issue or user story.

And there is sufficient information for them to actually begin their work. If it's insufficient. You'll know because they have to call you and say, Hey, I don't understand. Where are those things that you mentioned? Uh, I don't understand why I would do it like that. And then that is the classic moment where, you know, the issue is not written up completely.

So make sure you take the time to put the detail into it. On the bigger projects you might find a business analyst writes this on really big projects. The business analyst and the product [00:09:00] owner will be. Always, always reviewing, editing, adding, and revising their issues in the backlog because they having more context around the product.

So this is no small task, adding the details into each of the issues that actually make up the backlog. Now, the backlog is obviously highly relevant to the sprint that you're working in. But my third tip for you is actually start. Uh, combining groups of work issues in the backlog and bundling them together for at least the next sprint.

If not the next couple of sprints, to give you an idea of some best practices, are I sat with somebody just the other day and we're in. September 8th. And I was reviewing all of the sprints for the rest of the [00:10:00] year with my colleague. So that was a lot, so let's make sure, um, that at least there's a couple in and as a benchmark, I think a great product owner or a great scrum master will actually have at least half a dozen, uh, sprints in there.

And guys. These will change. Um, but at least it's some sort of directional look at what's coming in the future. And of course you'll always come back and change and swap. In fact, um, you know, if you weren't doing that, it would be too easy. I would be worried if you weren't getting to a sprint in and doing some significant re-prioritizing.

And editing. So this is why, uh, if you do these three things, the grooming. Of what really matters and making sure that the top priorities are really there. Um, making sure there's detail in those issues and thinking [00:11:00] ahead, this is why the backlog becomes so important. I talked about it as being this fundamental tool and it really is because every morning everyone can jump on there maybe before or after your stand up.

And you know, it's Hackley, what's expected of you and. This is priceless in any project, be it agile or otherwise. So there you have it, the backlog, um, vastly underestimated, hugely important. Uh, I hope, uh, you've learned some goodies here on the show today about how it really to get the most out of your backlog in an agile software project.

And I look forward to having you joining us again on the show, and if you are really interested in agile, Hey. Jump over to bottom up.io because we have a ton of free master classes there. You can check those out and enjoy them at no charge. So there you go, everyone. That was our show on the backlog.

[00:12:00] We've got a couple more episodes of our agile software development series. We'll see you next time.

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047 Agile Team

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the bottom Mount skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO of quality science and we are at the last part of the people in teams, chapter of agile software development. And in this episode, we're going to talk about the development team. And previously we've talked about scrum master and the product owner.

Now we're going to talk about the team. This is the mighty engine. Of all that great work that's going to happen in your brand new software or digital product. And I think what is most important when you think about asking the question, what is a good agile team? There is really only one answer and that is that teams should be multi disciplined multidisciplined that they should come in.

It should [00:01:00] be like the 18, you know, it should be a cast of characters, springing different skills so that you can have a really diverse point of view. And that will help you really come up with some really innovative approach approaches to some simple problems or tackling the big overall pains and gains of your users.

Now as diverse as they might be in skills, what will bring them all together as a shared vision and commitment to the project. And, um, that's really essential when you have a multi discipline team, all gotta be excited, motivated. Fired up about the vision of what you're going to build committed to the project.

So let's uncover how you can span everything from deep work to collaboration in an agile team. Setting. All right. So yeah, let's talk about this team. Um, what's in the team [00:02:00] and like, what does multidisciplined look like? And, you know, the thing, when I think about all the different projects, um, an agile team is, can be anything from hardcore, uh, engineering.

Design, um, user experience. Um, I tell you what great BAS business analysts, uh, dev ops copywriting design and art delivery members. Um, I mean, Oh my gosh, there are so many different roles that can be inside different skills that could be, uh, in. This team and you could call upon experts. So let's say you're building a product, that's all about workouts.

So you get health and fitness [00:03:00] experts. You get physiotherapists, nutritionalists you name it, bring all of those people together. Now the trick in bringing them all together is to have this really come and go. So. You need, do need to make sure that they're actually excited around the idea of the product.

Like hello. Like it doesn't matter whether or not in the case of creating like a workout app, whether they're workout boffins, but if they're genuinely interested and compelled by the notion of Lexmark, let's make people more healthy fit and, well, that's really important because without a doubt, yes, we will go to what we call.

The Valley of darkness. And that is where you're not sure what you're going to build. The timeline's creeping up. Everyone's for real King out. And it's. This bond around a common goal that will kind of bring you altogether. [00:04:00] So I think that, you know, you need to make sure that, you know, whilst you bring that diverse cast of characters together, you have to ensure there's a common goal.

Now, some of the other really important things is. You got to communicate like crazy. And at the start of that is sharing what you're working on. Not only in the daily scrums, but making sure that people in other disciplines really have a sense of what you're doing and what you're contributing. And on the other side of that, I think as a receiver of these messages, you have to be genuinely interested in the work that others are doing.

Because if you understand the various disciplines that are contributing. To one single product. I think you're in a better place to integrate them, to bring, uh, the whole product together. So that is elegant, seamless, and just insanely intuitive rather than being really [00:05:00] clunky. And obviously, you know, A force fit between all those things.

So there's a bunch of things going on. There's this cast of characters fired up about a goal. They're all connecting and working in a similar way. And I wanted to take a moment to. Reflect on two ideas that I think drawing Mave the performance of a team. Now, if you are interested in, um, how agile teams work, uh, both in a detailed view and on a kind of a metal level, you should jump over to bottom up.io, where you can check out the full masterclass that we have.

It's it's all free. Well, you can sign up and, um, go really deep on some of these topics. But for this episode of the podcast, I really just want to share with you two ideas is around, uh, an agile development team and the people that build the product. Okay. First [00:06:00] idea. It's all about finding balance and this it's really common sense and it sounds really easy.

Yeah. When you talk about you, you know, how you think about your time, but finding the balance is actually really hard in a fast moving agile project. And this balance that I'm talking about, let's say you're a team member in an agile project. The balance that I'm talking about is between doing your deep work.

Your expert work either individually on a very small team and then your collaborative work, where you're often doing work sessions with other people from other disciplines in the project. And this harmony between deep work and collaborative work indicates. So much of whether a team is going to build a great product, because sometimes you see, let's say the archetypical [00:07:00] developer who doesn't really want to work with anybody else because they're too busy writing the code.

So they're just maxing out on deep work, but they might be spending time thinking about problems that if they maybe went and found a BA a UX or UI designer, uh, maybe even a dev ops person, Maybe just sharing the problem might half of the problem. Um, so sometimes there's a tendency to do a deep work and that makes it very challenging because you really do have the team operating as all these really small silos.

On the other hand. Sometimes there's just too many work sessions, too many meetings. There's no time for the work. So when I talk about the success of an agile team finding balance between deep work and collaborative work is. It is so important because if you can go do some deep work and then you bring it back to your colleagues, you jam [00:08:00] on it, you discuss it, get some feedback.

You go back, do some deep work, come back again from another working session. If you can build that, that cadence you'll find that you just fly, but there's an under 10 unintended consequence to the balance. Here is not only is your deep work thoughtful. But your collaborative work gives all the other team members a really good sense of what you're working on.

So it means their work will fit better with yours. So that's the first thing, finding the balance. It's a really fundamental challenge to a good team. So make sure you strive for finding that balance between deep and collaborative work and the last thought I have for you. Is to connect. And I mean, this from a point of view of be connected, um, during [00:09:00] the day, uh, be connected for your demos, for your retrospectives or common practices in an agile project, you should be doing your standups daily.

Um, but the other thing is you really need to make sure. That you are all talking the same language and let's say I'm working on. A feature and I give it a particular name, which has certain assumptions, certain user stories attached to it. If I'm not constantly connecting with others, like if I'm the designer, I need to talk to the developers.

And if I go too off on a tangent and I created a let's call it the headquarters a feature, and they're all calling it the dashboard, and then other people are calling it the status overview. Before, you know, it we're all tower of Babylon situation. So to [00:10:00] ensure that we are really. Talking the same language.

Always make sure that if you do a stand up in the morning, make sure that somewhere in between all that deep work, that you do have some sort of work session where you can connect with a one or a variety of your teammates. And, um, Importantly, if you're a designer, make sure you are bringing the developers along the journey.

Uh, as you work on the product, don't just dump it. When you're finished with the design and say, Hey, here it is. Or vice versa. If you're a developer connect, talk about the work, share the work, showcase the work to each other so that you can talk the same language. And if you've got that connection and if you've got that balance between.

Deep work and collaborative work. Then this diverse set of characters can truly deliver on the vision on the common goal [00:11:00] they have. So they haven't that this is the development team, this cast of characters, striving to build a better product service or business. I hope you've got some inspiration from this episode.

I hope you. Have from this bigger chapter on the defense front roles and people that are involved in an agile team, I hope you can see a role for yourself. And I hope you can better understand those around you. And all of this agile thinking is part of our view of the world, uh, and that the best products are truly built.

Bottom up and agile is a big pace of that. There's lots of other goodies, like design thinking, rapid prototyping, lean startup, which all fuse together in our bottom up methodology. So if you'd like to know more about that, just head over to dot IO, there's a ton of masterclasses and goodies over there. So I really thank you for spending your time and joining me to talk [00:12:00] about the development team.

And, uh, we've got lots of goodies coming up. We haven't finished the agile software development series yet, so that's thank you from me. And that's a wrap of the bottom up skills podcast.

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046 Agile Scrum Master

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I mike parsons I'm the CEO of quality assurance, and we continue how dive into agile and in particular, all the people and teams and good stuff that an agile project requires. And today we're talking about the scrum master, and this is the second role that we're really examining in the.

Previous episode, we did talk a lot about the product owner, and I think it's safe to say that the scrum master is the right hand person to the product owner. So I want you to think of this role of the scrum master in an agile software project is a bit like the orchestrator. You know, standing in front of all the different media who on their own couldn't really, uh, make a [00:01:00] great song, but together they can.

And the scrum master's job is all about being flexible. And adaptive on the crazy adventures of building a brand new product. So in this episode of the podcast, we're going to dive into the world of charting, this course, uh, chatting the course of each sprint and how the scrum master removes blockers. So the team can thrive.

Sounds pretty good. Right. And if you're really interested in sort of the people in team side of agile or. Agile. It's a whole, as a set of principles and scrum, you can jump over to bottom up.io, where we've got a free master class and you can jump in there, uh, downloaded or get the deck. And we go really deep on this, but let's for now continue our dive into this world of the scrum master.

And, uh, Sutherland the author of the book, scrum, [00:02:00] uh, really framed the role of scrum master really well. Uh, in his book, a scrum, he says the scrub master. The person in charge of running the process, ask each team member three questions. What did you do yesterday to help the team finish the sprint? So that's number one.

What will you do today to help the team finish the sprint? That's number two. And number three is what obstacles are getting in your way. And that's it. That's the whole meaning every day that the scrum master has with the team and really it's at the essence of their role, everything starts with those questions.

How are you doing on this sprint? What are you hoping to do today? And what's in your way, what are your blockers? And what's really interesting is you can do that on a project or what we do quality assurance. When we run our teams beyond a project, say a [00:03:00] marketing team or sales team and ops team. Well, like what are your goals for this week?

I E the sprint and what are the blockers that you're experiencing? And it's such an efficient way to frame how you're going to work. I think it helps us work faster and work smarter, but let's get back to the scrum master this break down this role, because it's so important because what the scrum master does is the scrum master creates transparency in the project.

And in particular in the sprint. So usually two to four weeks, probably closer to two. And that transparency is like, what are we working on? And what's next, it's complete. Um, they really bring, um, uh, timely reminder to scrum values, uh, about focusing on working, uh, Product working code and really protecting the team from too [00:04:00] many variations, removing blockers, and really being the centerpiece, um, to the daily operations of a project.

And, uh, in traditional terms, if you had been a project manager or project coordinator, The scrum master is a agile and scrums answer to that same, to that same role and a great scrum master. We'll have the ability to, to organize. And I mean, this is really important, um, to see how to break down the difference between themes and epics and user stories, to understand the tools and resources and the people that are required.

It's a fascinating. Executional hands on kind of role. So if you're. Really somebody who thrives in the opportunity to get things organized and all right. I [00:05:00] think that think of people who love putting labels on things or who love organizing bookshelves, you know, people who, when you look on the server on, on your, say your Google drive, they have really well organized folders are, and that's always a great indicator of a scrum master, but I think it's more than just organization.

I think because in an agile project we're continually adapting and refining and iterating. This idea of being flexible is essential because if you're too kind of stuck in your way, which would be a very classic project management office waterfall kind of thing, uh, you're going to really struggle in an agile project because it's so iterative.

Um, and one of the key things. You'll have to consider on an agile project is really weighing out highly, uh, you know, technical or highly interpretive things such as [00:06:00] creativity, design, that sort of thing with all sorts of logic about. Time allocation of resources and so forth. So the ability to span those two worlds is really, really critical.

And as all ways, uh, as you'll hear me, you talk about a ton on bottom up skills is communication is at the heart of this. If every day the team is not connected. Through the scrum masters facilitation things can go off track real quick. So as all of these things are spinning around you, the technology, the design, the stakeholders, and all of that communication.

I think that the form of leadership that the scrum master brings is insane. Calmness. Calm under pressure and sticking to the plan because this is really, really essential. If you've got a plan for the sprint, [00:07:00] don't allow forces to come in and rock the boat. Keep everybody. You know, sometimes you just have to remind people of why we're doing it, right?

These user stories, these epics, these themes in this sprint and not others. And that's, that's a sort of, it's almost a form of protection. I'd be yeah. Teflon, coating around the team so that they can be autonomous. They can focus on the work. So let's talk about the work of a scrum Mazda. Now we've talked about, you know, managing daily standups and scrums.

We've talked about all of the communication and the resource planning, making sure that user stories are planned well in the backlog. I want to find what I think a complete. Sort of Ninja like scrum master looks like, and when I've seen and worked with great scrum masters, sort of three [00:08:00] things that they, they do, which make them.

The cream of the crop. The first one is that they, they really get into the planning of the sprint and they get the teams buying contributions to what's in, in terms of the user stories. And I think that they are constantly aware of what must be in the product and what is nice to have and having that ability to plan the sprint like that.

Creates enormous comfort for all the team members, but real clarity. So people are not, you know, weighing up ambiguous or challenging, um, topics. There's a lot of clarity about what we must have. So planning the sprint is the first one. The second one is creating a rhythm now. What's really important is when you bring all these talented people pulled together, you've got to kind of create, um, a sense [00:09:00] of harmony, rhythm and momentum.

And it can take a little while to get going. And if you're a scrum master, there's all sorts of things you can do. And here's what I see. Great scrum masters do. Number one is they catered at individual work styles. Me, for example. I do my best and deep work in the mornings. So I hate, hate, uh, sync up meetings, scrums, uh, stand ups in the morning that interrupt my quality time.

That's just me personally, but a great scrum master will kind of try and adapt and worked around the individual work styles. Uh, you know, I'm working with someone at the moment who does their best work quite late in the evening. So I just, um, you know, wait for the goodies in the morning. The second part of this creating a rhythm is making sure that we're always aligned about.

What Matt is, [00:10:00] um, how we're working and why this scrum demo product is important. And, um, This rhythm, uh, is created because you're highly aligned around those things. So you can't neglect. Um, you know, if you're a good scrum master, you can be in the details, but you actually, you know, it's funny, you have to remind people of why we're building this product.

It's highly underrated as a driver of people that creates momentum. And lastly, obviously you should have your daily standups or scrums, but the other thing. That the attention of the scrum master must go to his working sessions between, uh, different individuals. That's really important. And lastly, the third thing, so the first two, let's just recap.

They play in the spring and they create the rhythm. Okay. So imagine those things are taking place. Now it's time for the third one, they actually track the work. And my simple test here is a great [00:11:00] scrum master. Doesn't receive a document. Or, um, a, a prototype or design or get an update from a developer that they've committed a new, uh, feature or Epic, um, and just say, Oh, cool.

And pass on the information. I think the true test of a scrum master is they actually look inside the document, the container, they actually look at the code, um, And I can't tell you that this attends and to the work itself, making sure, sure. That if someone said, yeah, I'll get you the designs for that Epic, that they don't received the zip file on 49, unzip it look through and.

Check it for a couple of, of the key criteria to which you're building this product. This is essential. And if things are complex, the other thing in this idea of tracking the work is [00:12:00] you can get peer review done. And, um, I think it's essential, uh, to make sure that if someone's just built, uh, A database, make sure you get one of the other developers, not necessarily in your product, but in the organization.

Take a look at the architecture and to give feedback, um, great way to improve the quality of the work. And lastly, in terms of tracking the work, sometimes it's a little too easy to reduce or even cut testing because you're up against a tight deadline. Don't cut testing. That's a great way to ensure the work is good too.

So. That's a scrum master planning, sprints, creating rhythm, and really tracking the work. I hope what you can see here is that the scrum master is just the orchestrator, the, the person that gets things humming. And if they are doing a great job, not only. Do the individual team [00:13:00] members get time and space to do the things that they're best at, but the product owner has the data, has the work, has the effort in order to weigh up.

Are we building a great product? And that in the end is what it's all about. So I hope you've enjoyed this little journey into the world of a scrum master. If it sounds like you, you should jump into our master class@bottomup.io, if it sounds like someone you need in the team. Well, we're going to be talking about more members of the team in the following episode.

So you can always go into our back catalog of the bottom up skills podcast. And here's talking about all the tools and people required to do agile software. Develop it. Okay. That's a wrap of this episode of the bottom up skills podcast. We'll catch you next time.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass in is I'm the CEO of quality plans. And we are taking a new turn, a new chapter in our agile software development series. We are going to the heart of things, the most important episode. Our agile software development series. And we are going to talk about the key role, the role that defines more of the success, the direction, the momentum of an agile software product project.

And that role is the product owner. So this idea of somebody. That truly owns the product. They are the beating heart. They are the central force of an agile project. And I can tell you that it's not a role for the faint heart. It is complex. It is. Big stakes, because as you're pulling a lot of different things together, and I want to talk about how they think what they have to weigh up and some of the key activities that they do within a project.
And I will say this, that if you are. In the world of software and technology and design. If you are interested in, um, a career in the world of technology and product design, there is no more important role than the product owner. And these are the most scarce. People ever, because it is a little, a little bit left brain, right.

Brain. And it requires quite a bit of experience and it is. It's intense. Um, and so this is why they're scarce, rarely cited in the wilderness. They are product owner, and that's why it's so important that I share with you. This thinking to hopefully inspire you, inform you. Maybe you can become a product owner, or if you are one.
I hope that this only goes to confirm to you not only the key value that you create, but maybe gives you a refund on the importance of the role. Okay. So we will do some other roles as well in this series. So make sure you stay June for the next episode, but the product owner is the backbone. But we've also got people like the scrum master.
We have different team members. We actually have a whole range of stakeholders that are involved, but all of them, all of them, a guided by inspired, by supported by. The product owner, because the product owner is somebody at their heart who is the mini CEO of the product. They are the true leader of the product.
And as any good servant leader would be, they are open. Uh, they are unbiased and they take on board the contributions of everybody in the team in order to get the very best product and to make the best decisions now, um, what is essential is that there's sort of an unspoken thing about product owners.
And I think this idea of them becoming the driving force. Of the product. And what I mean by that is there are going to be moments, which I call the Valley of darkness, where there's a lot of uncertainty in the project and everyone's like, Oh my gosh, it's complex. We don't have much time. We don't know exactly what we're trying to do.

The things we thought we'd do. And it working. This is going to happen and it will happen even more if you're building a first-generation product and it will happen more. If you're trying to do something that's ambitious, you really trying to shift the needle. So. Make sure that product owners, whether you're a product owner or you're recruiting product owners, that they are people who take extreme ownership, extreme ownership that is inclusive, not that is charging off into the wilderness and leaving everyone behind, but truly brings.
People together. Now I want to talk about the kind of three key things, activities that the product owner does. So we're kind of told a little bit about their mindset and behaviors. Let's talk about like the things that they actually do. The first one is managing the backlog. The backlog is the work to be done today this week, this sprint, and it is.

Constantly changing and being reprioritized and is the product owner who makes the final call there. So managing the backlog job, number one, job. Number two, very related to this is working out what is going to be in which release of, uh, The product or what we're doing in sprint one versus sprint two and looking at the overall roadmap that we're going on, whether it's two MVP, Bita V one V two V three.
In one, two months, one, two years, this idea of release management and making the call about what's in and what's out, what's serving the greater good. So that's the thing, big thing, release management. And the third one is stakeholder management because in an agile project, you can have a lot of different stakeholders.
Everything from exec sponsors, uh, expert contributors, um, brains trust, um, direct product owner, project owner. Uh, you could have business analysts, design, thinkers, user interface, designers, Java developers, dev ops, you name it. They could all be in there and they all spin around the product owner. The product owner, they are the guiding light for the rest of the team.
So it's really important. It's a pivotal role. And if you're excited about it, I really do encourage you to research Google a way around the role of a product owner, because they're incredibly hard to find they take a long time to cultivate and they're very rigid. And so a lot of companies, they product owners and just simply can't get them.
Now, um, I just want to finish by looking at the main. Thinking the critical thinking, the first principles by which this product owner is working and it's really the harmony let's, let's look at, uh, things you've seen in, in the product team and in the business on a day to day basis, there is a balancing act and it could be between what your UX expert is telling you and your tech experts telling you, and as well, the business owner.

And so the, the, the product owner is the intersection of that conversation. They're the conduit, the balancing act, and the decider said differently. They are balancing between user needs, business requirements and technical constraints. Or we, if we want to take this a level higher, they are weighing up is what we're building desirable for users.
Feasible through technology or viable for the business. And as I elevate it, what you will begin to sense is that the product owner has one of the most exciting roles because they get to play in these three distinct areas. And on the flip side, the greatest challenge is you have to play in those three areas, and this is not easy.
So. This is why you have to have this paradigm. Really clear in your mind, you have to have the right sort of behaviors in order to do it because everything comes to the product owner. Sometimes teams tend to have their, a business analyst is the product owner. Sometimes the UX person, sometimes one of the developers, what I've actually found that if it is a big.
To medium sized project that the product is I own a row is a dedicated role outside of those other key contributor roles. It is a standalone role. So. If you want a North star around how to build your career, I'd say if you love product and you love being in those worlds, head for a product owner, if you are a product owner, please know this is such a tough job to weigh up left and right brain things to weigh up a technical constraint versus does this really add up for the business and Hey.

Are we building something that uses love, but I will tell you this one thing that if you, if you can really adopt this paradigm and help with managing the backlog and stakeholders and the release management, you'll truly be. An absolute huge contributor to your organization. You'll create a ton of value.
You'll help us go out into the work and build products that are really worth building products that really solve a problem. So they go, that's the first crucial role in a agile scrum team. I'm going to take you through a whole bunch of them in subsequent episodes of the show, but I hope you've enjoyed delving into the key role, the product owner in agile and scrum teams.
So that's it for the bottom up skills podcast. And we'll see you next time. That's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom map skills podcast on my passings CEO of and
we are getting into the tools of agile software development. Now, quick note here. Not getting
into the actual coding tools, but we're actually getting into the tools by which we can manage
projects in an agile way. And I'm very excited to introduce two tools to you today.
They're called JIRA. And confluence, and I'm particularly excited about sharing those because
they are made by my compatriot Australian friends. So what fantastic software it is, and I'll do
my good, proud Australian. Um, Tip of the hat to the team at Atlassian, you make JIRA and
[00:01:00] confluence. So, um, why, why is JIRA and confluence so important?

And why have I selected it as the key in terms of tools to managing agile software development
projects? Well, I have to say that when you are doing an agile project, I think the most important
thing to realize is intense. It's fast. Um, you've got a clear direction that you have to go. You
have to move fast.
It's a small team and there's this high degree of ownership that's required. And I think also what
you have to realize is that agile is a. Is an idea. And particularly if you're using scrum as your
method to do agile, where you have to trust in the process, and you've got to trust in the process
because unlike waterfall agile says, Hey, look at the [00:02:00] start of the project.
We don't know everything. So if we have a good process, we know in the end, we'll answer all
the questions that we're going to have. And so at the heart of that, there are kind of two big jobs
to be done by the individuals in an agile team. One, they have to collaborate, they have to work
on stuff together.

And two, it's all about managing your tasks, your contributions in your role. And later on in this
webcast, um, in this podcast series, we're going to talk about all the different roles, but there's
these two jobs, collaboration and tasks and tasks obviously kind of live in a greater workflow.
Now, if you're going to trust in the process of agile and scrum and you want to collaborate and
you want to get your tasks done, then confluence and JIRA.
Uh, the essential tools. Now, if you're a little bit more advanced, [00:03:00] you could be
adopting some additional, uh, tools you could be, um, uh, pulling together some, some ad-ons,
uh, here, but for the vast majority of people, you will find that confluence is graded, helping you
collaborate on your thinking in your ideas.
And JIRA is just great at prioritizing tasks and the work to be done. Now, the great beauty is
they work Batman and Robin because they're made by the same company. So if you want to
work in an agile way, if you want to deploy scrum, you go to kick open an instance of confluence
in JIRA. And what I want to do now is take you on a quick tour through the roles that they play
and why, why they're important.

So let's start with confluence. Um, the best way to think about confluence is it's almost like
Google docs meets a Wiki and it's specific [00:04:00] obviously for your project. And I like
confluence because it's a great way to edit your work, um, and to capture your thinking. And I
think it's really essential that uses.
Uh, that collaborate is in a project can work no matter where they are, they can accomplish
more together by, um, bringing the thinking together. A great example of this is, um, let's say
that we've got an idea for a certain feature. That idea has to be documented. It has to be tested
and validated and brought to life.

And you know, the thing is that, um, You will be amazed at how important it is to be able to look
back somewhere and find out why are we building this feature? How do we get to it? And what's
all the related information to it. It sounds a bit abstract [00:05:00] now, but when you're in a
process object, if you have this in a centralized place where everybody can understand.
What we've decided to do and why you can get on with more of the design and the
developments. You can see people's comments. Um, you can see the kind of story behind what
you're doing, and this alignment means that you can then focus more on doing great design,
great code and bringing things together. If you don't have this.

In a central place. What happens is you end up finding yourself, having all these calls and
meetings because people are, we're really on the same page and that's what conflict, souls.
And what's so fun is that putting the thinking behind a user story feature and Epic, a theme,
right? All that a backstory can then elegantly fit into this other tool.
[00:06:00] JIRA. And what JIRA does for you is at its heart. It is all about getting work, done the

task itself. And you know, the thing is we can have great task management for ourselves, but
here's the thing. How do others know what you're working on? And if they don't know what
you're working on, What has to happen is everybody has to have more calls and more
meetings.
Are you working on that? What, what are you working on right now? What's up for review.
What's complete. What's in your next to do list. If you don't have your, uh, tasks and workflow
centralized, then you end up spending all this time, just updating and synchronizing between
team members. And so what JIRA does a great job of doing is getting every member of the
team on the same [00:07:00] page as to what we're doing now.

What's next, what stuff is finished and ready for review and what stuff has been reviewed,
tested, validated, and can be marked as complete. So this planning and tracking of our workflow
is an essential part of an agile team because they move so fast. Particularly now most teams
are virtual and remote.
It's essential because if it wasn't there, you'd be wasting all that time. Like I talked about. So
these are two tools that are absolutely essential. So you have the backstory in confluence, you
have the dues, you have the activities, the tasks, um, stacked up in JIRA. Now in JIRA. What
we generally do is organize this as a backlog.
And we put this backlog of activities into a sprint, and this helps us track what we're doing. It
sees the general productivity of the team, and it brings all of the, [00:08:00] where the hell are
we into one single place. Now I just want to spend a quick moment to outline the key things. But
if you're working in this agile scrum way, particularly when you're organizing things in JIRA,
you're going to talk about four concepts around the work.
The smallest, most practical thing is a user story. And that's a requirement down to the pixel
down to the click of what's going to happen. In a screen in a moment of interaction for the user
that then gets bundled up into epics, which tend to be a little bit more, um, uh, common, bigger
feature sets rather than specific little interactions.

You then have an initiatives, um, bucket. I don't use those a lot, but the big one, uh, that I
certainly use is themes. These are, if you've got a product, um, a product might be built of, uh,
five, six themes. 2030 epics and [00:09:00] hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of users. This
architecture theme initiative, Epic story.
Is absolutely the currency, the vocabulary, the language of scrum and agile when you're using
these tools. And you really gotta spend some time getting into, into that. You can, um, obviously
if you are really interested in that kind of thing, jump over to bottom up.io, because we do a big
breakdown in our agile masterclass.

And you can learn a lot more about it, but this really is the key thing. And if there was one last
thought to leave you with the absolute conversation every day, every hour is where are we with
the user stories? Because this is the smallest, most measurable part, an agile project who, so
there you go. The, the two golden, uh, Australian based Australian design and manufactured
tools, JIRA and [00:10:00] confluence, they are absolutely essential and they will help you.
You know, really wrestle with these ideas of epics and user stories, bring an agile software
development project to life. And we all know that this is the best, best way to build products in
the modern age. So then you have, I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the bottom up skills
podcast and going deep into the tools, agile software development.
We'll catch you next time. On the bottom up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass things. I'm the C E
O of quality wins and we are rocking along. We are in the next episode of our agile software
development series. And this time we're going to get into the different types and flavors of agile.
Now in the previous step episode, we really dug into some of the high level.
You know, a primary thinking behind agile, which is around values and principles and how it's all
about being small, focusing on writing the code, doing the design and going fast. And. Whilst
these values and these principles. So this really well in understanding not only how to design
teams, but I would say you can design companies [00:01:00] around this whole idea.

Once you get into the practice of agile, what's quite remarkable is there's millions and millions of
permutations and variations of agile. And this is where sometimes people get confused. And this
is where unlike design thinking, which has a clear kind of universal path math pioneered by the
Stanford D school.
In this case, this is a much bigger practice, much more commonly used. Um, it has, um, You
know, a history of being related to not only lean, but manufacturing processes in the fifties, in
the sixties. And as a result of this, that we actually see this huge variance, these massive
portfolios of different types of way to do agile.

So I want to take you through a journey through some of those explaining. Uh, just the, the
general difference between these [00:02:00] so that you can start to orientate yourself around it.
What I'm also going to do is really call out probably the two primary flavors of agile software
development that you'll either have heard of.
You might know, or you will run into if you're working in the world of technology. So now we're
going to go. Into the practice, the practice of agile and the crazy thing is that you could easily
count beyond 40 different methodologies. These are ways to practice agile and they all have
different sorts of names.
Now we're going to look at these and I obviously, you know, I wish I could take you through
them all. Um, In fact, I wish I even understood them all because there's so many, but I'm going
to give you a general sense of how they work. [00:03:00] And then what we're going to do is
focus on two particular flavors, which is scrum and Kanban.

And so we'll go into those. But first, before we get to those, I want to kind of paint you a picture
of, uh, the, um, These different areas in the world, world of agile. Now the first one is one that
you might have heard, um, that was employed at Zappos. Um, a really famous pioneering
company. They do a lot of stuff in a radically different way, and they've actually, uh, taken a
flavor of agile.
You know, which has its hallmarks and origin in this idea of, you know, self organizing small
teams. And they took that. To an extreme, and that's what we call Holacracy. And Holacracy is a
form of decentralized management and [00:04:00] organizational governments. So this means.
It's quite, uh, it's, it's very similar to what we call radical management.
Um, it's related to theory of constraints, um, management 3.0, but what you have to imagine it,
the key key of hello Chrissy and this whole body of agile methods is where you make the entire
organization. Self-organizing. And it doesn't have a traditional commanding troll approach. It
doesn't have anything like command and control.
There's no waterfall. There's no top down. It's very radical. It's okay. Icing in small distributed
self-organizing decentralized groups. It's called. Holocracy have a look. Um, there's lots has
been written around what, um, Zappos has done in the U S they're probably one of [00:05:00]
the pioneering Holacracy companies, but what's really fascinating about this.

This is really inspired and born out of agile methodology and agile thinking, agile values and
principles. So there you go. So this is one big bucket. Of the agile world, that sort of model
decentralized, um, way of organizing Holacracy. Yeah. Being the, sort of the showcase there.
So now I want to move on to sort of enterprise, um, Kind of a thing I want to move towards how
you might see agile in a more continuous, ongoing manner.
This would be, um, uh, an approach best used in enterprise. Um, you know, when you want to
create that enterprise rhythm and you want to do deploy it an approach that's around the idea of
improvement. So [00:06:00] you've probably, you may have heard of enterprise scrum. Uh, you
may have heard of Spotify is what we call squatter.
Effication. Uh, again, this has sort of an organizational flavor to it. The difference between this

and say the Holacracy approach is this still has the central governance still has the enterprise at
the center, so it's less decentralized. Um, and, um, you know, another great example of this
more enterprise flavor, um, is the Macado method, which is all about.
Continuous improvements on existing software systems. So incremental, make it 1% of each
sprint. And over time you have a better organization. And what's quite interesting is that there
are a lot of European origins have adopted this using Spotify. As this sort of poster child, if you
will, of this approach and this Macado method, or, um, X [00:07:00] scale is another kind of
flavor of this enterprise version.

Um, this has been, um, really quite successful. And so if you have a look at Spotify
quantification, and you're really interested in implying this continuous improvement approach,
then just Google around and you'll find some, some really interesting stuff around this. All right
now, the next one I want to go to is a, what we call more of a lean startup, um, more of an
extreme manufacturing, agile unified process flavor.
This is where at the hot we're starting to use some of the principles of. Just in time
manufacturing, uh, only writing code once it's been tested and validated, or as in lean startup is
experimenting continuously to validate your hypothesis before you build [00:08:00] stuff. Now,
why this is so interesting is obviously the risks with manufacturing.

If you start building the wrong thing and you've got your build of materials and you've got the
wrong components that haven't been tested, what this agile methodology, um, uh, grouping
does is try to de risk some of those bigger investments. And particularly if you look at the origin
of lean startup, lean startup was born because.
When Eric Reese wrote the book, he talked about spending a lot of money on his startup on a
bad idea. They built a bad idea in a great way. Because they didn't have that testing validation.
They didn't have that continuous experimentation to make sure that they are going in the right
way. So this is like the third big bucket okay.
Of agile methods. Um, so you can look into that. And I think the starting [00:09:00] point here, it
has to be go read the book by Eric Reese, lean startup. Okay. So now I've left the biggest and
the most popular, uh, version of agile methodologies. And that is scrum. Scrum is easily, uh, the
most popular, you know, Informal studies say that it can be anywhere up to 70% of the practice
of agile ends up being a, a version of scrum.
Uh, and there was some sort of related, um, kind of, um, Versions of the methodology. You've
got obviously Kanban, which I've mentioned. You've got crystal, um, and, um, some forms of
extreme programming. Um, they all largely coalesce around a more scrum, like, uh, approach.
And I think scrum for me has the focus.

Mostly on the team [00:10:00] and, uh, having a small autonomous team and it also has a
certain rhythm to it. And there's a really big focus on the rhythm of working. So I want to zoom
into this because, uh, kind of very related to scrum is combine and they use a number of similar,
similar tools and techniques. I think the most important thing to know about scrum in the reason
why it's so popular is that it works effectively with time constraint.
And so it's all about time boxing, a two to four weeks sprint over. You know, a series of maybe
three, six, nine sprints to deliver a piece of software. There's a lot of rituals in scrum, kickoff,
standups reviews, retrospectives, all that kind of stuff. And, uh, everybody is working together.
In a particular rhythm and it's timeboxed, this is why scrum is very successful [00:11:00] in a
business setting because Hey, in the end, we all have a deadline to meet, and this is really the
preeminent, a flavor of agile.

Now you will see some great things, uh, in a combine particularly about how to prioritize and
know where work is. Um, now the key difference between Kanban and scrum is, is a little bit
looser. So it's not really working with fix length sprints instead. It's focused on the tasks
themselves. Yeah. They only released code when it's finally ready.
And so you can start to see here that in its purest form, it's a bit harder for an enterprise to
digest because it's like, Hey guys, when are you actually going to deliver something? And it has
this, um, Really [00:12:00] powerful idea about this continuous improvement, but it doesn't
standardize all of those things like kickoff, standups reviews, and sprints.
It's a bit more organic and it's a bit more looser now, whatever flavor of agile works for you, I
think the most important thing. To do is to really understand that there are many different ways
you can do agile. So I hope I've taken you through those four big buckets, and I hope I've
inspired you to go and check out maybe Holacracy or the Spotify squad suffocation model, or

maybe you'll go pick up a copy of Eric Reese's lean startup.
And if you're really ready to get going, I think he could do no wrong in starting with implementing
some of those scrum practices. That we mentioned. Okay. Well, I hope I've given you a little bit
of a sense of the spectrum of agile software development. I hope it's provoked some interesting
ideas. I hope it's inspired.
And if you want to follow up on [00:13:00] anything you've learned in this podcast, you can head
over to the bottom up.io when you've got. The master classes in a whole lot. All right guys and
gals, that is a, another episode of the bottom up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom mat skills podcast. And Mike, since I'm the CEO of
quality science and we are once again, continuing our adventure. With agile software
development. And I hope you're enjoying this series so far, and I hope that you're discovering
some of the power of agile as an approach.

And today we're going to talk about values and principles that actually build up the idea of agile
software development and. The reason this is so important is the greatest thing about agile is it
has values and principles. And the most challenging thing is it has these values and principles,
and they often get confused as methodologies and.
[00:01:00] Yeah, it gets a little bit hazy and foggy in the world of agile. And, um, I want to kind of
cut through the conversation and give you some signal through the noise and help you better
understand how these values and principles really play out. And I want to kind of share with you
some of my, my favorite ones and how I've I found them to work in real life on real projects,
building software, ambitious first-generation products.

So I really want to. Sort of give you sort of my, my lessons learned from these values and
principles as well. And just remember if you're interested in the master class, where we go much
deeper into agile, just jump over to bottom up.io, where you can find master classes on agile
design thinking and a whole bunch more.
It's all totally free. So just jump over [00:02:00] there and start up an account. All right. Let's get
back into values and principles of it, agile and you know, the funny thing. About, uh,
understanding where agile really comes from is it's pushing off against the, the old school. Uh,
the traditional way of building software, which is generally been referred to was waterfall, and it
was slow, bureaucratic, and you'd often get bogged down in.

A lot of details that actually in the end, they didn't actually turn out to be the right approach. And
so the crazy thing is, um, where agile comes from is busting all of those problems that we have
with traditional software. So let's get into it and let's have look at the world of agile as it retains
to these full.
Specific values. So here they are value. Number one that builds up. This is like first [00:03:00]
principles okay. Of agile software development. Number one is that individuals and interactions
prioritized over processes and tools. Number two working software is what we want over lots
and lots of documentation.
Number three, we always focus on customer collaboration or, you know, the partner in our
project over contracts and paperwork. And number four is responding to change rather than just
following the plan. Now I want to break each of these, but they are really brilliant because they
solve so many problems.
From the top. If you want to focus on individuals and interactions, I cannot tell you, this is the
critical thing of agile. Uh, if you've got a small autonomous team building an ambitious new
product, it is all down to the key ways that [00:04:00] a product to own a business. Alice, a
designer. Um, you know, engineers, you name it, how these people work together, not just
update on their status, but how they look at the facts, how they look at the scope.
They look at the user stories and really work through each and every detail together. So you
really want to prioritize these individuals and how they interact with each other really, really
important. The second one, working software is more important than the comprehensive
documentation. The key thing here is your North star as if you've got great working software that
you're testing with users.

That is the problem. Anything that you focus on in agile, you can always come back to
documentation. But the source of truth is working software and particularly working software.
That's being [00:05:00] tested with users. This is essential. So you don't get caught up trying to
have lots of nice documents and binders full of documents, but the software actually isn't that
good.
You switch it around and you focus on working software. Now the third one is. Really about
collaborating, not only internally, but externally with all of your stakeholders. In fact, this is one
of the most time consuming yet. It is still the, one of the most important things that you need to
do is whoever the stakeholders, whether they're internal stakeholders and or external, bring
them into the picture, make sure.
Whether it's through scrums demos or showcasing the work as you do it together, make sure

that you employ the right collaboration experiences for all stakeholders. Often a lot of
stakeholders are [00:06:00] left out of the picture. They turn up at the end. They don't like what
they see because they haven't been able.
To contribute. And lastly, responding to change. It's such a, such a fundamental idea in agile.
Um, and the reason that it's such a strong value is one of the real pitfalls of waterfall is at the
beginning of a technology and software project. Someone would write. I requirements and
specifications document.
And then he is later when the software's finally delivered. It turns out that those requirements,
uh, those, uh, functionalities were incorrect or incomplete. And so agile is about continuously
refining them. Now that can feel a little bit chaotic, that can also be a little bit stressful. And there
are ways of dealing with that.
But fundamentally it's about being adaptive to what the best product is for customers. So those
four values are at the cornerstone cornerstone [00:07:00] of how to think about agile. And if
you're thinking now, Oh, geez, Mike, but actually what do we do? I'm going to give you some of
the principles, but I promise you throughout this series, we're going to get very specific into
individual roles and tasks, but it's essential to understand these values and principles.

Okay. Let's keep going. I'm just going to give you a couple of my favorite principles. If you go to
bottom up.io, you can get the whole list of all the principles in the agile master class. But I'm just
going to give you a couple that I really like. So one of the principles by which you can start to do
and to prioritize your actions in an agile project is always satisfying customers through early and
continuous delivery of value work.
I am a big fan, as you know, by now, if you've listened to the design thinking series on the
podcast, if you've listened to any of my work on bottom, up in any of the mass classes, work
with users, the [00:08:00] true Testa. Yeah. The true judge of a good product is your ability to
satisfy the end user. So focus on that and try and do it as fast, early and continuous as possible.
This is. This takes all the risk out. This takes out all the uncertainty, because if you have good
food back from users, you'll always know where to go. Now another thing about software
projects is they can get big and overwhelming. So this second principle I really like is always
break down, work into smaller tasks.
And the user story is at the very, very micro level of an agile project project. And I encourage
you really to have great epics themes and user stories when you're breaking down your work.
And if you want to know how to do that, we'll be tackling that later in this series as well. She
goes quickly to other principals that I, uh, I really do like, um, big one for me is [00:09:00]
recognizing that the best work emerges from self-organized teams.
Now this is a classic paradigm of freedom versus responsibility. So you do need people that
take a high degree of ownership in agile teams. But the message here is put people together,
empower them, let them self organize and the best work will come. So the critical thing to doing
that though, is making sure we put the right type of people in there.

And lastly, One of my other favorite agile principles is providing motivated individuals with the
environment and the support that they need, and then really just trusting them to get the job
done. So this can be tough time, space, resources, the tools to do the job. Um, and if you give
those to motivated people, you will be amazed at how well they can create a high performing
team.
Now. One of the critical things that I would encourage you to do is if you want to give those
[00:10:00] people support is to employ something like a brains trust, where they can come to
you when they want with problems, challenges that they're facing and that they can present, uh,
the problem for feedback suggestions.
Tips and tricks. And this should be really not like a direct reporting, a manager to subordinate
environment. It should be the opposite. It should, uh, provide these individuals with the chance
to come for help and support. And if you do that, you'll really start to build an incredible amount
of momentum and velocity in your next agile project.

So there you go. We've got values and principles now for agile. Don't worry because if you're
thinking, okay, Mike, that was pretty broad. That was pretty big picture because in the next
episode, we're going to break down agile into methodologies. We're going to talk about all the
great stuff, whether it's the Macado [00:11:00] method, Holacracy.
Well, the big one scrum, which you might have actually used or heard about yourself. So there
you go. These values and principles, they set us on the North star and it's from this that you can

not only build great project teams. You could even build a great company. So I hope this has
helped you kind of orientate a little bit more around the world, agile software development, and I
hope you're ready.
To go and build a bold, ambitious, great new product. So whether you're a designer, developer
or entrepreneur, I hope you'll finding the right skills, tips and tricks to go out there and do the
very best work possible. Alright, that's it for values and principles in agile software development,
I'll catch you next time on the bottom up skills.
Podcasts.

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040 agile intro raw
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the butter map skills podcast. I might pass since I'm the CEO
of quality science. And I'm a little excited today because we're starting a whole new series.
We're going to dive into the world of agile software development. So we've got like a 10 part
series coming up for you. Where we're going to explore the entire universe of agile and break it
down into some super handy, practical tips that you can use in your job.
And, uh, I hope you enjoyed the design thinking series that we've just completed. Um, along
with design thinking, agile software development is. So, so damn him. I, I really, I cannot
overstate the dramatic change it's made for me in helping [00:01:00] build brand new products.
And you know, the reason why agile matters, the reason why we should be thinking about it,
talking about it is agile is the perfect response to that.
Old approach to building software and products, which is called a waterfall. It was slow,
bureaucratic, and completely non adaptive. I, it was just do the plan, whatever we agreed. In
fact, agile would hold software projects. Ha but you would literally make sense the requirements
at the beginning of a project and you wouldn't.
Change those. And what was crazy about waterfall is you would only really embrace a user
testing just before you launched or just after you launched. And the great news about agile. It
turns a lot of things up on its head. Um, but [00:02:00] what it does is it brings testing with users
into the heart of every few weeks.
So this means that you can get more, uh, focus on, um, I product that actually works by being
customer focus, the products going to be higher quality. And by being in there more of a
continuous delivery, uh, mode, if you will, you're going to be able to get way more engagement
from the team. Engagement from users.
And I think it's far more than that. Just a way of building software. I think it's a way of organizing
companies, but I'm going to tell y'all a lot more about that over the course, the coming weeks.
So make sure that you, if you're going to enjoy this series, make sure that you stay tuned for the
entire 10 plus episodes of our agile software development series.
So I K I've [00:03:00] been talking up a pretty big game on agile, and you'll be wondering to
yourself, but what exactly is it? Well, let's set the context for agile software development and
moreover agile ways of working. And I want to you to think of agile as a set of principles. That
help teams build products at speed and it's super nimble and iterative.
Okay. So it's a set of principles. Now, this is really simple because what we'll discover later is
sometimes people get mixed up and think agile is a myth technology. It's actually a set of
principles. There are some great agile methodologies, and we definitely going to talk about
those as well, but at the heart.
I want you to imagine this is about small teams going super fast and probably speaking, you just
get out of their way. You give them empowerment, you give them a clear vision to hit [00:04:00]
and let them go for it. So let's talk a little bit about where. Agile hails from like all good things. It
didn't come out of a void.
Um, in fact, it builds a lot upon if you want to go really back into management theory, it goes
back to some of Peter Drucker's very famous thinking about the art of maximizing, the amount
of work that is actually not done. So this minimalist idea of only building things that work only
focus on core value for your user and for the business.
This goes. Back decades. Um, and at the real Genesis of management theory and management
strategy in the postwar era now moving on from that, I think one of the most, um, Important
examples of the early, early, early part of not only agile, but I would also say, uh, lean [00:05:00]
methodology is the Toyota production system house.
Now this Toyota production system was really at the heart of house. You know, Japanese auto
manufacturing leptons of the scene in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, and really challenged
the incumbent traditional manufacturers out of Detroit USA. And they had a couple of crazy
ideas. They focused on really shortening the time to market, really focusing on continuous
nature of manufacturing and, uh, it really standardized a whole, all new way of working.
You may have heard of just in time. Manufacturing that went on to inspire, uh, companies such
as Dell as well. And so it really was something that Toyota embraced in the early fifties. And not
only did that really establish the value of working in an agile way. And it also inspired a lot of
lean thinking, which we will [00:06:00] do a separate master class on cause that's jam packed

with goodies as well.
Um, so just kind of wrapping up some of the background. We've got Drucker and Toyota, some
real cornerstones of agile, but actually a whole bunch of guys got together. Uh, and this was
where we saw, um, the transition from being a manufacturing or management theory and
applying agile into software. So February, 2001, there is a ski resort in Utah called the snowbird
ski resort.
And basically, um, A bunch of dudes got together and came up with this idea of an agile
manifesto. And this is really inspired the principles and values of agile. And these are the kind of
three pillars of, of the history and the context of agile Drucker Toyota. And this manifesto, we
can plot everything that we do today back.
To, uh, these [00:07:00] three inspiring these three driving factors to create modern, agile
software development. And I just, for a moment, we'd love to get. Specific in talking about what
agile is and I'm going to is a form of agile, agile method called scrum to describe it. And we're
going to keep coming back to it time and time again.
And we're going to break down the different roles and practices and tools. So don't worry.
Everything's ahead of you here on the bottom up skills podcast now. We're thinking about agile
and I want to use this scrum analogy. And the best way I can describe it is every couple of
weeks, a small team do a sprint.
This is a sprint of work. They're largely autonomous. They work from a thing called a backlog.
It's a list of tasks and items to a list of, to do's if you will. And they're driven by. A scrum
[00:08:00] master who runs the rhythm and the team work with this idea of having daily scrums.
And at the end of the sprint, they have a retrospective and a review.
And the person that's really at the highest, the process of the product is the product owner.
There was lots of other roles as well, but. We'll get into those, but this is a, uh, a rhythm, a
cadence that you get into and you might on a project have six, 12, 24 sprints, depending on the
size of the product that you're going to build.
And, um, what you do is instead of with waterfall, having these enormous timelines, That lead to
products that are way late and way wrong. What you do is you try and make every sprint self
contained. So there's a body of work that gets reviewed and checked. So you can, it really
makes it easier to stay on track.
And unlike with waterfall, it's, it's much harder to get off track. If you use this. Agile software
development [00:09:00] approach. Now what's really interesting is agile is becoming something
much desired, not only in sort of high tech, uh, startups or, um, software companies, but it's
actually going way beyond the sector into business, more largely speaking, but here's the crazy
thing in a benchmark study that Deloitte and McKinsey did together in 2019, they found.
But when they talked to senior executives across a whole range of companies, they found that
over 90% of them said that the most important characteristic of their business was to be agile.
But those same executives said, and this is, this is the kicker that. Less than 10% of them could
actually acknowledge that their company was in fact, highly agile.
So everyone wants to be it, but few can do it. And this is something that I hope to address, to
[00:10:00] show you how to break down agile and how your organization can do some simple
things to be more nimble, more iterative, and to deliver better product now. I want to give you a
little bit of money analogy, something that you might recognize.
And I want to go back to one of the most inspiring products, uh, that were ever built. And it was
the first ever fighter jet that was built by Lockheed Martin. And they built the first fighter jet in just
143 days using this idea of creating a skunkworks and autonomous small team that were highly
focused.
On building the product for me, as I reflect on all the different agile projects that I've done, I can't
tell you how much skunks skunkworks is really a metaphor and an analogy. All of agile. So if
you're really interested in that, you can, there's a lot of great films and documentaries. So just
jump [00:11:00] onto YouTube and have a look at how Lockheed Martin built the first fighter jet.
This will give you a really clear example of what it really takes. Um, another example would be
the Manhattan project, another, uh, classic wartime effort, uh, to do something amazing. So if
we just jump now into the modern age, um, there's lots and lots of examples. I mean, we
mentioned Toyota back in the fifties.
Well, I tell you what, today. There is no better example of agile than Tesla. Uh, you know, Tesla
are so nimble and adaptive to their environment that, uh, if you take the model less, for

example, They make up to 20 engineering changes a week to improve both production and the
performance of the car. Now, I would challenge you to go across the road to Detroit and find any
of the manufacturing of other automobiles, where they are making 20 changes a [00:12:00]
week.
Traditionally, the production line. And all of the factory setup, the tool set that's put in place for a
car stays fixed sometimes for up to a year in traditional automotive manufacturing or actually
Ilan. He just does it much faster. He's making up to 20 changes a week. Another completely
different, uh, example, uh, was, uh, hand sanitizer.
Uh, if you look at what union labor did, they changed their production rate of hand sanitizer from
overseas from 700,000 items a month, approximately to over 100 million per month is an
enormous production increase. And they attributed that to wreckly. To agile. So this is what can
be done if we use agile.
And I want you to have this in your mind cause we're gonna break it all down. Um, but I want to
remind you what we're fighting for here. The reason [00:13:00] why we think that agile software
development really matters. Okay. Last thought in just kind of introducing the world of agile.
Agile is fantastic when you're building your product.
Can be analog can be digital, let's focus on software. So the build a period of your product. It's,
it's absolutely pivotal. It can be surrounded by beforehand. You can get into, um, maybe using
some design thinking for some prototyping, uh, maybe some design thinking for generating
insights for your product.
And when you want to launch a product, that's when you turn to other practices like growth
marketing. So this is the company that agile capes, for example, But what's so special about
agile is it's not only a way to organize a team to build software. What I will argue is it's a way to
build teams for pretty much anything.
And in fact, what we're starting to [00:14:00] see is whole reorganizations of companies to
become agile at the core, which is super exciting. All right. Well, they haven't, this is an
introduction to the world of agile software development. I hope this helps you understand a bit
more about what we're dealing with.
So some of the success cases, and I hope that this, it leaves you absolutely fired up and at the
ready to start doing some more agile. If you do want to go really deep into this, we have a
masterclass on bottom up, dada, completely free. Jump in there. Take the master class,
download the slides. It will be a fantastic way for you to adopt a more nimble, more intuitive way
of working.
All right. I hope you've enjoyed this introduction to agile. There's plenty more to come. I'm here
on the bottom up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom of skills podcast. I'm Mike Parsons. I'm the CEO of
QualityNet and we are at this second last installation of our design thinking series. And in this
episode, we're going to talk about how to test your product. With recruits. Now this is an
essential part of design thinking.

Everything you do. Should be tested, should be validated with users. And what we're going to
talk about is how do you get people together to test your product? And I'm going to focus more
on the latter stage. So I'm going to assume your product is starting to come to life, at least in
wireframes, maybe in envision or Adobe XD, and you really want to get some feedback now.
Have you listening [00:01:00] to this and you're thinking, Oh, I need something a little bit more
earlier stage. I want you to go back a few episodes in the podcast. Cause we go quite deep into
how to do quantum qual research at the very beginning of the journey of building a new product.
And of course, if you'd like to know.

Much much more and go a lot deeper. You can get our free masterclass@baltimore.io, which
goes extensively into how to use survey monkey. There's a masterclass on that. We have
obviously the design thinking masterclass and we have a rapid prototyping, a massive, so plenty
of there are much, much more, all free.
Go check it out. All right. Let's get back to user testing. The first thing I wanted say is you should
be testing all the time. Yeah. Yeah. If you're using an agile team structure and doing sprints,
then every year, two weeks, the work should be tested before it goes to the client. Um, it should
be tested before it goes to the stakeholders.
It's really, really important to always be checking in because you don't want to build a house of
cards. You don't want to [00:02:00] assume things work when they don't and build sprint after
sprint. And at some point, you're going to realize you're wrong and you're going to have to pull
back all that work. So it should be before you launch during launch and after launch, in fact, a
testing paradigm or use a centric paradigm, or even brought us to a design thinking paradigm,
you should be testing.

All the time, all the time. Okay. So we've got some good material to test. We've got some sort of
clickable prototype. We're want to get some feedback. I think the most important starting point
that I can share with you is you've got to go out and get a. Testers who are in your target
demographic target user case, uh, the persona, the archetype, however, you're defining your
customer.

Please make sure that they meet that criteria and make sure [00:03:00] that you can test them
in a fair and legitimate way. Sir, make sure that there's plenty of time explain you're doing a test
and don't rush through it. Make sure. That you have time and space to test properly with the
right people. Now you might think to yourself, this sounds incredibly straightforward and
sensible, but you're right.

But here's the thing in the rush of trying to launch a product, build a company, build a product.
We often skip over these things and we don't do those basics. Right. And if you don't have the
right person in the test, well, All the testing sites are invalid, or if you have the right person, but
you haven't created enough time, you haven't made sure everything is right.
You've also at the time. So less, let's kind of, it's getting to now, you've got the right person, you
know, you're testing or someone is right. Riding the target zone for your new products. I want to
take you through how you might. A test with them. Now, the core of product testing, [00:04:00]
my strong recommendation would be to do task based testing, meaning set the user a task and
watch them as they attempt to complete the task.
Please avoid it. All costs falling into some sort of diagnostic chitchat. You should have done that
ages ago. This is raw. Black and white binary. Did they complete the task? Were they able to do
it fast? Easy. And did they do it to their satisfaction? So task based, make sure you say, I want
you to find a restaurant.

I want you to book an appointment with a hairdresser or Ababa, give them a specific task like
that and then watch how they might go about it. Now after you give them any sort of task based
testing, you can ask them all sorts of questions. And we'll talk about some of the best ways to
do that, but I want to give you [00:05:00] three types of task based testing that you could use.
The first one could be usability testing. And that inherent thing that you want to do with usability
testing is can you remove as much friction from the journey, from the flow, from the experience

as possible? So that's usability testing. Now you might, uh, have user groups with special
needs. Let's say they might have some sort of visual impairments.
Maybe they might be, um, Using your product in a high noise, high distraction environment,
there's all sorts of things that could affect how you qualify your usability testing. And you want to
try and create as close to real life conditions as possible. So that's usability testing. The other
thing you can do is you can launch your whole product to a closed user group.

Maybe a traditionally may have called that like a beta group or Biddy test is. Um, you might
even build a whole MVP and give it to a small cohort of people. That's another way you can
[00:06:00] look at task based completion now. What you might have to do as you move into this
more broader type of testing, you might need to use tools such as Mixpanel, um, optimizing your
Google analytics to look at it.
So I would always want you to have some usability, usability testing in person, really to get that
viscerally side of how people are completing tasks now. As we were talking about this, you
might do a combo of in-person usability, testings, uh, you know, have a beta version. And as the
product goes live, you can continue to test.
And what you could do is using tools like Optimizely, you could run different tests where you
serve content or interactive elements in different order, in different ways, for different types of
users, based on IP address and location. Might do all sorts of different variations. I think what
you want to be able to do is look at their PA capacity to [00:07:00] complete an event, to
complete a task.

This has always been the gold standard for me when I'm working on a product, if it's useful at
all, there's a task involved and you're helping people get that done. Now, if you're doing this in
person, You want to take, uh, transcripts, uh, you want to ask questions at the end of the
experience, um, and you want to.

Uh, record that, um, with your memo app on your phone, you want to, uh, transcribe it, make
notes, um, for sure. Um, that's really, really important. If after the experience you ask them a
series of questions. Now, the other thing you can do is you can run a net promoter score survey,
very simple. How likely would you be to recommend this product to friends and family?
You can, um, do that after the test and if it's a no and category a or even after you explain the
idea, you could ask an NPS, [00:08:00] then you let them do the testing. After the test, you
actually redo the MPS and see if you can create a shift in the advocacy because after the
experience you might see your capacity.

To increase advocacy, sharing and word of mouth. So NPS is a, is a very, uh, Powerful thing to
do after if you want to get into like a really heavy corn statistic, SQL approach, what we would
do use on any of the three tests that I mentioned would actually look at task completion rights.
This would mean that if your.
At the latter stages of, um, product design and development, we would be wanting to look at
very high percentage of completion on your task. So just to be clear, your, uh, providing a
product and it's called task. Can I need, can be completed by less than let's say, half of
[00:09:00] the users in testing, you've got a huge problem.

You've really got a big problem. And you want to be as close to a hundred as you can be. And
like say 40% would be an absolute shocker, um, because you're, you're way off where you need
to be. Yeah, everything that you capture in your testing, you can put that into a spreadsheet or if
you really want to go full on, I would always get it all into dovetail.
You will have heard us talk about this a lot more with being a source to house, all of your
content qual research. And that's really important because if you have one repository with a
lifetime of your product creation, with all the data in there, you can know if you've really got
something. You've got all the data to back it up.
And this is really important because if you feel like you've had product market fit, you want to be
able to show the data you want to show the quotes, the charts that all back that up. Now, the
last thing I want to give you here, it's a little bit of an extra goodie [00:10:00] it's closely related
to NPS. It's called.

S U S a is the system a system usability scale? Uh, it's been around for quite while now. I think
it's like 35, 40 years, thousands and thousands, and thousands of usability tests have been
done using this. And what's great about this scale is that so many. Tests have been done. Um,
you get a Mark out of a hundred for your product based on how the user answers the question.
And you can know if the usability is acceptable, marginal, or acceptable, and, uh, it's very.

Powerful, because it just gives you a number it's highly tested. It's scales really well. It's easy to
manage. You can use it on one or a hundred people. It's actually super, super handy like that.
And it's a bit of an industry standard to be quite honest.
So if you really want to go old bells out, you could, you know, do some usability testing,
[00:11:00] do a sus score, do an NPS score, throw it all in dovetail, and you would have an end
to end picture of the testing of your product. And frankly, You know, testing is so powerful
because it helps you get signal through the noise.
There's so much information you process as a designer, creative builder of products, or an
entrepreneur for a business or a leader in a large corporate organization. Having these simple
tools, these simple models, mindsets to do your testing with real people, you can go a long way
and this he's the real truth.

If you continue to test with your user and don't go guessing, but actually know that they like it.
Don't fall in love with PowerPoints, fall in love with user testing. If you do, this is very, very hard
to get off track. Not for very long. Every time you test, you'll be brought crashing back to reality
and that's the power of [00:12:00] it.

So if you can bring your humble self to the party, you can just learn listening from your users
and build a truly great product. All right. I hope you've enjoyed our second last episode of the
design thinking masterclass. We've been chatting about how to test your product with recruits.
And if any of this has fostered interest, jump over to bottom up.io, you can get free master
classes on design thinking.
I know a whole lot more. All right. Thanks for joining us here on the bottom up skills podcast.
That's a wrap.

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hello and welcome to the bottom of skills podcast. I'm your host. My name is Mike
Parsons and I am the CEO of quality teams. And we have come to a special moment. Ladies
and gentlemen, we have arrived at the last part. I think it was like 14, 15 part series on design.
Thinking, Oh my gosh, it's been a journey.

And if you can believe this, the next series that I'm going to do for you is going to be on agile
ways of working. So no rest for the wicked here, but we're going to wrap this up with a episode
dedicated to how to share your product insights. Now, this goes to really one of the hot of the
biggest challenges we have when we're in [00:01:00] teams and were designing, creating,
building, whether it be product or a service or an entire business.

Um, the truth really is, you know, We never really built a product on our own. There's always a
couple of people involved for at least half a dozen or a dozen. And as soon as there's two
people involved, there becomes a question of alignment. Do people really get, uh, what we're
trying to build? And as you've heard me talk about so much design thinking is not about
guessing what's going to be nice.

It's not trying to be the ultimate. You know, tastemaker with this fantastic aesthetic and just
picking something that is on a whim or just a result of your sheer brilliance. No, we love to work
hard and serve users test and learn with users. But once you've done all that hard work, there's
one final step.
And I'll tell you why. I think this matters so much. I have seen [00:02:00] so many. Wonderful.
Creative designers, UX specialists, UI specialists. You name it. Struggling to share what's inside
of their head, what they may have learned with users, um, to the broader team and how the
classic one might be between a UX or UI, a BA or a developer who are all coming at the
challenge of the product.
In a slightly different way. So if you're doing any sort of design thinking, work, sharing your
testing insights is a key opportunity to get everybody on the same page. And what I hope to do
now is to help you tell your product story, and this product story is going to be rooted in user
insights, user testing, learning, and validation.

And one of the key things we can talk about is. [00:03:00] How are we going to capture what we
learnt? How are we going to like put it in a vehicle and asset, how are we going to present it?
Now, one of the things you can definitely do is share your, um, output, uh, the sort of.
Conclusions that you can draw upon your research in updating your user personas, that you
should have started at the beginning of any project and they should continue to grow and evolve
throughout the entire process.

You should have something like a user journey map. Again, we've covered what that is in this,
uh, design thinking series. So just go to one of the older podcasts, you'll see it in the list, or you
might even have. Something like wire frames, which might help you kind of bring the product to
life. If you've tested well, you can update those.

If you want to get a little bit more strategic, you could use a user matrix, an affinity diagram, or
an empathy map. These are all classic [00:04:00] tools of design thinking, gurus who are trying
to kind of capture the learnings and the insights. In a particular way. And you know, there's a,
quite a science and an art to picking the right one, but you should check out our master
class@bottomup.io, where we get a bit more into those.
And we talk about how to do them. If I was to pick one thing, um, that would be really essential.
And I do this on every single product that I work on is. I would use a value proposition, canvas,
where you essentially outline what the pains are experienced by your users and what gains
they're looking for and they're trying to get done.

So that's all on the right hand side. And on the left hand side, you match map, correlate these
with pain relievers. And gain creators that define, determine and inspire the feature, set the
product set [00:05:00] that you're working on. This value proposition. Canvas is so good
because it's incredibly simple, but what it does is it forces you to map, do your gains.
That your user experience, your user experiences, are you actually building gain creators? And
if the user experiences pain, are you relieving that pain? I love the simplicity of this. The value
proposition canvas for me becomes a simple essential tour at any executive or designer or
anyone in between can refer to an ask.
Are we getting it right? Do our features. Mapped to the jobs to be done. Do the gains really get

created and are we relieving the pains? The value proposition canvas for me is a great exercise
because it makes your, makes you really work on the stuff that you learned in your user testing.
Um, and it really makes you ask yourself, Hmm, have I really validated the gains and the
[00:06:00] pains?

And it provides you with a really good baseline now. One of the things that you might like to do
either before or after your value prop canvas is you might've conducted a big research and
everybody might be really eager to learn, like, okay, what did we learn from this? Now, for
example, I'm working on a product and we've already done.
Two rounds of quantum surveys, two rounds of qualitative interviews. And we're about to do one
of the first user tests where we're going to test the, uh, the first designs of the brand new
products. Now what's essential is to make sure that whatever we can to get of this upcoming,
uh, test is, um, we need to find a way to tell the story.

And so I've got a three part. Approach. It's a bit of a model that you can break down your
presentation into and. [00:07:00] What I love about this is it has a very clear separation from
data from insights and recommendation. And, um, the reason that I use this is it really helps, uh,
create clear outcomes and it helps everybody stay on track on why those outcomes are so
important, why those next steps are important.

So let's dig into this three-part model of presenting. Your design and product ideas. First of all,
data for me, a piece of data, great example is 22% of our customers are aged 18 to 24. So
when you present data, you try to be as black and white, as clear and as binary as possible and
specific. Um, and. You don't have to draw any insights or recommendations from this.
I quite like the idea of just passing out the raw data. [00:08:00] If it was a survey, each question
has a clear outcome, a clear table or a chart that tells us the data. So just present. Data first,
then you have the interesting job to do is you can say, well, what is an insight? Um, and you
might say, well, it's fascinating that, uh, East coast customers have a much stronger preference
for mobile in this age group than those on the West coast.
That's actually. A really, really powerful insight because you might need to go and validate, uh,
why there's such a discrepancy because it's unusual, but that's what we'll get to in a second
with the recommendations. So you've got the data and then you can draw a really interesting
insight. Now, one of the key things that you're going to do is come up with lots of data points in
insight, whatever you do.

If you're presenting the results of a big test or a big piece of product [00:09:00] work, I would
challenge you just come with 10 data points. 10 insights and 10 recommendations. So
essentially 10 ideas that run through those three vectors. The reason why is I rarely see even
the smartest people I've ever worked with really able to hold their attention beyond that.
And that's a very good model. If you can get it under 10, even better. So we've got data. We've
got insight. Now your recommendation could be, uh, many varied. I mean, we've been talking
about this idea of this variance between 18 and 24 year olds in a, in a particular study. Maybe
you want to go and experiment, try some different things.

So let's do a popup store in New York and a popup store in LA, or alternatively, you might say
we don't know enough. Uh, and we want to conduct another study. I mean, that's the range of
recommendations you could come out with, but by separating the data. From the insight from
the recommendation. What you have [00:10:00] is an ability that maybe someone doesn't like
the recommendation, they love the data.

I love the enzyme. They're really good, but they think they have different interpretations of what
to do based on the insight. That is totally awesome. What you don't want to do is say, Hey guys,
we should do these six things. And everyone's like, Whoa, hang on. They're not tracking. So
what you often find is the reason people are not aligned.

They're not supporting a recommendation is there's a break somewhere. And it's usually either
in the insight. Or the data and sometimes on really sophisticated products, you actually almost
have to have like an agreed approach and how you're gonna look at data and insights and how
you're gonna focus those.

So that's what happens when you work on really big products. Yeah. Yeah, a great example is if
you're building an app and it's going in say 10 or 12 English speaking app stores, then you're
like, okay. Uh, we really got to kind of process this data could run a [00:11:00] lot of vectors, a
lot of different points and criteria.
Now here's the thing. If you are presenting your ideas, you might want to start with the data, or

you might want to start with a recommendation and work your way backwards. That's something
you need to choose based on your audience. But the beauty of design thinking is everything.
You have done has started with empathy for the user.
So there's going to be a ton of time interesting that you would have done, uh, to make sure that
the data is strong and robust, you know, we will, uh, see all sorts of things around sample sizes.
And how did you interview. What was the task you gave them. All of those things need to be
cleared up before you presenting your ideas.

So you have an agreed approach, but if you have this three part approach, data, insight,
recommendation, this is such a great practical way to talk about your product. It's a great way to
say, look, we're all on the same [00:12:00] page. Now a great example that I have often seeing
the earliest stages is hugging guys.
We think we've got some pretty good validation of the core offering the core feature. It really
does address a pain. It's a, it's a pain reliever. However, There's some particular things about
how it might work, that we still got to do a lot of work on. And for some of the other stuff, we
have completely no idea where we're at.
That's okay. What do you want to get to is by the end of your productivity before launch,
everybody has really embraced the data and the insights, and they're fully on board with the
recommendations. If people aren't adopting your recommendations that are really rooted in
design thinking, then just fall back.
Peel it back say, look, let's go back to that insight. And if you can't get anywhere, they go back
to the data itself. And sometimes there might be misinterpretations of data. Or what I often find
is, Hey, [00:13:00] we just don't have the data. So let's go out in the next round of testing and
test those things. And all of a sudden you can create some movement.

Well, hope all of this has got you moving towards design thinking and I hope you're typing in
bottom up. Dot IO into your browser to get all those free master classes. I truly love sharing, um,
all of these concepts, mindsets, frameworks, methodologies with you. This has been a
wonderful a series breaking down design thinking this huge thing.

Until these bite sized parts and really what we're about is bite-sized parts. Yeah. Bite-sized
skills. Even for designers, creatives, builders, entrepreneurs, you name it. So I hope you've
enjoyed this final part of our design thinking series and I hope you're ready. For the upcoming
agile proach, the agile software development masterclass.
Okay. That's it for [00:14:00] me on design thinking. I hope you've enjoyed the bottom up skills
podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm Mike passings. I'm the. Chief
executive officer at QualityNet and it is great to have you at our next installment of design
thinking. Now, the previous show told a lot about getting the features or the user stories, right.
For your product, but those have to live in harmony with something.

And generally speaking, you could refer further to that as the business logic. All the business
rules. And that's what we're going to talk about in this episode of the bottom up skills podcast.
Now, remember everything that we're going to talk about is from our design thinking
masterclass, which you can grab at bottom-up dot IO.

Now you might be thinking to yourself, Oh, I can't. I thought we were going to be creative and
talk about design. Well, We're talking about that and much more [00:01:00] because design
thinking is not just about classic creative and art direction. It's way more than that. And actually
the best design not only feels good, uh, for the end user, someone might say that the products
that we make a desirable, um, but you know, a lot of the products we make.
Have to work with technology so that technology has to work or said differently. It needs to be
feasible. And in particular, when we talk about the business rules, the logic and so forth, what
we're really talking about is a viability and actually great design thinkers, build products that are
not only desirable, not only feasible, but wait for this.

Just when you're like, Mike, this is getting pretty hard. They have to be viable to. And so we're
going to talk a lot about business rules and processes and business requirements, but I'm going
to do this through a product lens, through a design thinking lens. The key points about
[00:02:00] design thinking. You must consider the business too.

This is just not about making something that's beautiful. It's gotta be beautiful and profitable.
And that's what we're going to talk about. Okay. So let's get a couple of definitions, um, done
right up front and there's probably three layers of business rules, business processes, business
requirements, policies, um, that all get mishmashed and confused and so forth.
Um, so what I want to do is I want to give you a three layer approach to understanding. What's
really required of our product. If we know what users want, we need to make sure that the
business is doing the right thing. And there is absolutely no point building a product that. Uses
love. Um, let's take a Limewire, um, and all of the peer to peer downloading software that came
out [00:03:00] 15 years ago or so, and it was great for users, but it had no business integrity
because it was illegal and they got shut down and so forth.

So what we're going to talk about. Is how you can avoid, um, making a product that's not
compliant with the different business requirements, um, and how you can, uh, trade off what
users desire, what the businesses need and what technology allows us to do. So here are the
three definitions. I want you to think about these three levels of what a business is required to
do when it builds a product.
Now, the first one is, um, The highest, uh, it's probably the coolest, first of all, and it's the law.
This is, uh, so differently. This is an external constraint imposed upon the product and we have
no choice, but to adopt these practices. Okay. So it's an external constraint. It's fixed. It is what
it is. [00:04:00] You have to comply.

Now, this is the first level of logic that has to exist inside your app. For example, if you have an
app European union, you must be compliant with GDPR and this protects the rights of
individuals to privacy. And that personal information. So this is a constraint that is put upon a
business and therefore your product.
So anyone publishing a product in Europe, or I would just say it's a pretty good guideline to how,
how to take good care of your customers. You should launch a product that is GDPR compliant
now. Um, That would be just a very good baseline on understanding some of the business rules
that you would need to follow.

For example, if you were going to be compliant with GDPR, GDPR, how you collect and opt in
for a newsletter has very specific requirements and you have to outline the different types of
[00:05:00] use that they are allowed to select. And so this is like a very specific. Product
requirement, it would be in your user stories.
Um, but it actually is born of the business requirements. So if we want to get the business logic,
right, we need to, uh, adhere to the laws. Now there are overarching laws like GDPR, uh,
California also has a very, uh, high level privacy protection. So you. If you're going to operate

your business there, you need to adhere to those, but it goes a level deeper with the legal
compliance and legal obligations.
Because if you're in the health industry, you might be subject to HIPAA. If you're in banking
industry, you might be exposed to KYC, know your customer, both of these would be in addition
to GDPR requirements. So what you can see here is on this first level, there's a whole bunch of
requirements. All of your product that would affect your themes, your epics, your user [00:06:00]
stories.
You would have to be specific on how you well opting people in, in that user story. You'd need
to have all the right fields in there. And in addition to that, the way you process data, the way
you provide information back to customers. May also be affected by healthcare policies, set at a
government level or know your customer, uh, for, for the banking industry.
So this is level one of understanding, kind of what kind of logic should be inside of your product.
The second one is you need to understand your, your business policies. Now these may or may
not. Directly interact into your product, but they will certainly affect the business rules that you
set inside of your product.

So I want to talk a little bit about what, uh, the differences between a business policy and a
business rule. Okay. So let's get into that. So policies are very important, um, because the
policy could [00:07:00] be. Um, said differently. It's like a guideline that the company has on how
it might govern employees, personal equipment, um, how it frames its view of the customer.
What is a customer, or if you want to look in a really strategic perspective, it may be the
principles, but which you do business. So if your, um, Business policy is to do no evil, um, or
your company vision is to do no evil. Then your business policies would have to reflect, uh, that
if your, uh, vision yeah.
Uh, is like Airbnbs and it's all about belonging and bringing people together, then you can
imagine that some of their principles and guidelines and governance would be a mirror reflection
of that vision differently. If let's say you notice, start up. Or scale up in the case of Airbnb, let's
say you're a really big organization.
[00:08:00] Well, then you're gonna have a lot of policies, a lot of guidelines, a lot of checks and
balances will be born out of those. Was really important to us and what those are, because they
may directly affect what you're able to provide as a business inside of your product. So whether
you're a small or a big company, new, old, the point here is you need to understand your policy
because they may affect.

Um, not only the tone of voice by which you deliver information and services, but they may be
significant constraints that affect your product. And maybe you need to go back to people inside
of the organization and say, Hey, this is a real blocker. We'd like to do things a little differently.
So that's like a business policy.
They're really the guidelines of the business. Either born of a. Yeah, decades long operating in a
space, or maybe it's a brand new vision, a purpose that the [00:09:00] company has now, where
we get to is the third level of getting the logic right inside your product. And that's the business
rules. Now the business rules are very different to policies.
Business rules are actionable. Uh, there, yes, no. On, off, uh, compliant, noncompliant. These
are hard and fast rules that need to get baked in your product. For example, if you say that we
only talk to customers who have a minimum two year credit history, then this becomes a very
clear rule that goes into your product.

And when the user uploads their credit history or answers a survey and says that they only have
one year, your business rule says. I'm sorry at products or services not available for you. So
these are really important. These are three definitions, law policy and rules. Make sure you
know those. And as a [00:10:00] design thinking, you might be thinking, geez, Mike, that sounds
a bit intense.
You should be familiar enough with them. And if your project of building a brand new product is
big enough, you actually have. A full time business analyst who actually map a lot of this, but
that's not always in every project. So it's important that you understand what you're dealing with
it because they will affect your product.
Now I want to talk about how we can make this, all this, uh, legal, legal, mumbo, jumbo, and
policies and guidelines, a little bit more relatable. I would definitely map the user journey, um, to
the different business. Logic filters criteria. And one really interesting exercise can be, is to
actually bring it together.

The user's preferred journey, and then map that to your business flows, um, where you have
business rules, business policies, maybe legal constraints, [00:11:00] and you. Bring them
together. You compare it and you can trust these two flows and this becomes. An amazing
opportunity for a design thinker to compare contrast, and to refine around the common ground
around the solution space.
Now, this is the art of a great product. So it's really important that you have the capacity to talk
apples and apples. What does the business require and what does the user need? And I can tell
you if you're able to bring these two together. And create a harmony and a common ground
between the two of them.
You will be in a very special place because to be quite Frank, a lot of products that we interact
with are dominated by business rules. They're dominated by business requirements and they
neglect. The user needs. Sorry. If you can map these, bring them together and find the common
ground test and learn and make sure the customers are satisfied [00:12:00] with this product
experience.
Then you've gone a long way because it's a fine balancing act. What we need to be able to do is
to serve not only those user needs and business requirements, but we have to do so within
technical constraints as well. And that's a whole nother thing. Uh, working out the technical
constraints, we have architectural questions, uh, all sorts of scalability issues.
Um, Common language, data, interfacing, data modeling, all sorts of stuff. We won't go there for
now. Really a great UX designer or strategist will sit between these, because if you can actually
find the meeting point. Between all of this business logic and the human needs and make sure
you can bring it to life in the best emerging technology possible.

I think you've really arrived at that special place where tannics things happen, where things are
so much better than what's on offer today. And I think as a design thing that you [00:13:00]
really need to know your tech, but as we've talked about today, you also, in addition to that, to
know what users need. Is you need to understand the business and creating mapping business
logic is essential to that.
Well, I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the bottom up skills podcast. We've really gone into
a quick fire round on business logic and how you can do it. Don't forget the big three legal
policies and rules. They're the real engine of understanding what the business needs, bring
them all together. And if you'd like to know more about how to bring great products to market,
whether you're a designer, creator, entrepreneur, just head over to baltimore.io where you'll find.
The design thinking master class, and you can get a whole bunch of other free goodies there as
well. So thanks for being part of the journey of the bottom up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello. Hi, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass on the CEO of quality lens. And today we're going to talk details. We are going to talk user stories. They are the micro micro, the smallest of the small little elements. That referred to what we're going to build in a product. And these little things have such a big impact on how we work when we're building a product.

So we use a story which is, you know, It is a clearly defined interaction in the product is so important because what it does is it is a point of reference that creates clarity for all the members of a team about what should happen in the product or service. Now. The important thing is that they are written in a simple, easy to understand nontechnical non-strategic.

Uh, language so that it means everybody can make sense of it. And as you're moving fast and you know, you want to build this amazing product because possible making sure that you've got absolute crystal clear standing of what needs to be made means that you, then when you have your user story, you can assign it to a person that you can.

Looking confluence, uh, to find all the backup data and they know when they have to make it. And so user stories, we often, uh, we'll put into a tool, uh, like JIRA and it helps us organize them prioritizing, but user stories are fantastic because what they effectively do is they would enable a engineer. And someone who's an executive sponsor to sit down and discuss the product in a simple language.

And I think that this is really important because. Too often now our products are involving really sophisticated, uh, technology. Uh, I mean, I think the biggest, uh, some of the biggest drivers of this is we're getting a lot more data. And because of that, we start to incorporate machine learning, maybe a little bit of AI.

Certainly at least some sort of our rhythms that starts to get pretty complex. And then on the other hand, hardware right. Is changing so much as well. So, you know, our mobile, uh, smartphones are just so powerful. I can do so many things because of all of the, the hardware features. So you can get lost in complexity.

And that's where the user story comes to save the day. It helps us organize the product into a system, um, enabling everybody else to talk about it and for actions to happen off the back of it. Now, you know, people will listening to this will formally, uh, say, wow, you know, this is quite an agile thing.

This idea of user stories, the reason that I'm including it in a design thinking, uh, series is this, is that. Crucial handoff and interaction between a UX specialist and a business analyst or similar roles. And this is where you have the real integration between user needs and business needs. And it becomes also a reference point for engineers to understand what sort of code, what sort of architecture needs to be created in order to make this experience.

Come to life. So user stories are so damn powerful when we think about how to make an inventory of what needs to be in the product. The beauty of this is that all your user stories can be born of all the design thinking practices that you've been using, your ideation, your research, or testing and prototyping.

So anything that gets in as a user story, you should have a high degree of confidence. That, what you tested already with users looks, feels, and you've got good proof, strong evidence. That that user story is a great way to build the product. So I want to talk a little bit now about how user stories get organized and there's this sort of a, kind of a simple hierarchy where you have, I want you to imagine, um, right at the very top is themes.

These themes tend to be. Really big, uh, features, big bucket areas within a product or a service. Um, and they, they tend to be, um, look maybe in a, in a first generation product, you might have half a dozen themes. These are the organizing principles. So if you think about your Uber app, uh, for example, the account section, uh, is.

A theme. And inside of that theme, you will have lots of epics. So when we talk about epics, we're now going down a level and we're getting a bit more specific. So when I look in my, uh, in my account settings, um, inside of that theme, there's all sorts of epics setting favorites would be an Epic, um, managing trusted context.

That's another one verifying my ride. And so on, those are all epics, but if we continue along this a little path or user story would be setting a new address as the default, I felt home address and that might have several micro interactions, buttons, elements, features, filters, you name it. Um, these are the user stories.

So they have it. We got big themes, medium-sized epics and really little stories. This is such a great way to make an inventory of your. Products. And you will find that maybe each theme has a user journey map. And we talked about user journey maps in the last episode. So if you want to go back and grab some more of the back catalog of the bottom up podcast, you can just go to bottom up.io.

Where you can not only find the user story. Goodness. In our design thinking masterclass, you can also get lots of episodes from the podcast. So back to user stories. These things are the essential language. They become a way. If you remember, in that last, we last episode, we talked about the big picture of design thinking, which is the unit and unit user journey map.

Or now we're in the small details. But again, the beauty I've used, the stories is they provide Ventas from talking too much high tech, engineering, or strategy. We talk in really simple terms about what the user would be doing. Sometimes what I've found is putting in. Acceptance criteria. Um, you might have off the back of this technical requirements, all sorts of good stuff will come off these user stories, but the user stories become the essential unit of work that builds a backlog.

So not only we know what's to get done, we know how much time it's going to take and we can start prioritizing and organizing them. So as you think about. Creating your product. And at this stage you've mapped it. You've chosen your primary feature. User journeys are essential in the big picture, but user stories are the essential micro element of the product.

And I can only give you this last thought, this last advice on how to get the most out of them. You need to make sure that your user stories are complete and are detailed. This is something that I would never gloss over because so much of a user story is suggesting the interaction, the data, the rules, if this, then that it is at the heart of how things will be, hard-coded engineered into the product.

So. If you've got someone in your team, who's really good on details. You should give them the user story in a traditional team. You probably have a business analyst write these, but here's the key thing. I great user story written by a business analyst will have been co-created coauthored with technical engineers.

Designers and any other members of the group strategists business experts, because there is no use in just one person writing a user story. The best user stories are ones that have been co-created amongst your core product team. So they have it user stories ever so small. Ever so big when it comes to their power, they will help you organize this entire system.

So if you're really ready to rock and roll, jump into JIRA, that's J I R a by Atlassian. And that is a great place where you can write up store and manage. You'll use the stories and they will, without a doubt, help you build a product. Which is why we're all here on this podcast to share not only user stories and user journeys, but the overall practice of design thinking.

And as you can see, what's so fun, is it interacts with all sorts of other practices, such as rapid prototyping, lean startup, and of course, a lot of handoffs with agile. Methodologies. So I hope you've really enjoyed this. We've still got a few more episodes left in our design thinking series. I hope you've got some inspiration or just a little tip that helps you build a better product.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. Once again, we are flying through the world of design thinking and today we're going to discuss mapping the user journey and boy, Oh boy. When you create a user journey or sometimes they could use the maps. I can tell you that this file will become one of the most visited most used, most reopened and wait for it.

Most edited documents that you will have in the adventure of building a product. Now, what is so fabulous about user journeys and mapping out the user of the journey is number one. It forces you once again, as design thinking, well, to go back to the user. So instead of thinking about yourself and how you might enjoy an experience, this forces us back once again, to imagine, to understand.

And here's the key word to empathize with our users to understand how they would move from a, to Z through a product experience. Now I'd want to. Tell you why this matters so much. Why, why a user journey is so essential? Well, they often come into the process in the early to mid stages, and this is really essential, particularly on brand new products, because fairly early stages, everyone's just imagining.

A possible product or service. We don't have an existing product to refer to. So having a user user journey is such a powerful way of, of seeing every single step that we imagine a user would go through in our product and use it. Journeys are uniquely powerful in capturing the big picture. Um, if you think about something I've mentioned on this series, and if you jump over to bottom up.io, you'll see there's a whole agile masterclass built around using it stories which have the smallest micro a part of a product.

Then the user journey is the opposite. It's all big picture, baby. This is what is the overall experience it might be made up of three, four, five. Maybe up to 10 big stages going from one through 10 of the overall user experience. And what's so useful about having this in the early stages is it allows them, us to literally point on the board at what we imagine the product will be doing, what they user will be doing to kind of frame the experience before we've actually built it.

Now what's particularly interesting now is just to point out a huge insight for existing products now. I'm going to share with you a little secret of the product world, which is particularly in the digital app space, whether it's a browser based app, a local install or a mobile app is over time. The, both the interaction and the whole operation texture of a piece of software can get a bit messy and out of control.

And what tends to happen is that. We originally, we had an idea about what uses need and, but then all the business requirements came in and then we started doing, uh, what, uh, people in the business wanted. And sometimes we actually juice the quality of the experience for the users. So if you were to. Have a, you know, a gen two, maybe a third version, fourth version of your product.

You might find that it's got a little bit out of control. So coming in and doing a fresh user journey of what you have, and then asking yourself from a to Z. How could we improve this or user journey is like a really great big picture way of improving an existing user experience too. So whether it's brand new or something that you've been working on for years, your product will absolutely ne need our user journey.

So let's dig in now, uh, into what that looks and feels like. And. You know, we are in the magic, uh, medium channel of voice right now. So if you would like a visual companion head over to  dot IO and you can download the free master class on design thinking and, uh, you can enjoy, uh, all the slides and templates there.

But I use a journey as a series of steps and it represents. You know, the scenarios in which you're using my interact with the product that you're designing. So traditionally we might have, you know, a user journey that hat points out, sort of maybe a login or sign up in the early stages. Then maybe a number of key feature steps before.

During the key feature and after the key feature. And in addition to that, there may be moments where they have to dip into their account page settings page. And these can get pretty elaborate when you work on some serious sort of, um, deep consumer interaction products or a similarly, I think a lot of enterprise products can get pretty, pretty complex as well now.

So you've got. A series of steps. That's the essence of a user journey. Now what is particularly powerful is this idea of mapping the things, the actions that a user would do, the thinking that's in their mind. Whilst they do that in the particular state. Yeah. And lastly, how they're feeling, because what's quite interesting, uh, as people get onboarded and do things for the first time or they make a high involvement decision around purchase, there can be.

All sorts of emotions, people could be excited, confident, or often they might be apprehensive, anxious, unsure. Um, so if you map those feelings, you can also map it to the thoughts that are in the user's mind, and then the actual things they would be doing, um, in order to complete the task. This is at its essence.

A user journey. So what I quite like is this idea of, you know, you map the essence of what are they doing? What are they thinking? What are they feeling now? What's also, we want to kind of go next level and you want to get pretty elaborate with your journey maps. You can start doing things like this. So let's imagine that the general flow of your.

Journey map goes from awareness. So they kind of come, I mean, uh, to your given product service, um, they might be doing some orientation and consideration, then they have to decide, uh, then they actually maybe make a point or an action or maybe they could content. And then after the experience, there's all sorts of sharing of experiences, loyalty.

Yeah. Applicacy all that kind of good stuff. Now what's particularly, um, powerful if you want to do right. Really extensive customer journey map is you can start to map not only the things that the user is thinking, doing, and feeling, but you can also go deeper and say, how will we measure. This stage, like what are the moments, uh, inside of the product that would suggest success?

So what can you measure some form of task, uh, or stage completion, uh, that shows in your funnel and in your map, people are moving through, but then you could also have business logic. Business rules that apply. You could even have a reference to different parts of the technical architecture that actually generates this now for really complex complex products.

Um, what comes to my mind immediately is the work that we do with a lot of banks. Um, You can have not just one, two, three, four, five, you can have over a dozen systems generating data throughout the customer journey map. And, um, if you're, if you've got high accountability in your phone and you've got all of those, uh, architectural systems mapped up, you can even have the people or the, the leads within the team that are responsible.

So, this is really, really powerful having these maps, particularly in that early to mid stage of building a product. And the last tip I want to give you around how you might think about user journey mapping is one of the most exciting and personally, what I really love doing is to pick out like the really.

Magic moments, the wow moments that are in that and start wireframing them. Now, now frame is, is literally a low-fidelity sketch of the experience. It's not like a fancy finished design. It looks fantastic. Look, if it's done in pencil and paper, All the more power to you. I love it. But then you can start sketching what the interactions, what these user stories inside of the map might look like these little magic moments, and this can present so many insights, so many learnings as you're really starting to break your product down from an idea into features, epics themes, user stories.

So I think. Finding a user journey map. And then let's saying to the team, let's pick the three most important moments in this journey and let's sketch them. Let's let's ask ourselves what could be now for some of you who are doing a billing product a lot. You may even skip the hand drawn sketch and go straight to envision or Adobe XD, or maybe even sketch any of those tools.

You can now put up a really quick wire frame that actually looks pretty good and can serve as a really good tool, almost stimulus for users to give feedback. So. This is what comes off the back of the user, the user journey map. It is so, so valuable because it's in one visual and the key word here being visual journey, you can see the big picture of your experience, and it gives a powerful way for your core team to talk to stakeholders, investors, uh, executive sponsors, you name it about what their vision is and what they'd like to build.

So they have a, that is a dive into, uh, creating a user journey maps. I hope you've really got something that has helped you refine how you do this, or maybe it's introduced you, uh, to not only use a journey mapping, but design thinking overall, if you've really found this interesting, you'd like to know more.

Head over to bottom up.io, where you can get a whole design thinking master closet, and a lot of others completely free for your use. Uh, so getting there, enjoy the world of design thinking. It's just so powerful. It makes sense of the crazy when you're trying to build a product. Alright, my name's Mike Parsons.

I'm the CEO of quality science. It's been great to share this design thinking episode with you. We'll welcome you back for the next episode of bottom up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. We are back again, and we are setting ourselves into a world of design thinking. And as part of our design thinking series today, we're going to be asking how do we define the most important the primary feature? Of your new product. And the funny thing about this is you might think to yourself that that is often a very obvious choice.

And what actually turns out is that it is it's been really hard. Thing, because you know, you've done heaps of research. You've got a lot of data there's maybe competing ideas for, what's going to be the killer app in this new product or service. So what we're going to do together today is I'm going to take you on a journey on how you might just pick one.

And, um, we'll really kind of use some different models and different techniques to learn how to make a better feature choice. And the last thing I'll do with you is just share with you my thoughts, why this it's so damn important, because if you don't do it, the consequences. They can actually be pretty dire.

So particularly if you're building a large scale product, that's going to serve a lot of users. So let's take a little journey into choosing the primary feature. And what we mean is the killer app. What is the thing that is going to make this product or service unique? What is its point of difference?

Where inherently is the core value? Because let's be honest. I log in screen. Yes. It's an important feature. It's maybe even. An important user story made up of some different tasks and elements, but we all know that that's a pretty standardized feature, so we need to get, so the thing that is most important, because when you choose that, and this is really, really important, it should be the first thing that you start building.

Yeah. So you don't start with the login. You don't start with the admin tools, you start with your primary feature and I'll explain what happens when you don't do that a bit later on. So. How do we choose? How do we know what the primary feature is? Now? This is particularly powerful when you're building a first generation product, something brand new, because if you've already got a product, chances are you've started to really work out, uh, where users, uh, value your product or service, where they perceive, uh, the most important parts.

But these questions you can ask of an existing product, but they are on their own. They're super special when you're starting from scratch on a gen one product. And, um, I'm going to give you four questions that you can ask of yourself and of your team. And I'm going to give you some models, uh, that kind of take it next level if you want to do so.

And, um, I want to start with, uh, I'm going to give you the full questions and then we're going to break them down. Okay. So you want to know the primary feature? Well, if you've been tuning into any of these podcasts or if you've done any of the master classes on bottom up.io, you know, we always start with the user that is at the heart of design thinking.

It's at the heart of our bottom up methodology. And we ask ourselves this question, Of all the features that are on our list of all the possibilities, which feature creates the most value for the user. The second one you could ask, which feature creates the most value for the business. Third, which high value feature is the simplest to build, which I value feature is the cheapest to build.

Now for the top students of this podcast, you'll notice that I am using what is essentially an architecture of desirability, feasibility, um, and viability. Yeah. But I want to get into each of these simple questions. And by the way, you can get all of these in a PDF form. Just head over to bottom up.io grabbed the mass class.

It's all free, but let's talk about each of these on their own, which feature creates the most value for the user. Now, if you, as a team are having trouble answering that question. Whilst that's a bit of a concern. Don't worry. Cause you need to go back and test more with your prototypes that we talked about.

In the previous episode, you need to go back to your users because your work on user insights. Through interviews through surveys through actually building a prototype should clearly resolve which feature creates the most value for users. Now you could be in a situation where you have two features. I'm actually working on a product right now.

Um, and we've got two features that are. Really unique. And we're very attached to one of these features in particular, but there's a companion feature, uh, which is all around education, which might be the dark horse. Now, when you have a situation like that, where there's, you know, two features that rise above all the other features or user stories that you have, that's a luxury problem.

And, uh, you can, um, You can start with either of those. But I think my most important advice here is if you're not clearly to discuss as a team objectively based on data and insights from quantum qual research, if you can't articulate and agree, which value creates the most value for the user, I would pause right now and I would actually go back a step and test again.

So that's first thing you can do to work out which feature matters most. The other one you can do is work out, which one creates the most value for the business. Now, the only caution I would say with this is don't go building features for the business and neglect the user. But what I like about this question is it often helps.

Create a balance in the features or user stories that you build so that you are creating value, um, that strikes. A balance, a balance between the business requirements and the user needs. And this is often a very subtle, very sophisticated thing that happens on a bigger, more enterprise, um, products, but it's a very, very important balance to find.

So that one is which feature creates the most value for the business. Now the last two, which high value feature is simplest to build, and which is cheapest to build are very important. Now I know that we're doing a deep dive on design thinking, but I want to run in parallel some insights here around.

Agile development and the implications, these moments where design thinking and agile work together. Cause they're very cool. The reason that these questions are really important is we can sometimes paralyze ourselves by trying to build something incredibly complex, something that. In modern, uh, language has maybe a dozen web services or micro services, uh, that has a hybrid cloud environment.

You know, people start doing things like that, and that is complex and we know complexity equals time. So when you're building a brand new product, there is nothing more important than going. Fast because you need my mentum and you want to ship product to customers as quick as possible because you want their feedback.

And that's really at the heart of design thinking. Now another important one, and this will probably be working for a lot of you folks that are in startups, which is which high value features the cheapest to build now. This can be very important. Let's say you're a startup and you've got a funding horizon.

Maybe there are features that are really how awful in the hands of uses, but they require a significant investment and perhaps you can solve some smaller problems. Um, important problems, but you can solve those demonstrate value for the user, which creates value for investors. And you can do a really good raise, um, in your seed rounds, uh, maybe even in your angel rounds so that you can ramp up to go after a bigger prize down the track, these four questions.

I mean, if you're stretched for time, Just use these full, simple, powerful questions. And if you struggle to. Answer them. If you don't know what is cheaper to build, what is fastest to build, if you don't know what's creating value for users and businesses in terms of what you plan to do inside of your product, then pause right here, go back.

Reexamined. What you have. What you've learned from tech farm, your business analyst from your UX folks, go back and check because before you build anything, you should be pretty clear on what the answers are to these questions. Now, some advice, if you're thinking about this and sounds great. W w how do I do it?

Where do I start? I would jump into creating user stories in JIRA, um, and. To use that as a way of prioritizing your feature list or what we would call a backlog of issues or user stories or user points. Yeah. This would be the most simplest step to take right now. So, you know what you want to build, get it into JIRA, hopefully, uh, or another product from Atlassian, which is confluence built your shed.

Yeah. Knowledge, insight, and documentation of all the thinking behind the product from a business tech UX perspective. But the reason why juror is really important is it will help you prioritize your backlog and picking your primary feature is the art of a prioritization. Now, if you are inclined to go a little deeper, there is a methodology.

Uh, it's actually basically an equation it's called the rice score. R I C E. Now the R stands for stands for reach I for impact C for confidence E for effort. So what this model does is it asks you to rate a particular feature on how many users it's going to reach, what kind of impact we think that might have.

How confident are you of its success. And you put that yeah. Over effort. So this calculation will give you a rice score. So you might not want to do this for user stories. Cause there's a lot of those and the writ too small, but definitely themes may be maybe your epics. Um, but this would be a more quantitative way of, of working it out.

So. If the earlier four questions are not enough, maybe you guys need to go next level. I would go to this rice score. It's a very powerful way of rating features within a product. Now I said earlier that. You shouldn't really underestimate this, this choice. And I really want to take a, uh, a minute to explain why this matters so much choosing your primary feature is what I don't want you to do when you start building your product is starting with the easy stuff or starting with the standardized stuff.

Meaning like a logging, uh, an account page, an onboarding page. Don't start with the easiest stuff, because if you do, uh, that sort of prioritization, you will find yourself most likely in a huge trap. You will have spent time building all sorts of very standardized repeatable stuff, and you will have neglected the core feature.

And what you'll often find is things like, Oh, it took us a week long to get the AWS account set up because there was issues with that. Oh, a get hub wasn't working properly. Oh, the UX person's on here holidays. And then all of a sudden, yeah. Could be two thirds through your development phase and you haven't really tackled the core product.

Is this an invaluable lesson. This is quite a painful lesson that I've learnt over time. And I would strongly encourage you to make choosing the primary feature. Not only the most important thing you do when you have the team together and you're ready to start a sprint, but that you then once choosing, what is your primary feature?

What's the killer app. What makes this whole thing so different to everything else in the world is that is what you dedicate the that's part of design and development too. Do not fall for the trap of doing a very nice login page, do not do that far. First, do that last start your design and development with the primary feature.

Cause you might uncover all sorts of unexpected complications and you would much rather have a lot of time for that and have a quick and dirty bootstrapped login page because your users in the end will trade that off because the feature. The lights and satisfies and then helps them get a job done.

And that is what we're really about when we're building product. So do you have that defining your primary product feature? It's a big one. It's a huge one. I hope you've got a little bit of advice and inspiration on how you can make sure you start on the most important things first. If you'd like to download the entire design thinking master class, you can do so@bottomup.io, I've really enjoyed sharing with you.

This journey of design thinking. There are plenty, more episodes to come. So thanks once again for joining us on the bottom up skills podcast, that's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the chief executive officer at quality assurance, and we continue this wonderful adventure into the world of design thinking. And today it's all about rapid. Prototyping and boy, am I like the number one fan of rapid prototyping?

And I'm so glad to have this moment to share with you. What is for me, one of the most powerful things I've ever learned in my career, and I'll tell you why it was so powerful when I discovered it. And first of all, shout out to mr. Tom Chi, who. Really just blew my mind. Uh, some 10 years ago when he induced, introduced me to rapid prototyping and the work that he'd been doing at Google X, it was like a light bulb moment because rapid prototyping is the thing you can do before you build your product or service too.

Work out what exactly. Your users, like what they hate and to understand far far better, what really should be in the first release of your product. But I think it goes a bit further than that. I think what rapid prototyping really does is it shifts us from guessing what should be in our product to knowing you might not know completely and wholly, you know, let's be honest, you don't really know until the product's live.

But what rapid prototyping does is radically shift, uh, your understanding of what should be in your product, through testing and learning with customers. So let's talk a little bit about what rapid prototyping really use. It's a very powerful way to test and validate, and it's very important. Because it will help you understand, have you created enough value in your product?

Are you solving a big enough problem from the user's perspective? And you'll hear this so much in a design thinking and in terms of my experience with design thinking, I cannot emphasize enough. An obsession and like a complete focus upon the user and their well, because it's so easy as creators builders and entrepreneurs to guess what might be a cool product or feature, but that's so often ends in failure.

It's all about testing, learning and validating and rapid prototyping is the thing. So let's take a moment. To actually define what it is. Let's make sure we are all on the same page about rapid prototyping. So what it is is it's this idea of creating a light version of your product or service. Um, and it can be, I mean, you could sketch it on a whiteboard.

You could draw it up on paper or. If you're a bit more later stage, you can actually get out some tools such as Adobe XD or an envision to actually build a clickable version of your prototype. Right now what's essential here is that. Whatever you choose as the form of your prototype. You want to move to a material form that is very light quick and easy because speed is of the essence when you're prototyping, hence rapid prototyping.

The bar that you're looking for is to choose. A form of prototyping and material, um, that is sufficient in generating what we call sensory stimulus. Because if you generate the senses, if you create an approximation of your idea and you can actually trigger a sensory response, you will get. True feedback from your user.

So rather than an a focus group, we say, Hey, would you guys like, does this idea sound cool? If you're just asking the question, you're only taking a very early stage kind of measure or response of what people want. If you move them. Into direct experience where they touch, feel, smell, hear what this product might be.

You shift them from guessing how they would like this product to actually giving you a more visceral response. And that I can tell you is magic. Now rapid prototyping comes in a couple of different forms. I've tried to break it down into three major types of rapid prototyping. Um, that's very applicable to creating brand new first-generation products.

The first thing you could do is you can do what I call a diagnostic prototype. Um, and you know, that could be something like card sorting. Um, you know, you could even, uh, you know, do some shadowing of the customers. They try and get a job done. That that can be very helpful. If you've got a complex, a product or service, or you feel like all of them, the surveys and interviews you did still haven't given you enough, go for more of a diagnostic prototype.

The next thing you could do is you could create yeah. Um, a moment or a little journey. Um, and do you. Mike just choose maybe onboard, uh, our, into you experience. You might try the moment of truth, like the key moment in your given product or service, or you might try customer service support. You might just choose a little moment and try and sketch it and build it.

To see if this would be a viable and feasible solution. Now, lastly, the third type. So the first two diagnostic, uh, type of prototype, uh, then you've got like a moment or journey prototype the third, the one. And you, you would probably do these in order. The third one is where you get out your Adobe XD, your envision.

And you will actually start moving pixels around and creating something that's clickable, but also starts to really take shape and feel like the end product. So these are the sort of three ways you could bucket your activities, uh, organize your activities in, in rapid prototyping, diagnostic moments in digital experiences.

Now, at this point, I do want to let you know that we have a full. Dedicated masterclass to rapid prototyping. It's that important and just pop over to bottom up.io. It's all free. Grab the masterclass and the slice. Cause we go into way more detail than this. I'm just giving you a primer just to lay the seed, if you will.

Okay. Back to rapid prototyping. So, you know, I've given you a kind of a frame of what it is and some of the dimensions of it. Now I want to move into how you might do it. And there's a kind of four very essential ideas that will make your prototyping successful. First of all, we talked about this before, create the direct experience, create a prototype that stimulates a sensory experience.

So if you've got a product for college students, That they would use in the dorm either test in their dorm or create an environment, uh, like their dome so that you can create the direct visceral sensory experience. This will help you so much. Okay. Number two. Validate the prototype by asking questions of the user.

Okay. And what, so you actually have asked a few questions then what you can do with the next round of users, you test with, give them a task and see if they are able to complete the task. This is the essential mechanic to measure what you've achieved in the testing and what you've learned now. You've created the direct experience you're giving the users task so they can test so you can test and learn about their task completion to more fundamental funding, really important guys, two more things.

Number one, compound effects. When you do these things. Yes. In rapid prototyping, try and do as many tests as possible over the shortest period of time. I love to do two days, so you can just. Plow through maybe eight to 10 sprints, hundreds of tests, you will be blown away by the level of empathy, understanding knowledge, and frankly, you will be blown away by the confidence that you can now have in your product.

Once you've seen that many tests with users, and frankly, just a quick aside here, I made a ton of people who always say, Hey, Mike, I'm working on this new thing. I want your help. I want your advice. And the first thing I will always ask, how many times have you tested this with your audience? And invariably, if they're stuck, they've done insufficient amount of user tests.

They've done insufficient, rapid prototyping. Okay. So quick recap. Four key things to meet rapid prototyping it's success. Number one, create the direct experience. Then put to test and learn. Number three, make sure you get these compound effects by testing as much as possible over a shorter period of time.

What's the fourth. One of the most powerful things I discovered is you can prototype a product and you can prototype your marketing. And this one is a lot. To do with marketing, get users who have tested your product to actually advocate, share pitch product to new users who have yet to use it, because then you can witness advocacy, like in a little Petri dish, you can really test it and see how they talk about your product.

They perceive as the benefit and what they draw analogies and comparisons to. So there you go. That is the fourth of the key things you need to do in order to make rapid prototyping a success. Now. What's really important about this is that you create this shift that I talked about earlier. Don't want to guess, because, you know, if you think about at this stage, what is going to come next, um, what is going to be your next big step, where you're going to have to decide what the primary feature of your product is going to be?

Where are you going to put all your effort and attention, and you don't want to guess the essence of your product or service and this rapid prototyping will lead you to that conviction. And if you remember from the previous episode, you talked about the design challenges. Those are the missions that you have to do use rapid prototyping for.

So it is really, really important that you act this stage have really swung the pendulum from all that early stage optimism of wouldn't it be cool to create this new thing. Now we get into the business end of affairs. We actually know. What users really want. And therefore, in the next episode, the podcast, we're going to talk about how to pick the primary feature, but the prototyping done at this early stage will shift you in tonight.

And I can tell you, I have done this on such a crazy variety of products and on the marketing to launch those products. So just to give you an idea of. Why I am such a fan of rapid prototyping. Why I believe in its power is because it takes out the unknown and the uncertainty that prior to discovering rapid prototyping, I was always.

Like we launch a big product and I'd be like, jeez, I think it will be good, but I don't know. And that's what rapid prototyping does. It fills in that confidence gap, that conviction gap. So I've been very fortunate and I really want to show you how versatile rapid prototyping is. I've built virtual reality products for Ikea.

I built new fashion lines for Levi's I've even worked on a lung cancer detection system for general electric. The point that I'm making here is this can work on anything. And every day I'm using this on Shima products, banking products. You name it, the versatility of rapid prototype. I truly believe anything can be prototyped for Proctor and gamble.

I even prototyped an algorithm if you could believe it. That's how powerful this practice of prototyping is. So if you're really excited about that, you can go and see how it works in the overall design thinking process in our masterclass@bottomup.io. And why you're there. If. Rapid prototyping sounds good to you.

We even have him a master masterclass, a dedicated series, a to rapid prototyping. So go and check that out. All right. That is the world of rapid prototyping in the show's amount of time possible. I hope you believe this show knowing a bit more about how to prototype and validate your product. And I truly invite you to discover the power of rapid prototyping.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I might pass into the C E O of quality science, and we are so deep into our special edition. Our wide ranging a series on design. Thinking, and today we're getting into the idea of design challenges and these turn up at this really important moment when you're using design thinking to create a new product or service design challenges are all about the moment when you've done lots and lots of research.

You've got a clear map of the pains and the gains. You've got a value proposition, canvas. You can sort of match your face with the jobs to be done of your use, and you're ready to really get creative and what this product or service could be. And it's at this moment that you want to write design challenges.

And so what I want to do is I want to take you through the world of design challenges and explain how incredibly valuable they are and how they really bridge the gap. And this gap is. Sometimes people just want to jump straight into building their product or service, and they've never taken any sort of prototypes or test versions, uh, really, really light, uh, MVPs of their product.

To their user. And frankly, that's a jump that's too big for me. I would never want to do that. Having discovered not only design thinking, but also the practice of rapid prototyping. So these design challenges are bridge. You've done all your research. You've done quantum qual and we talked a lot about that in the last episode.

But before you go and build an engineering team of 10 people to go build a product first. Really explore these design challenges and put them into a design sprint. And we'll talk about that later and you'll be able to use your best rapid prototyping skills, and we'll have a whole episode on that. So let's talk about how we can use design thinking and particularly design challenges to create a product.

Now, the first thing is when you have design challenges, there's kind of two major ways. These can go. One can be a very early stage design thinking, a challenge that you might set yourself, which is particularly important when it's a first generation product, uh, you will have no idea of the sorts of. User behaviors, uh, that you're gonna have to understand, uh, all the blockers to switching and adopting a new behavior.

So that generally falls in the bucket of a, sort of a general more exploratory kind of design challenge. I'm all. What I call later stage a design challenge is when you already have a product and you might be sitting there saying, Hey, we need to build a next generation, a widget. Um, we need to, um, really, uh, take what we have and give it a major refresh, uh, significant, uh, version two, version three.

Uh, what we're not talking about is using this kind of approach for day to day, um, you know, product improvements we're talking about when you want a significant upgrade or as I said, Earlier, if it's a brand new product, you really need to experiment with all these sorts of possibilities and early stage product insights.

And the design challenge is the perfect thing. It's the perfect, I think, to give a small team of people and say, guys, go and ideate, go test and learn and validate around this design specific to our product. So what I'm going to do now, Is, I'm going to take you through these design challenges. I'm going to explain how to use, I'm going to give you an example of one.

I'm going to show you how this builds a bridge into the practice of rapid prototyping. So get ready, get all of your, uh, envision Adobe XDS already, because this will be your mission. Yeah. To go and prototype. Okay. So a design challenge is. Based on all the insights that you learnt from your research phase.

And if you'd like to know more about that, just go and grab one of our older episodes at bottom-up dot IO. And that's there that you'll find all the things you need to know about how to research and find out what customers actually might want. We're now moving into a challenge that will. Be based on the assumption that people are going to build a prototype and test it.

That's very important for the design challenge. And we'll talk more about that in a moment, but let's think what could a design challenge sound like? So what I've done is I've looked at all the disease challenges I've written and, um, I've kind of created a template. And I want you to imagine what I'm going to walk you through now is something you'd have maybe five or six people who are going to spend a day prototyping.

And what's also important is to remember that when they are prototyping, it's not a brainstorm. It's quite different. This is about iterative ideation and the. Key traffic light system is, did the user like enjoy, engage, comprehend this product. So remember anything that you build throughout the design thinking process, any insight should be tested and validated with real users.

So if your, if you're building a product for gym junkies, Go down to the gym and test it with gym guys and girls. If this is for master chefs, go into a kitchen and test it with chefs, do not. And I cannot stress this enough, do not get stuck, making beautiful PowerPoint decks that are all a fantasy land of your creation that has no basis of proof or evidence.

This design challenge is what you're going to take to the customer. You're going to build, create, learn, and it will be tough and it will be hard, but it will be so invaluable in giving you some signal on how to create a great product. Okay. Let me take you through a design challenge. So I want you to imagine that you're sitting there and you're about to receive a mission from me, and you're going to go prototype, sketch, build, uh, some sort of light form of prototype to test with your users.

So here we go. Our product is going to be called product X, Y, Z. I'm sorry that that's not the most creative name, but you'll kind of get the drift. All right, here we go. Imagine if product XYZ was your ultimate. Now it could be a guide or tool or inspiration for a particular activity, maybe it's to learn or to work out, to cook, whatever you're looking to discover about this given activity, product X, X, Y, Z will be your number one choice.

So, what we're doing here is we're saying we want you to do imagine if our product is the ultimate guide is the ultimate tool for getting a job done. So it can be any range of those. So it's going to be a comprehensive service that really frames. Really frames the activity and helps create value for the user.

Now you can be very specific. So maybe it could be, uh, an app about the ultimate pasta app, whatever past do you want to cook? This is the ultimate one. Imagine if is a really key framing of this. So what you're deliberately doing is saying, imagine this is just. Amazing in a given category and what you want to do.

And we'll talk about this in a moment as you follow it up with some inspiration, some references, some possible starting points for the team to go and build against that. Now it's really important that we use the word. Imagine if, because what you want to do is you want to encourage the team to discover not only best practices, but maybe some delightful, um, maybe some.

Uh, unexpected ways to approach the category. Now this first one that I gave you this, imagine if one was really sort of front end inspirational way that, uh, people come to the product. The next one, I'm going to give you as a, what if one? And this one is just imagining more of we've onboarded the customer, and now they're an active customer.

So this one is more about the support services experience. Here we go. What if contacting product XYZ support was like talking to an expert or a genius calling customer support and using support websites can be deeply frustrating. Let's turn that moment where they reach out into an aha moment for product X, Y, Z, and its customers.

So you'll see here. What we're doing is really trying to transform the product experience. Particularly I'm using the product or service, and now I've got questions I need help. This is a great moment to create value with customers. And this time we're saying, what if it was like talking to an expert or a genius.

Now you've given this a particular design challenge to a team and what's really important is you can also give them some inspiration. So here's a couple of great ones where I'm just taking companies that do a particular part of the customer journey really well. And using that as a benchmark. So the team can source inspiration and as they go about, uh, testing and building and bringing these design challenges to life.

Not only would I expect them to find best practices, but I'd really expect them to bring some different thinking into it. And I've got some tips on how we can do that in just a second. So they've got their design challenge, but let's give them some inspiration. Yeah. You could say to them, well, let's introduce our product and activate the customer like Nike does when it launches.

A pair of sneakers let's, uh, activate customers like Spotify does Spotify does such a great example, such a great a way of getting customers in at a zero charge on their free version, and then activating them into the paid version. They're actually masters at that. So it's a very elegant solution there.

Now we've introduced to the customer, we've activated the customer. Let's delight them. Now that they're a customer. So what you could do. And I use this one because I referenced it earlier in the design challenge. What if we delight customers like the Apple genius bar does. Okay. It's a classic example of amazing customer experience.

Let's, don't delight our customers and I'll give you an area like Applewood. So yeah, it's almost what you do here is imagine if Apple was launching your. Product for gym junkies or master chefs, how would they think about creating a version of their genius bar? That sort of great seamless, frictionless customer support you have with Apple and lastly, right at the end of this customer cycle, imagine if we created conversation patients with our customers like red bull, did.

Because red bull, without a doubt, and one of the best content and social marketing companies, which is rooted very much, not only in the product, but the greater product experience. And they generate all this conversation and importantly, they create advocacy. So you can actually design. A little bit of Nike, Spotify, Apple, and rebel into your product by referencing them as inspiration for your design challenge.

Now, whilst you're doing that and you're building prototypes and testing with the customer, you can look for what brings smiles. To people's faces. Um, you might discover in this journey of prototyping, what keeps people up at night? What are they missing? Uh, there's all sorts of, um, opportunities here to generate innovation insights, product insights.

As you start to shift from, Hey, we've got a value position, canvas with features and customer jobs to be done. Now, this design challenges is forcing us. To bring the idea, the product idea to life and to see how customers start responding. And there's some really interesting things you can do in that. You can start to, um, frame this, uh, as, as a product that you might deliberately try doing it opposite.

To the conventional wisdom in the category, uh, you might try introducing a product that has no instruction book. Um, there's all sorts of great creative constraints that you can use as you try and bring your design challenge to life. Now, as I'm taking you through true this, you might be thinking, uh, okay.

But then. How exactly should we rapid prototype? Well, the great news for you is that's going to be our next episode. I'm going to do a complete deep dive on rapid prototyping, but what you can see here is the design challenge frames, the mission. And the way to think about these design challenges is that they are something that we do in a workshop, in a design sprint, where we really want to test and learn with customers.

So it calls upon. The skill of rapid prototyping and understanding the user, which is classic design thinking. And what it also does, is it just as this idea of like what new technologies could we bring to the table to help customers get the job done? And lastly, it will be bringing this whole practice of picking, curious, open, and collaborative people to come and help you on these design challenges.

So there you have it. We have dived into the world of design challenges. It's this little bridge between your value proposition, canvas and rapid prototyping. It frames the mission. It gets specific. And once again, it's another step into creating a great product. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of our design thinking special series here on the bottom up skills podcast.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the chief executive officer. At quality events and I am so happy to have you back for the seventh installment of our design thinking series. And today we're going to delve into problem solution fit and how we achieve that through getting really into the pains and the gains of our.

Users. And in the last episode, we sort of defined who those users were and how we can kind of share that story. Now we're going to start making our way to the product or service that we might build. And today I get to introduce to you this idea of a value proposition canvas, and that is a fantastic. Uh, two that kind of forces us to really simplify all of the potential, uh, product ideas that we have.

It's sort of a forcing factor structures and organizes our thinking and becomes a reference point. Um, when we really work on the pains and gains, um, we then have to ask ourselves, are we relieving them and are we creating the gains? So let's. Delve into the value proposition canvas, and let's see, not only what it does to help us finding out the problem solution fit for our product or a service.

Let's see how this helps us launch product and build a team to do it. How to build a great company. All right, let's stop. Let's go right back to basics. The value proposition canvas effectively has. I want you to imagine it's got two parts and it's all about balancing them together. The first side, it's all about the customer and their wealth.

And on the other side, it's all about the proposition of without given product or service. Now, remember we're in the really early days of our entrepreneurial journey. So it really is. The product really is just a proposition. You know, we don't have, um, a fully working product. We're not servicing hundreds and hundreds of customers.

It's an idea. And so. The first thing we do is we frame this as a proposition and this proposition is, Hey, we're out here to solve the weld. And if we go back onto the other side, it's all about weighing up whether that actually helps the customer. So I want you to think of the value proposition. Canvas is essentially weighing up what the customer wants, what we want to build as a product and trying to actually create fit.

To create harmony and synergy between these two things, because frankly, the reason most products fail. Is that they don't solve a problem worth solving. And so this is a critical step in making sure hang on. We want to go build this big, fancy, exciting, exhilarating product or service, but let's just check in and make sure it's the right thing.

Something that delights and satisfies. Yeah. Customer and importantly, it's something that's doing a job that they're willing to pay to get some help getting done. So. At the core of this, we define on the customer side, we define the customer's pains and the customer's gains. Now the pains are said differently.

What are the things that block me? Or cause friction, when I'm trying to get a job done. Now this is introduced, introducing another part of the customer. So we've got the pain, but importantly, it's a pain that is related to getting a job done. Now, the jobs to be done would be getting the kids to school.

Um, a job to be done could be, uh, learning a new skill, a job to be done could be paying the mortgage. Whatever, whatever is irrelevant for your product is the jobs to be done. That are related, uh, to this area, uh, of the given product or service. What are the jobs that the user is trying to get done? And then what pains?

What blockers, what humps, what, what hurdles do they face trying to get it done? And you'll often, uh, find that it's related to specific pains around time. Around money around effort and convenience. And you will often find that these are where the pains are framed. Now, the gains that they're looking for would be, be essentially the benefits.

In their life when the pains are removed and when the job is completed, having a clear reference point, um, what gains they're looking for, what pains, um, do they currently, uh, encounter when they try and get this job done is a fantastic world, too. A way to zoom in on the customer's universe. As it pertains to the product or service that you have in mind.

Okay. So the jobs should be very specific to the category, the area, the industry, or wherever you're working within, it should be inside of it. Okay. And then you simply look at what are the blockers and what are the benefits, um, that, uh, they experience or desire. So this is the customer world. And then over on the other side, What is the connective tissue here is what are the pain relievers that the user requires and what are the gain creators that they're looking for?

And then you have these as reference to the given product services and features that are inside of your offering. So you have to make sure that a given feature of your product or service either creates again or relieves pain. And so what you then do is you have framed your product and said, okay, here's our product.

It's got three main features and it has certain gain creators because. And helps people enjoy more of this, uh, more of these lifestyle benefits, all of these wonderful things they get to enjoy. But on the other hand, there's also the pain relievers, which is specifically how our product or service addresses the pains of time, effort, and money.

I mean, those are your classics. You can, you can add a lot more, but these are really important. Cornerstones that you need to create. So what I want you to imagine, you've got your list of features in your product, but then the, the job you have to do is ask yourself, how's it creating a game or how's it relieving a pain, and then you have to match those with the gains that your customers.

Desire and the pains that they actually experience, and you need to be able to map these. You need to be able to literally draw a line between those and say, this given feature in our product, we're going to go, you know what we'll do, we'll go left from left to right. In in the canvas right now. So you've got your given product with its features.

A particular feature has to have a pain relieving characteristic. You draw a line across and make sure that relates to specifically if your customers have an issue with time that you have to a, be able to connect those two together and that when you actually address and relieve that pain, this enables going right to the far right side, this enables the customer, the user to get the job done.

Now, just because you've met to this day actually mean that we're finished our job here because yeah. Do you have to test and validate the date that the assumption that said feature relieves the pain for the customer. Who's trying to get a job done and they would be satisfied. This is something that you have to go back to our surveys.

You have to go back to our interviews and what's really exciting is going forward. This hypothesis is something that you would prototype in real life in situation in order to actually have the highest form of the problem solution fit what we've done here by weighing out what the customer needs and what we're offering as a proposition in our product or service.

If we test and experiment and we validate these assumptions, we can then say, you know what? Guys we've got problem solution fit. We know the pains and gains. We're able to address them. This is a product worth building. Now, once you get there, this is something that I have learned, um, from years and years of work, when you know the pains and gains of the customer, you can then go and create some use cases of different features, products, and services, build them into user stories, epics, and themes, and then you prototype them.

Once you validate your prototype, you then build an MVP. And then from your MVP, you really least versions one, two, three, four of your product. So if you're familiar with design thinking and agile development, this is exactly how modern apps are built in terms of best practices. But here is a little bonus special for you.

What I've also discovered is that the best marketing and storytelling, the best customer engagement when you're marketing and selling to customers comes from speaking to their pains and gains. So what we have here is the unearthing of the pains and gains not only helps us build the product. But it helps us build the marketing too.

And that means that you can build your product and marketing consistently and in an integrated fashion from day one. And this is really good because right now, most product teams walk around to the marketing department, knock on the door and say, Hey guys, we're finished this product. Can you find a way to sell this in someone to sell it to.

Here we are in 2020, the way it has to be done going forward is that the marketing proposition and the product should be built together and rooted in these powerful insights around the pains and gains of customers. Yeah. If you know the pain and gain that your customers, either the pains they experience or the gains they desire, you can then find out that when we relieve the pain, when we create the gain, what emotional, uh, characteristics are unlocked, is it delight, happiness, satisfaction, calm, serenity, whatever that emotional frame is, you can then make your proposition testing through the emotions.

That your users desire. This is the, how come this is the whole reason they're trying to get this job done. So what you then do is you have a secret sauce, which is the emotion. So you can propose the gain, uh, creation or the pain relief, but through the right emotional lens. And once you know that, then you can prototype.

Different types of interactions on how they might enjoy and delight and engage with marketing and sales materials. But here's the last thing you can even prototype. How a customer might talk about use word of mouth and share an advocate, your given product or service to other people. So you can actually prototype a customer to customer advocacy.

It is so powerful and you can do all of this before you launch your product. So once again, this bottom up philosophy of de-risking before you launch your product, not only the actual given product service or feature, but also you can de risk the marketing, which is often a big expense on the P and L.

But just to take this to a whole nother level, if you've identified a huge. A pain that your users experience and, uh, they really want to relieve these pains and they weren't really wanting to experience these gains. This can become your North star. This can be a. Organizational North star can be a lighthouse for the sort of culture that you want to build, because you're in the business of helping your customers achieve this a better world to have impact on their life, to have a meaningful role in their life.

And so what you can then do is create this North star for the, for the mission that you're on and the culture that you want to create and inside of your culture. You can define the behaviors of your team, the systems and the symbols, so that it all comes cohesively together. The product, the organization, and the marketing all comes back to the central point of understanding your users, pains and gains who I know.

Okay. That one is a lot in there. There's probably 1,000,001 questions that you have. No problem. Just jump over to bottom up.io. You can get our free design thinking master class. You can hear us going deep into this. You can get the slides. Uh, you can really go back to this and go really, really deep in the masterclass.

So I hope you've enjoyed this journey into using understanding the pains and gains of your youth in order to get a problem solution fit and a whole lot more. Okay. That's a wrap of the bottom up skills podcast. I'll see you next time.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass since I'm the chief executive officer at quality assurance. And welcome to our sixth installment of our design thinking series. And today we're really going to get stuck into a really neat part of the design thinking process, which is really understanding our users, really understanding and defining the different segments within our users and bringing that story to life in personas because.

If you're listening at this six installment about design thinking podcast, you'll notice that previously we've talked a lot about all the quote unquote research where you can just go really deep into the world of, of customers, of users. Um, you can even survey employees. It doesn't matter who the end user is.

Uh, you know, the classic survey and interview combination reveal so much. But at a certain point, you've got to bring it all together. You've got to make sense of it all and defining the user and the user segmentation. Okay. Is a key step in the journey for designers, entrepreneurs, builders, executives.

It's all part of your journey. As you go to build a brand new product and let's face it building brand new products. Wow. That's the fun stuff. Uh, that's going where nobody has gone before. So if you're going to take on such a bold challenge, then it is super, super important that you have a really good grasp on the user.

So I'm going to show you how to do that. Using some design thinking best practices and, um, the more rigor you put into defining the user, the crazy thing is everything. Down the track, what you designed, what you develop, what you build, whether it's digital, analog, how you launch it. What's really interesting is.

It always just comes back to for whom are we building this product? Whom for whom are we building this service? Um, this business, no matter what it is, if you always anchor yourself in the user, the customer and having an enormous understanding and empathy. For the world that they live in rather than the world, or you as a creator live in the world, your customer, the world, your user lives in.

If you know that you can always just come back to that and get yourself back on track. If you get lost on this big adventure of building brands, okay, I'm going to give you a. Two real powerful goodies today, a bit later on, we're going to get into personas. Um, but we're gonna start with this idea of segmentation and there's actually four pillars of segmentation.

And the thing that strikes me so much about small and large, old and new businesses, invariably. I am struck by how much more work they could do to know their customer. And so if you really tune into these four pillars that I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you lots of examples. Um, you can spend a lot of time.

Refining defining, getting to know your customer through these. And this is like an ultimate checklist. And if you know this, uh, if you feel this, understand this about your user, you will, you will intuitively you'll subconsciously start building something to address their problems. And the reason I believe this, so I think end a vast majority of us all want to build a product.

That's great. We all want to build a product that's solving a problem, and we all take enormous pride. When we know the products that we've built can really serve the customer. So let's get to know who that person is. Four buckets here. They are the demographic bucket, the psychographic bucket, the behavioral bucket, and the geographic bucket.

These are all ways to segment your user group. This is a forensic checklist, and I'm going to take you through on how you need to know your customer. Now, um, when you hear, you know, demographics and geographics, I think those are pretty common and pretty straightforward. Invariably, this will be where most companies understand their customer.

Val, generally, no, let's say if we're talking about a consumer brand, a consumer product, then invariably, they're going to know roughly a core age demographic that is. Sort of the pillar, like what age are our customer, uh, dial obviously with that know the gender. So those are the two primary things that sit within the demographics.

The other things that you can add to that is income. You can add location. Um, you can explore education, cultural and ethnic diversity, uh, the family environment and so on and so forth. These are the general demographics by which you know, customers and the classic thing that we often see when we kind of get into demographic segmentation is, um, quite a lot of variants between if it's a consumer brand.

Again. We tend to see quite a lot of variants based on age. Um, if I'm a consumer brand, invariably OTA customers have made a lot of, uh, brand decisions, uh, for marketeers. So they've, they've chosen their favorite brands and it's pretty hard to shift them there. They've also got pretty strongly built rituals, habits, routines.

So it's hard, really hard to get behavior change, whereas younger, uh, younger customers often, you know, A lot of brands spend a lot of time to capture customers in the early days, age demographic, because they know that might be able to build a customer for life. They also tend to, to be a little bit more open to switching and to jumping around and trying and experimenting with different things.

So this is the demographic bucket now. Um, I'm going to jump over to geographic. Yeah, because that's also a factor, the common way of segmenting, um, The obvious one is like, what city, what country? But zip code, what postal code are they in? And that that's, uh, the classics there. Now what's interesting is one of the emerging, uh, sort of filters in geographic customer definition, geographic user segmentation is defining, um, some more contextual geographic items.

The first one is do they live in an urban environment or a suburban or rural environment. So that can be a really interesting. Filter, particularly when we think about lifestyle products. When we think about products that are attached either to living in impoverishment in a more rural setting, I'm sorry, in a more urban setting or whether they have a larger freestanding house, single family home, that would be an example of where you start to get some insights around the geography and the type of urban environment.

Okay, so we've got these two. Now, what I'm going to do later is to show you how these all inter relate first let's continue mapping. We've got the first two demographic and geographic. These are great checklists to go through on how much we know our customer. And I think if you're a consumer brand, you you'll love it.

So, you know, the age and gender, but I challenge you like. How good. Do you understand your customers in terms of either cultural and ethnic diversity or education, um, or household income? Those might give you a richer story as to who your user is and what pains and gains they experience. Just to jump over on the other side, geographically.

Yes. You want to know city country, zip code and so forth. But let's go a little bit deeper next time. Let's see. Um, you know, do they live in urban or rural suburban environments? Um, try and get into those contexts. So they have it. So that's the first two, their third and fourth. This is where it gets really, really good.

And I'll tell you why. This is where you start to get in  from what products, um, they might like and what stories might be. The perfect proposition, uh, for them to purchase a new product and to start a new behavior, let's start with the behavioral segmentation. Behavioral segmentation is so great. It's um, I think it's a little bit new.

Well, in terms of understanding, uh, users, there's a lot of behavioral psychologists, behavioral, economic, uh, experts trying to really unravel this universe. And I think that there is, um, Really two pillars understanding, um, how our users behave. And the first one is what are their purchasing habits? What are their spending habits?

Um, and. This is really important in terms of acquiring new customers, but it's also, if you're building a product, you really need to understand how not only they're going to use the product, which we'll talk about in a second, but we need to understand that purchasing and spending habits because well, often, uh, one of the challenges brands have is what I'm.

What I commonly say is a mismatch on pricing to the need. So what we, what we're talking about, dairies, we might have created a great product too, or at least it's a good product, but the pricing is just way beyond the pallet of. Uh, the user. So understanding their purchasing and spending habits will give you a frame of reference.

It might give you some really interesting insights in the switching costs that they might perceive, obviously, in terms of your customer and their behavioral segmentation, you want to break down, uh, their, uh, user profile. They address the given problem at the moment. Ah, so you might define that in different ways, uh, that we've talked about here.

User journeys, user stories, you know, the status quo. So you want to understand how they behave at the moment. And lastly, you want to understand the kind of relationship they want with brands and products. It's not only the product side that we're talking about here, but it's also the content, the services, the value add that can come through marketing through advertising and the stories that we tell.

So there's a rich, uh, context here that will help you. Not only. A market to customers, sell to your customers, help them use the products and see, and understand and segment them on how they wish to be serviced by any given company. So this is behavioral, segmentation's really understanding habits and behaviors.

Let's go to the fourth and the really interesting one. This one is going to largely affect your marketing. Whereas behavioral is both product and marketing. A psychographic segmentation is all about trying to understand your customer through their personalities, their values, their attitudes, and interests.

So this whole snapshot of a customer psychographic, this attitudinal based frame is so powerful. Because if you want to propose a new solution to a problem, it is so critical to understand their motivations and how they will perceive the proposition. So you can actually do a whole segmentation through asking.

Questions in a survey questions in an interview, and we tackled that in the previous episode, you can fill all of those insights into psychographic segmentation. So what you're gonna do I have at the end of the day, are these four parts you're going to have roughly their age, gender. And basic demographic profile you'll know where they are from the geographic profile.

That's the first two pillars of segmentation, but then you're going to layer and contextualize that with all these goodies from behavioral and psychographic segmentation. Now I've got these complete lists, uh, these checklists of the things that you want to check off, um, you can get all of them.

those@bottomup.io. Jump in there. Grab the free design thinking masterclass. You can download all the slides and use them. They can be your checklist, but I want to give you one last little gift here. Is some of these lists become a little bit overwhelming. You have so much data, you have a, it becomes a little bit hard to relate to.

And you know, it just, I mean, it's really hard to process. If you think about those four buckets, one of the reasons that, uh, Most businesses just don't have good behavioral and psychographic data is it's just a lot of work, you know? Um, and sometimes, uh, they may have the data, but they're not telling the story in the right way.

And one of the neat workarounds to this is to create. A persona. Okay. And a persona is like an awkward, typical user whose goals and characteristics represent the needs of a large group of your user base. So for example, you might have a sort of early adopter type user who's very active, highly engaged and represent, you know, 15, 20% of your total user base.

You might have that sort of core user or early adopter. Uh, Persona. And you tell that story, you give them a name, you describe them, like they're someone, you know, and the way you do that is you describe the motivations perhaps where they might work, typically, how they solve the problem now, how they, uh, where they get their news from.

And these personas are just a great way of telling the story of your segmentation. And it becomes really powerful as well because it's relatable. It turns data into, uh, you know, into a persona. It's something that is relatable as if it's your neighbor. Um, and these personas are fantastic. So when you've got those four pillars of segmentation, There's a job to be done and putting that into a shareable, understandable, relatable story.

And that is a user persona. So just the classic archetype of your different segments. So, um, we've got an example in our masterclass that will serve as a good starting point for you. When you go out into the world to build product, to service, to go even build a business. So I hope that you've really got some inspiration.

Maybe you've just had it. Aha moment where you thought we probably need to know a little bit more about the behaviors of our customers or their attitudes. I hope you've found something that will inspire you in this episode of the bottom up skills podcast. That's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass. And I'm the CEO of quality tents, and we are on a journey of design thinking. And I hope you're enjoying the series thus far, because today we've got another goodie for you. We're going to be talking about how research. Can help you build empathy for understanding who your customer is.

And it will all be inspired by design thinking. And, uh, I'm just actually in the middle of conducting an enormous global research, uh, for a consumer product. And so I'm living this right now, so I'm hoping that I can share with you, um, all sorts of insights and tips and tricks on how to get the most out of this because.

Frankly research, you can just, you can just get lost in, in research data and then, you know, arguing about the insights and then arguing and tossing up between the recommendations. And it's a kind of, I can get very swampy when you do your research. So what I'm hoping to do is to give you sort of the fast track, if you will.

On how to really validate a phone generation product or service, um, and how you can really have what I hope is right. Confidence in your idea, because really that's what it's all about. We don't want to be guessing anymore. We want to know what our users need. We want problem solution fit. Okay. So we're talking research and there's primarily two types of research that I've very powerful in early stage ideas.

And in particular for brand new products and services, we can get into all the other variations and permutations of research that. Maybe more relevant for an existing product or service. Um, we can talk about NPS and all that sort of stuff, but we're focusing on creating something brand new and between you and me, that's kind of the exciting stuff.

So let's talk about these two types of research. One is quantitative and the other is. Qualitative. Now you might hear these referred to very often wanting qual, um, cause they're kind of like a mouthful. They self help things, but let me make it even simpler. You know, quantum research, um, is very much based on numbers and statistics and it's all, uh, largely conducted in the form of a survey.

Okay. Now qual research is much more about opinions. Um, the sample sizes, the number of people participating in the research is much smaller because if you think about it, you know, you can get hundreds of people to take a survey. That's fine. Particularly taking the, uh, the survey online, but if you're going to do really good work in your interviews, You only want to conduct five or 10 in a batch before you actually need to reflect on them.

So it's a much smaller number of people. And, um, it's all about the interview when you do a qual research program and, um, these interviews are really essential ways for you to gain a better understanding, a deeper understanding than what you had in the qual. In the Kwan. Sorry. So let's talk about, let's go back to and talk about that.

Um, I think that the output that you might expect from a quantitative survey is you really want some clear stats, so it's quite okay just to ask, uh, do you like this, or which of these do you prefer? Cause you weren't real stats and data, so yeah, you can do the key thing here is to compare and contrast now.

The reason that I like Kwan is, uh, it gives you sort of a baseline. It gives you a context. It gives a little bit of tangibility. I like the idea of just knowing we surveyed a ton of people and actually a majority of them have this really big problem. That would be an example of a piece of data. Um, that came out of a survey that would be really instructional because you'd be able to say, well, geez, Hey, it seems like a lot of people have this problem.

Um, and this is a confirmation that if we could solve that, that this has a clickability to a large amount of people. In fact, it's a majority of our sample size. So. That's really, really good. Now, when you, you get really fancy with your conservation, you can do a lot of filtering comparing, contrasting, and, um, Really, this is where you can do all sorts of interesting things, uh, where you can, for example, compare the entry points on your screen are people who answered your survey by age.

So you could compare younger versus more mature. Customers, you could do it on geography, those from East coast to West coast USA, um, perhaps you even have some other screen is, um, is really interesting, you know, really basic, uh, users or premium users. You can see all sorts of permutations, you can compare them and contrast them.

So that's, that's really the world of Kwan. And, uh, to wrap that up, If you're thinking about doing a survey, uh, I would encourage you just to go largely molded in your questions and maybe one or two open ones. They're always good, but don't do too many because you'll just be like working like crazy to try and process all those open questions.

What's interesting. Is we back to the call? So this is an interview. You know, the researcher sitting opposite the customer, just having a chat, asking the questions, obviously, please, please, please record the interview because you'll want to refer back to it and do some other things. But the output of this is some in depth research and analysis.

If you talk to 10 people and they all, haven't had a significant problem, trying to get a particular job or tasks done in this given area, then the big thing is why. And that's where you want to use your, your discussion guide, get some context, probe understand, and, you know, generally I wouldn't go into, um, uh, like a discussion guide with 20 questions.

Cause that feels pretty exhausting. So good measure. Once again, 10 to 12 would be good, uh, for our 30 to 60 minute interview now. So both of those are gonna give you, um, Great insights. Now, I really want to give you a bit of a gift. I want to explain how you can use them together. So once you to imagine that you did your first survey and you've got your baseline, you know, generally who the user is and what their pains and gains are in the first round of, uh, discussion, uh, and interviews that would come after that.

You really want to understand the motivations and be asking why a lot here, you want to know why is this, why is that a lot of people have this problem? Why is time such a big issue? Why is the cost such an issue and really dig in and get some context around not only some of the behaviors associated with the task, but motivations as well.

Now at this point, this is gonna sound a bit crazy. I want you to go back to doing some more quant. I want you to go and do another survey, but what I want you to do now is to start propose to propose those and validate not only the problem, but the solution to what if we did this? How might this work and really start to maybe use some stimulus?

Yeah. Posters, videos, sketches, whatever you want to do. You use that in your next round of Quentin. See what feedback you can get in order to distill from the user, what the problem solution model looks like. Lastly. Go back and sneaking a few more user interviews, a last round of qual here. And in that what you really want to do is understand what it would take for them to adopt this new product or service.

Now, if you do this four part approach, you will get enormous levels of validation. And this is really key to design thinking. This is why I love it so much. It has a test and learn ethos at the heart of it. So we don't do guessing we only do knowing. And so by doing Kwan qual Kwan qual in that order, what you distill is.

A very strong, uh, you know, signal through the noise, uh, validation of where you might go with your given product or service. So I really encourage you to run all of these together. One of my favorites. A quick tip here would be do a survey one week interviews, the next survey and other week interviews again on that fourth week, compress it.

The more time you have between your research, the more opportunity there is to lose momentum, lose a grasp of this insight and how we can have empathy for our customer. So by this time you might've asked. 40 50, maybe even 60 questions to hundreds and hundreds of people. And you will truly form a sense of what life is like for your users, what it feels like for a customer to try and get the job done.

And this is at the heart of empathy. And what you find remarkable here is how different that picture looks than what you may have guessed at the start. I can't tell you. I have done this so many times and every single time I get back, something that I did not expect, I really like woof devils a piece of insight.

And so I encourage you to use a model like this. If you really want to build a brand new product or service now, One last tip that I have for you is it is enormously taxing. It's a huge effort to pull together all of the feedback you've got in your surveys, all of the feedback you've got in your interviews.

And what I strongly suggest is that you use a tool like dovetail. Dovetail is a great service that enables you to pull together. Um, audio video, text based, uh, interview transcripts from your, from your, uh, uh, kind of qual efforts where you have a discussion guide and you're chatting with your user or customer, but you can also insert objects.

Such as survey results, results from your quant. And what's really powerful is you can tag, you can highlight, you can see patterns and clustering in the charts of all the themes. And this is really, really good because it then has the capacity to be build insights. And if you say, Hey, a majority of people find this, uh, Given a job that they're trying to do very stressful.

And if we could compress the stress, um, by say removing, you know, 10 or 15 minutes from the task, um, customers would highly value it. Let's say that was your insight. So you're essentially saying you've got problem solution fit here. I could click in an app like dovetail, and then I could do the tracing.

Of the data points that feed that insight. Let's say Jim was in an interview and he, uh, talked a lot about time being a big issue. Well, you would have highlighted that text. Tack that text maybe with time or time-saving and that tag then gets an association with the charts and the insights. So you can have what we call for  insights, meaning that any insight is backed up by quotes from an interview and data that was in your survey.

Your survey results. Now they're out lots of alternatives to dovetail, uh, as well, but you should check it out because putting that together with, uh, your Quentin qualifying things enables you to build a rigorous picture. To really know if you've got problem solution fit. And most importantly, once you've gone through that exercise, ladies and gentlemen, you will certainly understand your customer and you'll have a ton of empathy for them.

Now, I know this was a pretty intense episode. I hope you've enjoyed it. If you want to follow up. We've got a ton on quant and qual research. We have a mass class on design thinking. It's all free. It's all available at bottom up. Don't I so encourage you to get over there and download all those slides and get all the goodies.

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hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast I might pass. And I am the chief executive officer at quality science, and we are well on our way into a series dedicated to design. Thinking, and in this episode, we're going to dig into where we can find inspiration and look as creative and wonderful as we all naturally are.

Sometimes we get a little stuck and, uh, what's so great about design thinking is that there's lots of really, uh, practical ways that we can generate some new insights, new ideas and inspiration, um, and they can lead us to uncovering some really. Powerful product insights, but more so than that, that might lead to a new product and your service.

Maybe, maybe it's just a feature, but Hey, adding yeah. A new feature to an existing product could lead to some great things and Hey, who knows, maybe these inspiration techniques might lead us to a whole new. Company. So where, uh, into the fourth of our 14 part series on design thinking. So make sure that if you're interested in anything we discussed today, jump over to bottom up.io, where you can pick up a free master class on design thinking.

You can download the slides. We go a lot deeper into some of these topics, but the aim today is really bite-size inspiration for you to get ideas that could really change products, services, and businesses, but more than anything can change the world of your customers and of your users. Okay. So I mentioned that I'd have eight tips for you, eight tips on how to get inspiration.

That would be very inline with a design thinking methodology. So let's get straight into them. Number one, you're a little stuck. You've got an existing business and you're like, Hmm, I'm not sure what we should do next. Well, here is my go to do a quick survey of your exams, assisting customers now. Um, there's very little barriers to entry trying to do that very few blockers.

Yeah. You could do it on your Facebook page. Um, you could post something onto your website or maybe you have a newsletter where you can invite people. To answer your survey. Now in this podcast series, we're going to do a lot, um, around how to do research and, and in particular, the quantity of part, which is what surveys are all connected to.

So I don't want to get too much into how to do a survey, but let me tell you some of my experiences. Um, number one, if you have one or two open questions to your existing customers, you can really. You can really get some interesting inspiration. You can get some interesting feedback that you might not have expected.

And secondly, one of the things that I find is really powerful about surveying your existing customers is that you can discover the, the picture you have of who your customer is. Um, might be a little different to reality, and this can create a really interesting opportunity for you to provide new services.

Based on this insight. So look, number one, if you're a bit stuck on inspiration for creating a new product service or business, reach out, survey your customers, make it 10, 12 questions, max, but get out there and talk to them and challenge yourself. Not to assume too much about them and see what answers you get back.

Okay. So that's number one for a little bit of inspiration sent out. A survey to your existing customers, if you want to take things next level. And I know for some of you, you may have done, uh, at home interviews, uh, with customers, um, or in office interviews. This is a lot more effort than a survey, but I think there's a lot more, uh, opportunity as well.

Uh, I think that the, the most powerful thing you can do is to go and see your customer. Uh, whether they're in a business or at a home to see them in context and whether it's a home or the office, or maybe they're at college or school to see them trying to get jobs done in there. Native environment, so to speak, it's, it's a really powerful, uh, uh, technique.

So you do a home visit, you have a discussion guide, but it also gives you the opportunity to understand the context and in particularly, uh, the greater context. So the world is bigger than just your product and service and seeing customers at home or in the office can be really powerful. These first two are slam dunk real straight on target design thinking approaches.

And later on, we'll talk about how to filter ideas out of those. Um, so that's the first two. Third one is a really, really. A curious minded person, we'll go out and we'll read an industry report or a customer trends report. You might get that from your industry, buddy, that you're in, or you might go to something like e-marketer or any of the trend watching, uh, services out there.

If you just put TrendWatching into Google, you'll get a ton now. That's perhaps not the most, uh, powerful advice I can give here. I would encourage you. If you read one of these reports or websites is ask yourself this simple question. Is this trend an opportunity? Or a threat. Now this trend may be directly related to your business, or maybe it's indirect, maybe you're in the fashion business and you see something happening in the sports business.

Maybe you could ask yourself, well, what's the opportunity in the sports business that I can leverage into fashion, a really good exercise to do so opportunity first threat key question to ask yourself when looking at a trend and it can be outside of your given practice area or industry. Um, another, uh, one number for, uh, a bit of inspiration can be conducting a review of your competition.

And, uh, for this one, I would focus on pricing and value creation. So you could do an analysis of pricing in your industry between yourself and others, and, um, ask yourself who's creating the most. Value really interesting exercise might lead to a few debates in the boardroom, but it's a very, very good exercise for inspiration because maybe you see that your competition have actually found new, different, or better value than how you think about it.

And that might lead to some inspiration. So that's the first four were halfway through. So just a quick recap survey, your existing customers. Number one. Number two, do an at home in depth, home into interview. Super powerful. Number three, ask yourself where's the opportunity or threat in a new trend or industry report, and then do a pricing and value comparison amongst yourself in your competition.

I mean, that could keep you very busy. I would already bet that you will find some. Some wonderful insight in those first four, but let's keep going. Cause I've got another four for you and I hope they are as equally powerful for you. Another place to get inspiration is your customer themselves. So you can invite users to cocreate with you.

And there's no better example of that than Lego. Lego has been inviting customers to create designs with their Lego pieces for years. And this was really central to the turnaround of their business because people got involved reengaged with Allego, maybe a little bit of Stavo sponsorship helped as well, but this cocreation piece has been huge in the Renaissance of Lego.

Okay. So cocreation with your customers. That's number five, number six. Uh, this one is it's roll up the sleeves and getting into some icky stuff. Review customer feedback and complaints. Now, particularly if you're at a larger organization, there'll be a log of all of the customer feedback or even complaints.

It's natural. Can can't please, everybody. What would be really interesting to do with your customer feedback is to cluster it in themes. So let's see, uh, what are some compare, contrast and trend analysis looks like, and maybe we see as an unmet need for customers and Venezuela, new service, new feature in your offering.

Okay. Number seven. Now we're going to get a little quotes, uh, right here and we're going to dive into the data. So get your XL spreadsheets ready? I liked this one. This one's really fun. Run smart, really smart reports on your. Data on the data that's generated by your customers, particularly around their behaviors or their feedback.

But this time, what I want you to do is try and identify not just their overall satisfaction, but see if you can calculate their lifetime value. And in particular, a really good one to run is a churn analysis. So churn is the sort of common term for when customers depart and it's connected to a larger theory of the leaky bucket, which I talk about in, uh, other masterclasses, uh, at bottom up.io.

So you can. Uh, the, the leaky buckets, one of my favorites, but back to John churn, if you can analyze your churn, you might see that there is a likelihood after time. So let's say customers are two times more likely to leave your service or a product after three years. That would be a really powerful insight to have around your churn rates and how your customers are behaving.

And. There's a lot of work you can do here, but look, if you can STEM the churn, if you can reduce that, um, that's the most efficient way to grow the business because of course, winning a new customer is one of the greatest expenses that our company has. Okay, so that's number seven, number eight, this one, I've got to say this.

One's probably the most fun of all of the suggestions I've given you so far around getting, uh, inspiration for new ideas. I love this one. Go and do some mystery shopping. And the thing about mystery shopping is that you can kind of think about it in two parts. I mean the straightforward one is go and shop with your competitors.

See how they handle the customer experience, how they onboard you, how they delight you, how maybe they don't, it's not you, but, and have a look at what they're doing. And maybe inside of that, you can get some great inspiration. But here's another one you can do. And I think this one is really going to spark some creativity, go outside of your category and do some mystery shopping in a category.

I'll, let's go back to my sports and fashion, uh, analogy, maybe, uh, things that are happening in jail, sports clubs and sports wear. Yeah. Maybe there are analogies to things happening in fashion or even high end fashion. Go be a mystery shopper in a indirect industry category and see what you can find.

Maybe you can cross pollinate and bring into your category of best practice from another one and really separate yourself from the competition. So they have it eight ideas, eight recommendations for creating a little bit of inspiration. If you're a bit stuck on what to build, create design next. So whether you're a designer, builder, or entrepreneur engineer, you name it.

I hope one of these will get you going in the right direction and make sure you head off to bottom up where you can get the master class and stay tuned to the podcast because in the next podcast, we'll be really getting into how to. Do research. And following that in the episode, after that, we're going to look at how we can really create a snapshot and a profile of our customer using design thinking.

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Hello, and welcome to the modem up skills podcast. I might pass since the chief executive officer at QualityNet and here we are, we're on our third part into a 14 part series on design thinking, one of my absolute favorites and talking about favorites. Let's talk about Airbnb because. We are now going to look at how Airbnb uses design thinking with employees in the previous show, we covered how, uh, Airbnb uses design thinking with customers.

Let's have a look at how they do it with employees and let's see what inspiration, what tips and tricks we can take from Airbnb. When it comes to designing the. World of an employee. Now there's a couple of cool things that I want to focus on here. A mixture of structural and tactical, and to look at some of the, the results that it garnered, but perhaps the first, most fundamental thing that Airbnb did is they re-imagined, uh, human resources, you know, human resources.

Was often, you know, right next door to the accounting and finance and perhaps the legal team in a traditional office and, um, was sorta hidden in the back corner. Well, you know, what's really interesting about Airbnb. They put them front and center and rather than calling. The whole team human resources.

They became the employee experience team. And actually the chief HR officer now is the chief employee experience officer. And by making such a fundamental organizational change and reframing the expectations from. Human resources to employee experience. They really unlocked a world of magic. And what's so elegant about this is that this is a company that is so famous for customer experience.

Obviously it was so damn straightforward to continue thinking about user journeys, user insights. Customer experience and just merely mirroring that on the inside with employee experience. So they have it. This is the first fundamental step. When you think about using design, thinking on the inside is shift away from just human resources and redefine the role of what was your HR team to own the employee experience simple, but yet just so powerful.

So. Let's break down what this meant, not just in name, but let's have a look at the roles, the responsibilities, what was the, uh, the mission for the now the employee experience team? And I want to start by just explaining. What a normal HR team would take care of. They'd go out and recruit a new employees.

They would manage, develop and support the talent already in the organization. And you know, the big one, it makes sure we would all get paid to payroll and benefits. Uh, maybe throw in a bit of health insurance alone. For the bride, this is the traditional HR remit, but let's have a look at what Airbnb added, uh, to the traditional HR, uh, mandate and how they increased it by more than double.

And what we'll do in a moment is we'll have a look at some of the results that got so. We've got recruitment. We've got talent payroll and benefits, the cornerstones of human resources. Well, check this out. They added four new responsibilities to the employee experience team. Number one, ground control all about celebrating culture, all of the facilities.

So essentially the spaces and all the different modalities that they have to cater for. Food very important. And lastly citizenship, and that was all about how Airbnb contributed, uh, in the communities, in which it worked. So there you go. You've got the big four, let's break them down and look at how they really shaped the organization.

The big one in my mind, it depends if I'm thinking about lunch or not, but. The big one in my mind is ground control. This is all about culture. This is about defining, celebrating, showcasing, and essentially turbocharging the culture inside of the organization. And their whole culture is based around belonging, uh, which is really powerful because they also propose that on the outside as well.

So ground control is a group. It's a team of people inside of the organization and their job is to celebrate. Showcase culture. And what's really interesting is we'll see that come back in some of the. Uh, some of the outputs are a little later on facilities, if you've ever had the chance to go to an Airbnb.

You'll know what I mean by these offices are absolutely wonderful. Rich, diverse. Interesting. I could. I'd never get bored. Uh, working from different spots throughout, uh, the Airbnb office, they've done a wonderful job. It's all themed they've even, uh, had this great idea that, uh, different rooms are actually based on the rooms that their hosts have all around the world, which is really, really neat.

When it comes to food, uh, I can assure you, I've actually had some lunch there, uh, uh, at eight, eight Brandon in San Francisco. And I can tell you the food is wonderful and you've got a ton of different options, but it's really great because it's part of your, uh, employment, the, uh, great food and dining experience comes with it.

It really reinforces belonging. And frankly, you can eat really, really well. And you don't have the hassle of having to leave the office. And lastly, there's the citizenship team and this one's really important because. You know, the company really needs a connection between what's happening on the outside.

In the end. They're not without controversy and challenge. A lot of cities attribute a rise in rental prices to Airbnb. So it's so important that Airbnb works together with the communities that they are active in to better understand them and to work together, to get better outcomes. So that's the citizenship team.

So look at those big four. On top of the standard recruiting talent and payroll responsibilities, this dramatically changes how you think about the use of design thinking because not only did we see that they've successfully built trust to consumers, they're created a place where employees can belong to.

And this all came from this powerful insight, which is total. Pure design thinking, which is, don't think about this as human resources define it as the employee experience team. So this is so good because this has opened up all of these new ideas. It's opened up a whole new mandate for what was the human resources team and is now the employee experience team.

Let's take a quick moment just to, to have a look at some of the results that this is. Actually achieved for the business. Um, uh, just over a year or two ago, um, they, uh, the company advertised that they had 900 open positions in the organization, 904 that they received 180,000 CVS in applications. 900 positions, 180,000 applicants.

Pretty impressive stuff, particularly in a knowledge economy where talent is so scarce. Now I did a little bit of a study on Glassdoor and indeed, and I tend to do this with all of my case studies. And I have to say the numbers are really good for Airbnb. And I recently updated them and they even got better post COVID and Brian Chesky was actually, um, Acknowledged as being one of the better leaders throughout the covert, uh, process.

So kudos to Brian, but let's have a look at the numbers. 91%. Of the people reviewing. These are their employees that are reviewing, uh, the company. And just so you know, over a thousand employees have actually reviewed on gloss, stole 91% approval of the CEO. That's extremely high. So just so you know, uh, better than Revolut, better way better than, than we work and right up there with zoom.

Where they're also very, very strong is that 81% would recommend working at Airbnb to a friend. Um, and okay. Really interesting thing. The deliberate things that I just described to you are exactly the most mentioned things that people say are the positives about Airbnb in 57 different reviews. People actually specifically referenced the food.

Done by the employee experience team. The second thing is great company culture. They've got a culture team, great benefits, 53 reviews. So now you actually see some hard numbers behind this success. They have a very good work life balance. There's a lot of. Uh, breakdowns on both Benjamin and culture. They even do a really good job, uh, on supporting, uh, the roles of women.

And they score very well there in terms of family support in particular. So they have, uh, Airbnb has used design thinking to reimagine the role of HR to reinvent it. As employee experience, they've done a bunch of things in order to really transform the traditional hidden in the corner payroll team.

It's now the employee experience team that directly builds the culture and the numbers just don't lie. Uh, exceedingly well reviewed by the employees themselves. So there you have it. This is how design thinking has permeated not only on the outside, but on the inside of Airbnb as well. If you'd like to go a bit deeper into design thinking, jump over to bottom up.io, where you can actually take our free.

Design thinking master class. I really encourage you to jump in there. Tell us what you think. Give us some feedback were all about giving entrepreneurs, the skills they need to design build, create great products and services. Maybe even businesses too. Alright, that's a wrap.

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Hello, and welcome to the bottom up podcast. I might pass ins I'm the chief executive officer at quality sense, and we are into the second, the second part of our deep dive into design thinking. And as you will have worked out from the first episode, I'm rather keen on design thinking. It really is a powerful problem solving too, that puts users at the very center, uh, uses as the primary source of inspiration validation of how to build a great product, a great service, perhaps even a great company and talking about companies.

Uh, today we're going to look at a case study, a company that uses design thinking in many different ways and. We will study, eh, B N B. So what we're going to actually do in this episode is we're going to look at how they use design thinking with customers, uh, on the outside and in the following episode, it's again, we're going to double down on Airbnb.

We're gonna look at how Airbnb uses design thinking with employees on the inside. And I cannot tell you that there are a few companies that have put. Design at the heart of their business, like Airbnb. So we have got a lot to learn. So let's set the context before we look at how they've used design thinking to be so successful.

Now, when we talk about this success of Airbnb, The real context here is that the value that they've created when you think about this scale and their impact on travel, hospitality and accommodation, what they have done has been achieved in just a little over 10 years. Hilton who are a little bit similar in terms of size and value creation have been in business for over a hundred years.

So when you, when you actually start to unpack how much. Success Airbnb has had how much they have grown and compare it to traditional, uh, travel accommodation hotel companies. This is when you appreciate, they have not only grown bigger than them, but they've also done it in a 10th of the time, which is really it's exponential.

It's, um, it's ridiculous growth. And to put that growth into perspective and to understand the scale of their business. They have well over 6 million listings on Airbnb and you can find them in over 191 countries. If you wanted to get that many listings, you would need to grab at least the top five hotel companies in the world and combine them to have a comparative number of accommodation listings.

That is how powerful the Airbnb story is now. Yes. I know what you're thinking in a work from home quarantine post COVID world. Maybe they're not as big. That's true, but also you could say that for their category, but we all know that they have catapulted into popular culture into the way we travel, the way we experienced cities.

And that's why it's such a powerful case study because design is really at the heart of it. So. The primary approach, um, has been through, uh, design thinking to build their customer experience. And what's really interesting is they famously and very openly talk about how they, they kind of struggled at the start a little bit, but it was through deploying design thinking, getting to understand their customers, that they actually had their breakthroughs.

Now, Joe Gambia, who's the chief product officer. He talks about designing for trust. Now, if you think about this paradigm, this is the greatest challenge that they face as a business because they don't own any homes. They don't own any hotels. They don't own any airlines. So what they have is an experience either in a browser or in an app.

And there's not a lot to grab onto there. It's not like you see the hotel, Airbnb hotels, um, as you walk down main street or high street. So trust is everything, uh, for Airbnb. Actually Joe has famously talked about how designing for trust is really at the core of how they have built the customer experience.

Now, big part of trust is, you know, the feedback and the reviews that we give of the places we stay. Um, Um, the Airbnb, uh, experience. Alternatively, if you're a host, it's the reviews and the ratings of the guests. I mean, this is a key trust building factor. I mean, just, can you imagine buying something on Amazon without having a quick look at the reviews or if it's something a bit more significant, you might really study, uh, Reviews across different sites before making your purchase.

It's exactly the same with Airbnb. So what's really interesting is through understanding that trust was everything. Airbnb then went deep and said, okay, how do we make reviews even better? How do we create impartiality in customer feedback? So what they've actually done is created a quarantine system for reviews, and here's what that means hosts and their guests will only see reviews.

That they've received from a trip after both participants have written their review. So this helps them avoid somebody seeing before they've written their review of a host. If the host writes a very negative review, the guest might turn around and just write a negative one and get into sort of some sort of tit for tat.

So by creating this quarantine, they've improved the feedback by making it impartial so we can trust in the reviews. Now I want to stick on reviews for a bit, because this is actually very, very essential to the trust building, uh, activity and designing for trust and using design thinking is. Really at the center of understanding how Airbnb did it.

Um, so Airbnb did a study and they found that when we go to a listing and we're looking at a listing of a place of accommodation in this service, and they did this study with Stanford. So, you know, there's some pretty serious thinking going on here. They wanted to understand that when we're looking at that listing, what's our bias.

What are the things that. Prevent us from booking and what's the role of reputation. And what they found is that if you had 10 or more reviews of your accommodation, you were 10 times more likely to rent out via Airbnb. If you only had a couple of reviews, hardly anybody would book it. So there's sort of this magic threshold that they've discovered 10 or more reviews is what it's about.

That's why they improved the way we give ratings and reviews so that they're better quality. They want to stimulate more volume, but then here's the interesting thing. They've done a number of other things that really improve the experience. Not only encouraging us. To book more, but also to review more, let's have a look at some of the things that they did based on understanding what designing for trust was really going to take.

When they first launched the service, they would have really dodgy Handycam snaps, um, maybe, you know, poorly staged, poorly lit, uh, photos of the accommodation had taken on a phone. So, what did they do? They ran an experiment where they would have a ton of listings, some had professional and some had regular amateur photography, and the results were astounding listings with professional photographs are booked more than two and a half times more.

Than homes without professional photos. So photos displaying the very best version of a property. Well stage well lit. Using those nice wide angle lenses encourage people to book by a factor of two and a half times more. This is a dramatic change in the user experience. It was a great piece of design thinking.

And actually it's led, you will find many of the books and articles celebrating the. The life of Airbnb will actually point to the moment that they did this. This was a serious breakthrough for the business. And since then they've done a number of other really cool things around, um, designing the experience, building an experience that really starts and ends with trust.

One of those, uh, that they also did was they really designed more trust into the host. So you might see the property, but actually who's the host can, are they reliable? Can I trust them. So they created this idea of a super host. So you got a cool little badge on your, on your icon. And what's really interesting about that is they, uh, essentially, uh, creating a tiered system where they can guarantee the experience, guarantee them being more trustworthy if they're a Superhost.

So that's really powerful. Couple of other quick ones on what Airbnb does to build trust. As you can expect, we, uh, look at a listing and we get lots and lots of reviews. So let's say, uh, we're considering a holiday house and it's got 80 reviews. That's obviously a central part of how you can design for trust, but this is where they take it to the next level.

And this design thinking mechanic that they use is called social proof. And what they actually do is when you look at the options that you have with a property, and you're just surfing around having a look. You're not a hundred percent sure what exactly what you want to do you seeing what's on offer?

Um, what they do is they have a wishlist option, but just below that, they tell you that in this case 728 travelers have also saved this place. So what it does, it gives you a second data point to build trust. Not only do you see the reviews in the five stars, but you also see that a huge number of people are also.

Considering this property, this listing. And so this really, this idea of social proof is a validation. So it's giving you three different, uh, proof points to build trust, to help you make a better decision on where to stay. And just lastly, one of our real big challenges when we're in that consideration process of a property is let's say you have a specific question.

Does it have a washing machine or, um, Is it baby friendly or do they have sheets? Whatever the question. Sometimes these questions are the difference between a booking and not getting a booking. So what, uh, Airbnb has done is they've really designed the presentation of the host to build as much trouble, much not trouble as much trust as humanly possible, so they can overcome any sort of lost, lingering social biases or, you know, questions in our mind.

And here's, what's really, really smart. Uh, what they discovered is that the biggest problem we all have when we contact a website is we never get a response. Uh, it's the classical emailing to support@domainname.com and you'll never hear from them again. Well, what Airbnb does is they do the opposite.

They actually show you for the individual host their response rate and. The response time. So you might see there are 95% or a hundred percent response rate, and they might actually suggest to you that you're likely to get an answer within the hour. Now that might be just enough for you to reach out to your host and ask the big question.

Okay. So there it is designing for trust. We can learn so much from Airbnb. If you're really interested in going into this further. Jump on to bottom up.io. Where are you going to find our mass class on design thinking? Which includes a ton of study of Airbnb and how they use design thinking both inside and out.

I hope you've enjoyed the show. Stay tuned because in the next show, we'll be looking at how Airbnb designs, the experience for employees. Thanks a lot.

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Hello. Hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast and Mike Parsons. I'm the CEO of Qualitance. And today we are starting a brand new series of the podcast. We're going to go deep into the world of design. Thinking, and I have to tell you that when I discovered design thinking, it answered so many questions in my mind.

Um, the biggest one is how do you, if you've really got a great product and I feel like design thinking really answers that, but really, uh, from a. Human perspective from a desirability perspective. And so I'm really excited to start this enormous 14 part series a where I've taken design thinking and just broken it down into really snackable, bites, size pieces for you to use, uh, for you to learn from.

And maybe even give you a bit of inspiration as well. So, This series, we're going to talk about case studies. We're going to go through all the different tools we're going to go really, really deep. And my hope is that you'll be able to use empathy, which is really key to design thinking, understanding others, um, really feeling on their behalf will you'll be able to use empathy.

Not only on the outside of your business or company with customers, but also on the inside too. Um, hopefully I can help you generate a few new ideas. Maybe it's a feature, maybe it's a product. Hey, maybe it's a business who knows. And in quarter, that is this other goal that I really hope we can achieve together, which is developing user insights, really validated shoes about it.

What your users, what your customers need. And lastly, how to test these assumptions and make sure that they become validated insights. So there's so much to get out of design thinking. And, um, I think it's perhaps good to start with, uh, talking about what actually is design thinking, because it is used quite a bit, uh, in business and you'll find no end of people talking about design thinking.

But I often find once you get into the practice, um, there's still, a lot of people have a very, the thin layer of understanding of design thinking. So let's, let's get in and really talk about what it is. Let's build a foundation for the next 14 episodes of the bottom up podcast. So you can go really deep and you might find some particular areas.

If you're a well-practiced designer, builder, entrepreneur, you might find that, you know, some of this material, you might find that there's one or two things you'd like to go deeper on. And if you want to go deep, you can go to bottom-up dot IO, where you can actually get an entire masterclass. It's absolutely free.

So jump in there and this will help you design products from scratch, make existing products better. Um, and as I mentioned earlier, I do think that this is an essential piece. Uh, if you want to build a new company, Okay, so design thinking, um, let's put this in a context of work. I think design thinking is a powerful problem solving tool, which puts the empathy for users at the heart of the process.

Now, the reason that this is so important is way too often. Um, when people think of a new product feature service, um, They're not really sure what problem they're solving or even worse. They assume they're the problem. And the solution and design thinking is all about putting that to the test. No more guessing.

Let's know. That's test learn. Let's validate. So first concept here in defining design thinking, it's a problem solving tool. And if there's a user in this story, then you can use design thinking to solve that problem. So it might be, uh, creating something in the digital world, like a new app. It could be something in the analog world, like how you navigate an airport, you could use design thinking to solve the problem that it takes too long.

To find your flight or to fly, to find your gate, or perhaps you could go for a hike levels, a challenge, but maybe flying makes some people anxious. So you could, again, you could use design thinking for that. Now the question is like, how does it do this and this word that you're going to hear a lot. When we talk about design thinking.

Is empathy. Empathy is really, really central to this. If it's about solving problems. Well, um, the how is really with empathy and I cannot tell you in my life, um, When I've been fortunate enough to be part of a team working on a, on a product that's done really well it's because we solved the problem well for the user and understanding what users really need is, um, so fundamental now what businesses do most commonly in my experience is that they prioritize the business's requirements.

You know, make money, our compliance constraints, whatever it is in terms of the business. So they, that those requirements, um, become more, more important, more primary then the user's needs. Now, nowhere is this more prevalent than financial services? So banking financial services, very highly regulated environment.

So often the need for compliance and regulation or the big one is actually the constraint of legacy systems. These are all business things. They've got nothing to do with what the user is trying to do the job to be done. In the user's mind, what happens is all of these business requirements, tight, the product or service, whether it's, um, if you're at a bank, the teller experience, when you're in branch or when you're online, know your customer, GDPR legacy systems, all those sorts of things, they just get in the way.

Of helping the user. So this is the paradigm that design thinking addresses rather than letting the business requirements, dominate the user experience and push down what the user actually needs. What it actually does, is it prioritizes what the user needs, because the beauty is if you serve the user yeah.

Can thrive too. So design thinking. Is fundamentally problem solving by putting users at P Cole. Now there is a five step process that the Stanford D school has, uh, invented, which is generally become the standard for design thinking. And this five step process. Funnily enough, it starts with empathy, naturally empathy to get out there, to understand the user then to go in a process which uses to define their needs, ideate, how you meet them, then prototype, then test.

Now there's many different, um, variations of this theme, but in essence here, the big takeout put the user first. This is what's key and continually go back to the user. To check in about how you might solve their problems. Now, this is the five step process, which is generally considered the defective standard of design thinking.

If you want to get deeper on that, check out the masterclass at bottom-up dot IO and you can, you can really unpack that, but there's something else that happens on design thinking. When we think about defining it and, you know, For me, it is the capability of design thinking to shift from a guessing paradigm to knowing, to make sure that we are solving a problem.

But what design thinking I can also do is to help you, um, solve a problem. And this is key that is worth solving. So you want to get up to the house, highest order of problems for users. Why, if you not small little problems, but if you solve a really big problem for a user, then guess what they want to use.

This service are lot. Guess what? If you're solving a problem that's worth solving, they will pay for it. And lastly, you can actually frame the technology requirements or the analog constraints very well. When you know, What's viable. I what prepared to pay for, and also what's desirable. You found out how to unlock the aha moment, the wow moment.

They really want this because this is solving a really high order problem. And therefore you can frame the technology to do the job, to unlock, uh, this problem. Perhaps to do it at scale, and to ensure that it is a viable problem to solve because not every problem is worth solving. So this is where design thinking is that at its best, it is about really coming to terms with what users want.

Using this five step process. It's about thinking critically, no more guessing, really starting to know. And this plays in beautifully to some other practices that you can hear about on bottom up, which is such as lean, rapid prototyping, um, agile, they all, all come together and be the innovator's toolkit, which is exactly what we're about.

Understanding here at the bottom up skills podcast. Okay. That's the first step into a huge, a mammoth and Epic journey of design thinking. Um, I hope this frame will serve you well for the next 13 episodes. It's been great to start this journey with you. We'll catch you next time on the bottom up skills podcast.

I might pass this. That's a wrap.

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. Hello and welcome to Bowman skills. I'm Mike persons', I'm the CEO of quality terms, and this is a great opportunity. To talk about Neo banks, FinTech startups, but most importantly to also bring traditional banks into the conversation. Uh, and today, what we're going to dig into as part of my future banking, uh, keynote is we're going to dig into this question.

What can fintechs and traditional banks learn from each other? I've got eight big ideas for from Revolut. Four from traditional banks. Let's see what we can learn from them and let's see how we can go out there and build better products, better services, better businesses. I hope you enjoy it. All right, let's get into it.

What can fintechs and traditional banks learn from each other? Now, this is a really timely discussion. We hear so much about Syntech. We have venture capitalists writing. Uh, notes that software is going to consume, goes to eat the world. And frankly, we hear so much about fintechs, new banks, challenger banks, there's literally hundreds of new businesses, entrepreneurs building and creating new offerings, new services, and new products in the financial services space.

It is booming. And this is really because it's such a good fit. I mean, you think about it. Um, you know, money very much today is zeros and ones. And so software is just a perfect match, throwing some machine learning and artificial intelligence if you get some really crazy exponential effects when you put technology and finance put together.

But what's really interesting is, um. We've sort of left out the traditional bank in this conversation. And, um, what we're going to do today is we're going to look at both sides of this equation. And the reason for that is low. Let's not forget if you take, this is a out of the world's oldest bank in Italy.

I mean, these guys have 543 years more experience in banking than Revolut. So there's gotta be something for us to learn from traditional banks. And look, we want to build the best products and services period. So let's not only learn from the fintechs of this world, but let's also learn from the traditional.

Banks, and let's really take, you know, the best thinking, the best practices, and putting them into our own products and services. My point here is there is a lot to learn. So what I'm hoping to do today is to share with you four big learnings from traditional banks and for learnings from Revolut who were great proxy of the larger neobank in Syntech.

Well, so we're going to extract full from each. So hopefully in each of those eight ideas, there's something for you that will help you build a better business, a better product, and to delight your customers. All right, let's get into it. Let's go into the world of revenue. Let's see, um, what they have to offer now.

Today I'm only going to show with you. For ideas, um, from Revolut. In fact, I have well over a dozen ideas, uh, from Revolut in the case study that you can download@bottomup.io. Um, and check that out because we don't have enough time now to go to all of them, but I've picked four of the best. So if you'd like to know more, head over to bottom up.io.

Alright. Number one, this is a really powerful lesson from Revolut that we can all win, not only in banking, moreover, but I think as, uh, an entrance into any industry in, into any vertical. And they see their offering. They position themselves when they think about tech and product is they think about it very much in terms of banking as a platform.

And this is really important because this determines how they build. Uh, different features, different elements, different modules in their stack and the choices about how they do that. But it also has a really profound effect on how they look at their business overall. So I wanted to give you an example.

You know, many, uh, traditional banks will go out and license or purchase a card fraud detection system and plug it into their platform and that they'll plug it into. Many other legacy systems, in fact, somewhat of a patchwork of systems, you might say. But not at Revolut because they see what they're doing as building a banking as a platform.

What they do is they've very often, they build the different components of that platform. And here you can see, uh, an example of where they don't show log their own fraud detection system. And what you can see here is you can not only see all the whole architecture, a lot of it's built on. Uh, the Google cloud platform.

But what you'll also see is they saved a ton of money, and actually they're getting some very good results. So 30% of shows for predictions actually turned out to be correct. So this is what happens when you think about building not just a product, but actually an entire platform is that you actually go out and you'll build a really high performance elements that actually sit within that ecosystem.

But there's more. So what we've been very fortunate to do is with sounds a great quote from Nikolai Sternoff ski, the founder and CEO of Revolut, and I think this is really instructional on how banking as a platform can actually affect creating. An amazing business. Let me read to you this quote from the CEO of Revolut.

The reality is, what we're trying to achieve is to build a 10 X better financial services company that is 10 X cheaper as well. And the only way to do it is not by building one product, but building a platform with lots of products on top of it. So there you go. So he says, look, if they want to create customer experiences, 10 X, if they want to offer a service in the world that's actually 10 times cheaper.

The only way they can go about doing that is by banking as a platform and not just as a CEO of product. So there you have it. That's lesson number one from Revolut. Let's go to lesson number two, and this gets very much into. Culture and people and how they work together, some of the behaviors they have in their organization.

And um, in our case study, we sound like Revolut has a pretty hot and sauce high performance culture and it's built around several tenants, one of which is getting it done. And I wanted to share with you a quite from their head of executive recruitment, cause it really paints a picture of what that looks like internally.

And I think we can learn a lot. From it, and this is from Rebecca South at Revolut. Here we go. The individuals that really set themselves apart and really thrive at Revolut are the ones that take the initiative to put themselves out of that comfort zone and take ownership. Of that tech and to learn something.

So they've created a high performance culture about taking ownership, about learning, about putting themselves outside of the comfort zone. And I think, look, any traditional bank can learn from this, but more importantly, I think as entrepreneurs overall, I think this high performance culture really requires this idea of taking ownership.

And this comes from, uh, somebody who is really celebrated. This idea is Jaco willing, a former U S Navy Citadel, um, an amazing and inspirational guy. He wrote the book extreme ownership. So if you do find this a really compelling idea of taking extreme ownership, getting it done, as I would say at Revolut, check out this book from Jaco Willink.

Okay. So that's the first two. The next two we've got coming up right now. And the first one is growth teams. So again, we're also tackling not only the tech and the products and their and their whole stack, but we're also looking at how they organize picture. It's a huge part of getting high performance out of any business.

And growth teams is absolutely at the essence of how reveler launches into new markets. So let's break it down. So I was very fortunate to find some of the key execs talking about how they'd build their growth teams. I think this is huge. I mean, you may have heard of skunkworks, you may have heard of agile teams.

This is how resolute does it. Particularly when they're going into a new market. They have the country manager there at the top who's all about delivering the growth. And then there are four key roles in a growth team, the marketer, the business developer, the comms manager, and lastly, the community manager.

Marketer is all about the brand and the story business developer is about choosing the right products to growth comes ma, ma, manager. It's all about the message. Can we get the right message to the right people? And when it gets to those people, the community manager is going to activate them. So if you're launching a new product, my challenge to you is have you got your growth team?

Because we've can certainly learn that with 10 million plus customers. And just. Five years Revolut Scott, uh, some runs on the board when we talk about growth teams and the way these growth teams work is they set like a strategic goal that might be to acquire some new customers. It might be to activate new accounts, and it might be to get their customers to transfer their first, uh, amount of money to another user.

They'll set these goals. They'll have like an idea about how it works, and they goes through this process. They prioritize the most meaningful experiments they test, they look at the results, they process it, and then that informs the new set of goals. That's how these agile teams work. Um, con continuity is key.

It's not stop, start. It's not top down. In fact, often these growth teams are very autonomous too, so that's another great learning. That's the third learning. From Revolut. All right. Now this one's a killer. This one comes off the back of our first one. Uh, this fourth idea of what we can learn from Revolut is that no middleman gets in the equation for them.

And let's talk about what we mean here. And to do that, I need to set some context. Um. When we talk about growth, um, one of the key challenges, in fact, in a recent study done when banks were asked, what is the key challenge to growth? They didn't say customers. They didn't say marketing. They didn't say sales.

They said their number one. Number one challenge was their legacy systems. So these legacy systems are really creating a challenge, and as a result of that, um, when you've got all of this middleware from third parties in a sort of patchwork, it creates enormous challenges for banks. But have a listen. To how Revolut have thought about this.

I think this is really powerful about removing the middleman and taking total ownership, not only for your products, but for actually your platform. Now this is starting to ski again, and I think there's a lot to learn here. Here's what he had to say about removing the middleman and taking ownership of the platform.

Effectively. When you run all the infrastructure in house, you can actually make money out of this business. And the business becomes quite profitable. So you can see here that what he's saying is you got to take control of that platform. You can't be held, uh, into a patchwork of complex integrations work around cause it becomes paralyzing.

It stops you from growing. Okay, we're halfway through there. It is four big lessons from revenue. Now, what I'm going to hit you is easily four lessons from traditional banks. And what I've done here is I haven't picked one, a traditional bank. What I've done is I've grabbed a snapshot of data from the U S and the UK, uh, that really illustrates some of these really interesting lessons from banks and what's, um, going to be really good.

Uh, so your brain for your loans, these are quite different from what we can learn from revolution. So let's get into them. The four big lessons from traditional banks. Number one, building trust from advice. You know, this was really interesting when we dig into the data and we used a, um, a YouGov study that was done earlier this year was quite recent.

There was a really interesting thought that was really the top line of this study is that most Brits, so folks that live in the United Kingdom. They actually don't trust challenger banks, and they have quite a lot of trust for traditional banks. In fact, 68% said they trust their current bank and, um, only 17% said the same thing for challenger banks.

So what you can see here is that traditional banks have done a really good job on building trust in the financial services industry. That being said, there's still work to do because as an industry. Compared to others. It's still got a ways to go on trust, but challenge of banks, Neo banks, fintechs, they can learn a lot from traditional banks on how to build trust.

Now, what was interesting is a study that was also done by YouGov pinpointed the areas where the trust breaks down, particularly with banks or with mobile banks. And the number one is security. Very closely followed by privacy. So obviously uses trust, traditional banks for security and privacy, and this is a huge learning for anything tech, any near bank, anyone working at Revolut is you've got to build.

Trust, and that's built around security and privacy. Huge insight, and there's a lot of learnings from traditional banks there. All right. Number two, from traditional banks, investing in branding these companies, these traditional banks have built enormous brands. They're not only big in banking. They're not only big in financial services and the economy overall.

I would say these are have become social institutions where every town has got a bank where every region has a provincial community and local bank. I think there's a lot to learn here now where this gets really fascinating. I want to take you back to that same study that you did. Consumer awareness for fintechs and challenger banks is extremely low.

So in the marketing world, when we ask people, can you name a challenger bank? This is what we called spontaneous awareness. Unaided awareness. You don't give them any hits and wait for this. Very recently, only 9% of Brits could name any challenger bank at all 9% so this was really fascinating because it shows you there's a ton of work to be done, but it also shows you that building a brand is crucial if you want to get into the mainstream, if you want to get scale, and here's how they do it.

This is some data from last year from e-marketer showing you where ad dollars were. Um, investment in advertising and branding happenings. And as an industry, what you can see here is financial services is in the top three in the U S and this is the core engine of what we call awareness. This is at the core of creating spontaneous recall.

This is all about engaging customers being top of mind. So that they can build an affinity, perhaps even a trust with the bank. So this is a really interesting lesson and it will be a great challenge for all those fintechs and challenger banks because this is going to mean spending a lot of dollars and really activating national, global, even branding campaigns.

All right. We're almost there. Just a couple more thoughts to share with you. A huge lesson, perhaps the most profound lesson that we can all take from traditional banks is that they have been building businesses to an enormous extent. I mean, if you think about small business as a sub segment of the larger business ecosystem.

Small businesses rely upon their banks to an enormous extent. I mean, just imagine if banks did not extend lines of credit to small businesses all around the world. I mean, business would come to a stop. So banking plays a huge role in funding the short term cash needs of businesses. I've got this great study from the U S it's from the small business administration, and they found that in 2017 banks loaned as small to medium businesses.

$600 million in the U S alone. And what was really fascinating is that over half of that investment was used for growth, for expanding the business. It's not just consolidating different, uh. Uh, credit lines. This is to grow business. So traditional banks and being a core at driving small business and we own know the small business is the key to driving employment in any modern market.

And here you can see from where all that money come, alternative lenders making up a micro proportion. Of the lending that's been happening. And the average loan was actually in 2017 for small businesses with $633,000 this is a huge amount of money that is mobilizing the economy in the U S and in particular small businesses.

Last thought, uh, for what we can learn some traditional banks is they do an amazing job of servicing, building relationships. Owning, you might say the majority of consumers. Now let's talk about what we mean by that. If you get, we live in a bit of a bubble where all building new products were probably super interesting.

Take a little bit geeky. We all know about the revolution among those entering six as well. Well, here's the reality is, um, most people. Not only don't know about these other banks, these new challenger banks, traditional consumers. Just think perhaps your mom and your dad, your grandparents, they have no idea that exists.

But more importantly, they're actually in this. You got survey from earlier this year. They're actually pretty happy with their existing banks. And so what's really interesting is you see this in the MPS in that study, so we're talking 2020 in the UK, 51% said they'd recommend their bank. 48% say, my bank provides good, good service.

So if you look at what banks have been able to do, despite all the change thus far, they've still been able to go out into. The largest segments of our communities to service them to satisfy their needs. And as you can see here, 13% say that they wouldn't recommend their bank. So we're really, really looking at a situation where they've been able to service and on the majority.

Alright. So now you have four thoughts from Revolut, four thoughts from traditional banks. I hope at least one or two of those have really inspired you and given you something that you can use in your products, in your business. But I have one more thought and I want to. Kind of wrap up this investigation and frame this in a, in a larger context.

The truth is that when Edelman did a big study at the end of last year about what drives the longterm choice of financial services by consumers, this is an amazing stat. 53% the biggest response was customer experience. That integrates into all aspects of my life. This is the Holy grail. This is the North star.

This is what fintechs near banks and traditional banks need to deliver on. And yes, some features will cause switching maybe on a transaction account, but when we talk about the longterm needs, when we talk about loan services, credit services, and all the associated related financial services such as investment management and so forth, what everyone is looking for is someone that manages the entire finances of my life.

This is the race that is on and thanks to quarantine, we don't have as much time as we may have thought. In fact, check this out recently, a Toby lose the, the CEO of Spotify, Shopify. Great products doing really well. He came out and said that the transaction activity that he's seeing on his platform is what they were predicting for 2013 said differently.

2030 is already here. Your digital transformation has just been put into hyperspeed. And to put a finer point on this, just yesterday, zoom video came out with their earnings report. Here we are, beginning of June. They come out with their earnings report and wait for this. They have dabbled, therefore cast for revenue this coming financial year, that is doubled.

They had already been growing massively over the last few years, so 2030 is already here. So the question then to leave you with is who's going to provide a bank for all parts of life? And are you the winner in this race? Are you going to build the products and the services to delight customers in all aspects of their lives?

The reason why this is really important that you don't have 10 years anymore. What I truly believe, if you look at everything that is happening, this massive acceleration that was had already started has now gone into hyper speed. You've only got 24 months and to what we call the great banking consolidation, we have so many fintechs, so many neobanks, so many challenge of banks, so many traditional banks.

This market has to consolidate and the winners will be those that can service all parts of your personal and financial lives. I hope you are the winner. Thank you. So they have a ton of ideas and inspiration from traditional banks from Revolut. I hope you really got something out of it. If you'd like to go deeper and know more about this, head over to bottom up.io where you're going to find all sorts of goodies, uh, to help you build better products, better services you can get.

You can download the deck. You can look at POS master classes, you can get out podcasts. Oh my gosh, everything is bottom up. God, I thank you for spending your time with this. I hope you've enjoyed it. See you next time on bottom skills.

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hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. We are at the fourth installment of our four part series. It is the case study into zoom video. In the previous episode, we would deep in the world of promotion and in particular, Zoom has got some killer full-stack partnerships going on a lot to learn there.

There's been a lot to learn so far, but I promise you, I still have a lot to share with you in this episode because this fourth P as usual, in a case study, we're going to go into profit and I can tell you one thing. Zoom has a very special business model. In fact, it is so good. It has this rare characteristic that it actually gets more profitable.

Over time as they get bigger, they actually make more percentage profit. Now this is incredibly rare, and this is what we call a network effect. I'm going to tell you all about that and plenty more in this, our last part, our last installment of the zoom case study buckle on in get your espresso because this one is going to be great.

It's the zoom case study part for profit. Let's go. Okay, here we are. The fourth P profit. How does zoom put the dollars in the bank? How do they grow? What's the economic model. Are they creating value? Are they capturing value? Well, the answer is yes. Yes, yes. And yes, let's get straight into it. Number one, this is a little bit counterintuitive.

They make lots of money because they have a strong freemium model. And the reason that this is counterintuitive is obviously you're giving away a really good product for free, but here's how it makes sense. This is the biggest money earner ever for them, because here's how it works. What they discovered is that if you try the free one, you will go on to buy the premium one, but I'm going to put another twist on here.

This is not just the SAS direct to consumer model. This even works on really big clients. Check this number out. 55% of hundred thousand dollars or highest revenue customers were started by a single employees, free trial, 55%. So in really big enterprise clients with hundreds of thousands of licenses from Zune.

Over half of those started with one employer, one employee having a free trial. So if you ever were in doubt about the freemium model, this is all the proof you need. So by giving it away by giving their product to people, to trial, to have a basic version, then they end up converting them, not just for a hundred dollar deals, but well, in excess of a hundred thousand dollar deals.

Okay. That's number one. So I like free freemium. It's a working for them. Now, the crazy thing here, and this is really unique. This is even to a greater extent than Revolut in our recent case study. What zoom enjoys is one of the biggest addressable markets I've ever seen because frankly who's their market.

Well, it's kind of everyone and, um, well, how you quantify that? I can't put a number to it, so I'm not going to go there. But I'm going to show you what happens when you've done all the things we've talked about and how your market just explodes under the right conditions. So what I've done is I've taken a year's worth of data, uh, from Google search.

It's a worldwide and I've compared what happened when quarantine and covert all happened. I can compared zoom with Skype, WebEx, uh, Google Hangouts, and blue jeans. And the data is off the charts then nearest competitor. When we talk about the volume of search is maybe 20% and that's Skype, maybe Skype got 20% of the increase of interest and a search queries to that of zoom.

Said differently. Zoom was always ahead pre COVID, but when COVID hit, it was such a perfect storm that all of the things I've been describing on this case study came together and they're business boomed and I'm talking, boom did not like twice. Three times as much as the nearest competitor, I'm talking like a five X return.

So because they are so well positioned, they have enjoyed a higher spike than any of their competitors and massive degree. This demonstrates how big their addressable market is and how well they've set up, not only their product, but also their brand to enjoy the bump when it came. Now we're going to get a little bit into some micro economics of how the business works, but this one is killer.

This one is the utopia of all economists, uh, of all, uh, chief financial officers, free cash flow. But what we're going to see is something bigger than that. We're going to see economies of scale. This is something that businesses often talk so much about. Um, you know, the classic thing is when two big companies merged together, they talk about, uh, you know, economies of scale and thing and things like that, which by the way, rarely ever work out to be so true.

But what is really crazy is over time, zooms efficiency actually increases whilst they are growing. So, this is really substantial, said differently as they're growing, as they're getting bigger. And remember bigger is often the thing that always holds companies back. You know, if you're a large fortune 50 company, if you get anywhere close to double digit growth, you're like, A superstar, right?

Yeah. Cause as it gets bigger, it gets harder to manage and to manage more complexity, so on and so forth. But I want you to check out, I want you to have in your mind the number of 82%, and then we're going to explain why it matters. So let's do a comparable, let's dig into the bottom line. Let's dig into their financial reporting and see where these economies in scale take place.

Where is the proof that this thing kind of gets more efficient as it grows? Here we go in the year ending January, 2017 operating expense to sales with 79%. The same as it was in 2019. So what they're saying here is basically the operating expenses to sales were 79% for two or three years running, but meanwhile, zooms gross margin increased from 79% to 82.

So their percentage of costs didn't change. They able to keep hold of that. So they delivered to more customers for the same rate, but the top line grew from 79 to 82 gross margin increased. This means. That just as they grow, they don't only make, uh, the total volume of profit is bigger, but what is actually it's percentage of revenue increases because they're able to control their expenses.

And I think what you will see here, this is because they're super focused as a company on one thing, video, super focused on being cloud-first so they can scale much easier. I have a great culture. They're retained people really, really, really well. So they're not turning customers, their greatest advocates that go out and market the company are their employees and their customers.

They are primed and ready for this sort of, uh, um, sort of it's a real rarity in business, which is, they genuinely just get better as they grow. This is truly rare. What is even rare is still is if you look at it, What is happening with people, product and promotion. They are also in extremely good shape.

So to sort of pull together the profit picture, strong, uh, freemium offering, uh, this is fantastic. They just give away their product and somehow they make money. This is fantastic. Um, you know, those large enterprise clients start with just a free trial or a freemium version. There are product for everyone, which is just wonderful.

It means billions of potential customers, and they just get more efficient over time. So they have it. That is the fourth part of a deep dive into the business. Uh, and the universe of zoom, uh, video. I hope you've enjoyed looking at how they make money because I got a ton of learnings out of this one.

Okay. So now it's time to do a recap. You have been sort of blitz if you will, with, uh, 12 different ideas around people, product profit and promotion. I think it is now the exercise of great discipline and simplicity. Let's try and pull it all together. If we just take a breath and look at zoom video, I've got four thoughts that sort of pull it all together.

I think, look, this is a single minded company with a deep focus on video. That's number one, their success. And what we can take out of this is how can we create a business and a product that is single-minded that is very focused too. I think they walk the talk here around happiness. They promise it sounds pretty big, but they actually deliver on it.

And that's why they're in plays. Love them. I think when we look at promotion, I think their best ambassadors, their best advocates are both customers and employees equally raving about it. And lastly, every way you look, you have the characteristics like the feature set in this business, in this PNL for very profitable scale.

I mean, this is quite literally. Entrepreneurs dream, because you've got those four, P's really working in concert with each other to create a great product, to go to great business. And frankly, if you think about, um, things such as legacy, this is a product that people love and not any of those customers gushing, but actually employees love working at the company.

Well, I've hope you've really enjoyed this, um, this four PS and the whole model. The framework that we've used to dig into the business of zoom has really been all anchored in what we call bottom up innovation, looking at these indicators, looking at these mental models, these habits and tactics, everything that contributes to building great, audacious, brave businesses.

And I hope you are creators are entrepreneurs. Our product owners are business owners. I've all of you have been able to take just a couple of ideas. From this master class, um, from this deep dive, this case study on zoom. I've got so many lessons from doing it. I'm really, really glad to have been able to share it with you.

If you're at all interested in some of the topics that come up here and you want to know more, jump into the other classes here on baltimore.io. Please enjoy them, share them with your friends. We're really keen to share the thinking with everyone, to get them building better products and better business.

So there you have it. That's a wrap for this episode of the bottom up skills podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it. And remember. If you want to go deeper on anything you've heard on the show today, or any of the past shows, just head over to bottom up.io. You're going to find all sorts of goodies there, free video courses, master classes, get in there.

There's lots to learn. We want to share how to build great products. So thanks once again for joining us on the bottom up skills podcast.

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hello and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm your host Mike Parsons. I'm the CEO of quality QualityNet. And today we have arrived at the third. Of four parts in our zoom video case study. And in the last one, we learned all about people and culture and how they build teams in particular, apart from the culture of happiness, they have this huge North there's a vision.

If you will, a frictionless video and they just obsess about it. Sort of helps them make all their decisions. And today we're going to go back onto the outside of the County. We want to learn how they market their product and they do some very cool things. In fact, I would say they even do some contrarion things.

So there's some really good stuff to learn from zoom video. We're going to go to the third paid promotion. It's the third part of our case study. It's zoom. Let's go now. This is perhaps one of the most powerful things that I've discovered in studying zoom to kind of work out how they've, uh, worked in their category.

What's really interesting here is that they've slow at what I call full stack partnerships in the productivity suite. And this is a rather contrarian approach because generally what people tend to do in a market is everybody competes. Uh, for example, for the same search queries in Google, uh, or Facebook, uh, everyone is in like, They say we do this 10%.

Uh, the competition comes in and says we do it 11% and it's all very tactical, um, uh, really lowly differentiated. Well, I always call it hand to hand combat. What was really interesting is the following insight that actually zoom built their business in a slightly contrarian way in a, in a different way to the competitive set.

So what happens is if you look at the website of zoom and the website of WebEx, you notice that there's this really interesting difference in the most related websites. So when you look at all of the data, when a Google and other tools say what sites are related to zoom.us, the main website for zoom, you notice something very different.

Zoom has a pattern. Zoom is highly related to complimentary products, not to competitive products. So here's what I mean by that. The one website that is most related to zoom is actually Google calendar. The next one is a sauna and the next one is Calendly. What's the insight here? Well, these are all, um, complimentary tools that go with zoom together that help you get a job done.

Help you be productive, help you work from home when you take WebEx on the other hand. What's really striking is that actually the first website that is most related is actually a help website, but then it's other conferencing tools and there is one or two other tools like stack over file, I guess, and maybe Salesforce, but to a far lesser degree.

What is the point here? Zoom went out and made deep. Strong product level partnerships. So they are embedded in other people's products. So they are deeply related to the job to be done. Be productive, connect with others, do a deal, have a meeting, present, share collaborate, rather than that. Highly competitive world that they're super attached to the fight between them hanging out since guy who's the best, um, video conferencing tool.

This is really, really massive because by embedding their product and integrating their product through partnership, they have achieved huge growth. Even pre, uh, quarantine and pre work from home. So when we all had to work home, what you're going to see is their business took off because they're already embedded in the workflow of others rather than competing for search queries and search terms in Google.

Really powerful. Now here's the other crazy thing. I want you to remember, I'm going to talk about the second big insight. So first one is how did they grow? How did they tell their story? A through partnerships really embedding themselves in the productivity step. The second thing is they just bring people together and they have a signature event called zoom, zoom, Topia.

Now the crazy thing is here. I want you to remember this is a video conferencing tool. And if you take a look at zoom Topia, this is more like a Ted event or to me, like there's so many lasers and people getting pretty excited about what's going on. You'd think it's like a rave, but like the point here is that they can create so much excitement around their mission or their vision.

A frictionless video and bringing happiness to others. They can actually pull together a massive event with thousands of people that all come and get really pumped about zoom. Now, if you were to look at this and you said, Mike, while this looks like this looks good as an event, maybe it's as good as Salesforce and their Vinco Dreamforce, but here's the thing I dare you to imagine.

Do you think people would get excited like this for a Skype event? Or would anyone even turn up for a Google Hangouts event? I mean, here's my point to get this much excitement around a really utilitarian product. This is really exceptional. And it goes to speak to the stories that they tell and how much they resonate with their community.

Last one, we're going to kind of. You know, we are going to put down the glowsticks for a second. That's enough raving. We're going to go to the hard graft of sales of enterprise sales. And what I discovered is they have a very deep and rigorous way in which they train their sales team. And this is really powerful.

So check this out. So, what they do is when you join a zoom as a sales person, here's what they do. They actually get you to jump into their Academy, where they give you a general onboarding to this is how the company works. This is the way we think and so forth. And then they move you into bootcamp. And boot camp is very different.

It's not sort of a general onboarding. This is a very specific, specific job, specific role specific boot camp. Where they get very deep into in your job, you will need to learn how to do this. Here's how you do it. Now. What's really interesting about these two is that they are largely taught by existing execs and team members inside of the company who come to do the teaching.

So you're taught by your peers and your colleagues, which I think is very powerful. But they keep it going. So once you fully on board, and then they put you in their elevate program, this is all about your own personal growth and seeing to it that you grow, that you're challenged. If you're fulfilled and satisfy, this is pretty solid, pretty robust.

Now what's really killer though. What's the twist here is zooms is SAS company. Yet they have bought some of the best practices of enterprise sales. And you're going to see a bit later on that this really pays off for them, but this is the third thing that they do around people and culture. So let's do a quick recap.

They have, I'm sorry, this is not around people in coaching. It's about promotion. What am I saying? So what are the three things they do to tell their story? It is number one. Full-stack partnerships, number two. Zoom Topia. This is about bringing people together. And lastly, this is about customized sales showing really deep and really professional.

I think what really stood out to me here is that they had this contrarian approach to grow their business, tell their story by being embedded in other people's products, to be part of the larger productivity story. While a lot of their competition, we're all fighting for like the best rates. On the same keywords, they were doing something completely different.

So that's promotion. That's how zoom promotes, tells their story, grows their business. I can't wait to share with you the final pay of the zoom business, and that's going to be profit. So there you have it. That's a wrap for this episode of the bottom up skills podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it. And remember, if you want to go deeper on anything you've heard on the show today, or any of the past shows, just head over to bottom up.io.

You're going to find all sorts of goodies there, free video courses, master classes, get in there. There's lots to learn. We want to share how to build great products. So thanks once again for joining us on the bottom up. Skills.

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[00:00:00] hello and welcome to the bottom app skills podcast. I'm your host Mike Parsons. I'm the CEO of quality. And you have joined us for the second installment of our four part series doing a case study on zoom video. And we learned a lot in the last episode, we learned that they're essentially, as a company, zoom are obsessed with video quality.

This is their only product. This is the product they obsess about. And that's why the quality is superior. Particularly when you're getting into large groups, it's so superior to any of the competition. So, if that's what's happening on the outside of the company today, we're going to go on the inside of the company.

We're going to have a look at what's happening with people and culture and teams and all that good stuff. We're going to learn how they build a great culture and how they kick ass and take names. [00:01:00] So we're on the second part of the zoom case study. It's all about people and culture. Let's go. And this is really great because if a company is really doing really well on the outside, my hypothesis is, you know, great products are built by great teams.

So let's go and have a look now and see what they're doing on the inside. Okay. What I find really important, uh, when we think about what happens inside of zoom is it starts with one of three ideas and the first one. Is that they have a real North star. They have like a vision of what they're fighting for.

They have a vision of the perfect world that they want to create and they call it frictionless video. And frankly, again much like the product simple, it just works. But also having lived in four different countries, I can tell you, I've used a lot of [00:02:00] video conferencing in my life. Um, Talking to colleagues in, um, the us and Europe, uh, until zoom came along, there was no real great solution.

And I can tell you what this frictionless video really speaks to me. And it's actually kind of at the heart of how the company was created. So let's have a listen now to the founder of zoom, Eric wan, and let's get a little sense of what frictionless video means. I spend a lot of time talking. There's a costumers customer, really happy about it.

The WebEx X experience, I now feel like it's time to build in the next generation of WebEx. And no matter which device you are using, like a mobile device, desktop, or conference rooms, you should make sure your video experience is perfect. You know, to have that experience. If you got to do Peter something from scratch, when it comes to building a word scalable company, how to organize [00:03:00] all the team members from all over.

Work working together and make sure that incurred the productivity is very important. So all the positive several years, the company grew very rapidly. We have Ola half a million penis customers. Not only do we build a technology or service, we also build an ecosystem. So meaning we can integrate with a CRM application integrated this like Zendesk or Slack, also integrated with all other hardware solutions as well.

So overall, we want to be very open. Flexible integration with any other software hardware, all business workflow applications to have the best experience we got to take a different approach. You need to take a step back read and a standard customer problem and isn't university or engineered time into the product.

You make sure it's very easy to use. It's too hard. Nobody's going to use it. That's why simplicity is number to drive the videoconferencing usage in a, we are that [00:04:00] users, right? We've got to make sure. We allow that a solution, if your employee is not happy and guess what they cannot date of happening is through our customers.

So that's why our culture is to focus on dealing with happiness, to each other. They love happiness to our customers. So there you have it. It is all about frictionless video and what he sneaks in just at the end. There's a little bit of a taste for what's to come. Is, you've got to build this from scratch.

You can't, you know, bandaid some old solutions, pull this off the shelf thing from here. And this one from OB you've really got to get in there and build it all from scratch. Curious thing. Exactly the same as Revolut. They've built their entire stack from scratch in order to be world class and control it end to end.

So that is their vision of frictionless video. What's really interesting is that kind of becomes the North star. This is the product we're building. If you look at how they're going to do it, like what's the way in which they're going to operate with themselves, with their [00:05:00] customers. In fact, with all the constituents in their community.

They have this idea of building a culture of happiness, and it really does become sort of an organizing principle by which they decide about how they're going to do things internally. And once again, I've been able to dig up this great little interview with Eric, Juan, the founder, and we're going to have a listen to him talking about this idea of happiness.

It boils down to, you know, how do to feel happy or not. You know, make sure your customer happy, right? If whatever you're doing, you feel like, yes, it's everything and in control. Right? So we feel pretty happy. I just do it all the way it's doing the fall or whatever other state, you know, may or may not apply to you.

So you got to make sure you understand that your team understand your business. I, you know, our case is our culture is to deliver happening right. So everything centers around that if the team can deliver happiness, we do it with Dobbin on that. You know, we feel like something we should not [00:06:00] do because could cause some problems.

We're not looking to do that. So we do not think about, you know, maybe in two years, a double the, they know that your market caviar valuation, you know, or maybe get a lot of other new customers. Maybe it's 300 girls. That's not a, we're not a water we are thinking about every day. We read a thing about, you know, employees happy and as customer happy.

Now the fascinating thing here is that Eric was talking about, we, we obsess about happiness. Are we delivering happiness? We don't think about market growth and all of that in there. Focus on the customer on the video. First on their focus on delivering their happiness. They get to enjoy insane growth anyway.

So what a timely reminder be focused, not on. Just the day to day and getting into that hand to hand, combat of market share and so forth, what's clear is that they make decisions based upon is it going to help us deliver happiness [00:07:00] to our customers and to our employees? And this is really powerful because this is what can organize their culture and help them deliver frictionless.

Video now this next and third thing that they're doing on the inside. So we see that they've got vision with, see that they've got culture is to look at what happens when you capture, when you measure, when you survey those employees, what do you get back? First thing that you get is Glassdoor results off the charts.

So what you were seeing in, in my previous case studies is one of the ways I get to look inside of an organization. And I have not seen results of this. This, these results are as good as maybe a little bit better than Airbnb at its prime. So 4.7 recommendation, a 4.7 stars out of five. So it's almost perfect.

90% would recommend to a friend. This is the point of view of the [00:08:00] employees. 98% approve of their CEO. And lots of pros here, but check this out. This is hilarious. The, in that, so there are pros and cons positive and negative. One of the most popular negative comments was bottom line. Zoom does a great job of taking care of its employees.

That's not even negative. That's a positive so that they don't have anything bad to say, look, I I'm exaggerating, but my point is this. Uh, that advocacy, um, is such a leading indicator, not only with NPS with your clients, with your customers, but also on the inside. And I think this is a bigger learning that if you deliver on the promises that you make to your staff and to your customers, They will be your biggest fans.

Tough job is you've got to keep your word. So if you're going to promise something, make sure you do it now. This was really interesting comparatively, which is another side that kind of, uh, ranks reviews and awards [00:09:00] companies based on how they operate on the inside. Have given them a bevy of awards, best company for diversity, for women, best CEO, best culture, best perks and benefits that goes on work.

Life balance compensation, happiness. Well. A bit of a slam dunk. My point here is that you can also use these in your company, in your business to check in on how you're doing. And this is great because what we're seeing is the things that zoom are doing in order to achieve this, we can see there's vision.

We can see there's a clear focus on culture, and these are our really delivering in terms of employee satisfaction. And this is on top of the fact that customers are just. Falling in love with the company as well. So a quick check in on everything they're doing around people. First, it's a vision of frictionless video.

So they've got the North star, they've got this cultural organizing principle of happiness. And lastly, you know, they're [00:10:00] measuring things. They're seeing things in terms of NPS recommendations, uh, awards. They have turned employees into their biggest advocates. So they haven't, we've done people. We've done the product.

We've still got a lot more to go, but already. They're coming in so strong on product and people. I can't wait to share with you. What's coming next. When we get into the world of promotion. So there you have it. That's a wrap for this episode of the bottom up skills podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it. And remember.

If you want to go deeper on anything you've heard on the show today, or any of the past shows, just head over to bottom up.io. You're going to find all sorts of goodies there, free video courses, master classes, get in there. There's lots to learn. We want to share how to build great products. So thanks once again for joining us on the bottom up skills [00:11:00] podcast.

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021-bu-zoom-product-02

. [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the bottom up skills podcast. I'm your host, Mike passings. I'm the CEO of QUALITANCE and we have a brand new series here for you. Today. We're going to do a big, deep dive into the world of. Zoom video. That's right. We're going to decode their product, their business. We're going to look at it from upside down, from left to right.

You name it. We're going to look at it because these guys are on fire. They are doing so very well. So we want to break it down and look at some of the practical learnings are for us as builders, creators, designers, entrepreneurs who are trying to build a better future. And you know what? Zoom is doing a lot of things right?

And there is a lot to learn. Are they as hot as say, Revolut our last case study? Who [00:01:00] knows? But there's going to be a ton to learn. We're going to have the classic four PS, people, product, profit and promotion. We're going to break it all down and see what we can learn to build great products too. So stay tuned.

This is the bottom up podcast. Okay, so we're going to start with the product. Uh, the first and most important of all the peas. And. When we think about zoom and we think about its product, I've got lots of things that come to mind, but I, I've kind of compressed it into three big ideas. Now, the first one, it's going to sound a little self evident, but the fact is here, the first idea about why is this product so good.

It's because they're video first. Now, this becomes particularly important when you think about it in context to its competitors. Zoom is built, designed, managed to be a video first product. It is not an old audio product that has had video put [00:02:00] on top of it. It is born a video product from day one. So what this means is everything is about delivering the very best video when you're in a, you know, a conference call or whether you're in a, uh, something a lot bigger, uh, uh, as a women.

So what I did is I hunted around and research and I found that few tests that really reflected my own experience as well. And that is this. Particularly, uh, Skype and even more so Google Hangouts, I find that I'm often presented with really poor video quality, and especially when there's more than two of us on the, on the call.

And, uh, what I've actually been able to do is. I found a video where a group of people actually did the same meeting at the same time in different platforms. So we can see the difference. And the big thing that this calls out is the pixelation of Google Hangouts. Now, when you compare that same meeting now [00:03:00] done in zoom.

All you, all of a sudden you see that the picture quality, the F, their little refinement on the pixels is much, much better. So I want to point out, this is just like a small thing, like the video, I guess on Google Hangouts is. I dunno. Good enough. Ish. It's okay. But what happens with a company like Zune?

They do lots and lots of lots and lots of things that are better, and it's if one is a little bit better and then the second one's a little bit better, all of a sudden if you zoom out, you get this aggregate experience of. All around. The product is just better on so many fronts. So if you look at the difference between the same meeting done in Hangouts versus what you're going to see is just a better video quality, and this just adds up over time.

There's a few things that zoom. Um, can be, um, can [00:04:00] improve. But for the most part, they're doing so many things just that bit better than everybody else. When you actually step back, it's really a significant difference. Now, if you introduce a large scale video conferencing events, so we're talking 30, 40, 50.

Plus people. Zoom stands alone, all the others you're going to experience, first of all, limitations on actually putting that many people in. And if you can, the video's really compromised and we're going to talk about that in some of the technical pieces of, of this case study, because there's actually some really straightforward technical reasons why other products are really inferior.

When we look at scale. So zoom one-on-one. It's good. Zoom at scale with lots and lots of people is absolutely great market leader, and that's really the first big thought that they are video first. Okay. Second number thought. Now. What you have to remember. This is all a bunch of [00:05:00] first actually for the product.

The other thing that they're really first with is they are cloud first. So they are not tied down to legacy technologies that are not designed and built, uh, for the cloud. Classic example is Skype. In order to deliver its video and some of these other features. It's actually got our SharePoint architecture.

And if any of you are old as I am, you'll remember that SharePoint is certainly not a cloud first technology. This creates all sorts of limitations in terms of scale and so forth. So what's really interesting is if you look. At being a cloud based application. What's so uniquely strong about the cloud and the way it performs is it helps you scale.

And what I've been able to do is just break down what Skype is doing in their application architecture that helps them scale. So very much. And remember. December 10 million [00:06:00] sessions a day, April, over 200 million and the thing didn't fall over. So this is worth really, really learning from. Number one, they just have a better network.

What they actually do is they use a distributed network, and this is not unsimilar to how Netflix delivers great quality. Uh, Netflix puts these media appliances in it, the ISP close to the delivery point. So it's a distributed, in the same way a zoom has over 13 data centers, and each of them are trying to work really hard to distribute the workload.

So there's not like, um, to use a traffic analogy, you don't have a one highway, which is trying to deal with all the traffic it's distributed across. I network. The next thing is that they use this thing called multimedia routing, and this helps them deliver more than one stream at a time. Now this feature directly goes back to the first thought, how they do like these really high volume high attendee.

[00:07:00] Coles. It's this feature. So what happens is this multimedia routing enables not just one, but several video streams between people to be used, distributed concurrently. So what does that mean? It means you can have lots of people in a call and the call quality, the video quality is good. Now when we think about particularly the last mile, the third thing that they do is they use this multi bit rating coding.

So what happens is if it's really congested in your local network, maybe at home or by the office, they'll drop the bit rate or the file size that they're trying to deliver of all the audio and video. Um, so that is less load on the network. It has better chance of getting through. So they're adapting, uh, even at that last mile moment.

And what that means is it's just more consistent as an experience for us, the happy users. And the last thing that they do is they have a replication layer that manages the quality of service. The fact that you, you could imagine almost oversees the [00:08:00] three other points that I mentioned. The network. The multimedia routing, the multi bit rating, coding.

Um, it looks at all of those things in managers, the overall to ensure that they're really delivering a, an experience that we, uh, not only expect, but I think that w that we love frictionless as they would say. So the last point here, so we're still in product. We've got the fact that they're cloud-first, we've got the fact that they're video first.

Here's the other first. They their customer first in a big way. And these guys, they have customer satisfaction. Off the charts. It's quite remarkable compared to all of their competitors. They have ridiculous reviews. You can see that they have 95% recommendation rate. Um, there are a few products in this world that can consistently hold that sort of recommendation.

Right. And what a great thing for your business. The fact that people love your product so much that they're [00:09:00] willing to recommend it to others. Now. The other interesting side note here is if you want to talk about recommendation rates, the only thing that's better than this is the recommendation rate of their employees because they're so damn happy in the company.

That they'll recommend it to family and friends as well. But we'll talk more about that later in this series. So a quick recap on this product. Um, crazy, crazy, crazy that in this world of ecosystems and stacks and multiproduct feature sets and all of this good stuff, they made a very simple and intuitive decision.

Video first, and they've got such an incredible focus on that. You'll see when we get to talk about profit, what that delivers on the bottom line, it's, it's pretty special. So they're video first. They're cloud first. So scaling up to that three, 400 million, no problem. And lastly, their customer first. So they're always searching to [00:10:00] deliver and to meet, exceed customer expectations.

And frankly. Customers are raving about it. So there you have it. That is the product. That is the first of the four piece for zoom. I think it's time that we jump in to the next part of this wonderful story of zoom video communications. So there you have it. That's a wrap for this episode of the bottom up skills podcast.

I hope you've enjoyed it. And remember. If you want to go deeper on anything you've heard on the show today or any of the past shows, just head over to bottom up.io. You're going to find all sorts of goodies there. Free video courses, master classes, get in there. There's lots to learn. We want to share how to build great products, so thanks once again for joining us on the bottom up skills podcast. [00:11:00]

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[00:00:00] Mike Parsons: hello and welcome to the bottom up podcast. I'm Mike Parsons and I'm the chief innovation officer of Qualitance and this is our fourth instalment of a fantastic case study, diving deep into the world of Revolut; who some might call them the Amazon of banking. And so far we've looked at three parts of their business; the product, the people, and the promotion.

And there's a ton of learnings, that we can take from them. Most of them goods, they've obviously had some challenges on the people and the culture side of things. But the real question is. Does this all add up to the dollars and cents really come together to make this a profitable business and a business that can do really well in the longterm.

I've collected a few insights here that are all taken from our case study that you can get at bottomup.io; you can get it all for free. It's [00:01:00] a total deep dive for an hour on all the learnings or the inspiration that we can take from a Revolut. They've done some pretty crazy things. Probably their biggest achievements so far apart from raising a lot of money and being valued at over 5 billion, is that they've generated over 10 million customers in five years, and they've largely done that, without much paid advertising.

At all. So we're looking at a pretty interesting business from a profit sense. So let's dive now into just a few key thoughts that we've discovered about how they build their business and how it all adds up. I'm going to give you three big ideas on how they make money, how their profit model looks, and some of the thinking behind it.

Thought number one, this is the big one. they have removed the middleman from their banking infrastructure. So what do we mean by that? Well, if you look at the traditional bank, [00:02:00] over the last 10 or 20 years, they have accumulated. Tens and wait for this. Sometimes hundreds of services from different technology providers, right?

From login or Auththenitcation, fraud detection, you name it. So when they deliver to you, let's say three or four, services, or products, let's say a checking account. A loan of some sort, maybe a stock account, et cetera, et cetera. It takes them like series of, vendors and datasets and services to integrate and to sort of, I don't know, bandaid almost sometimes together and deliver to you.

What happens over time is when you keep patching in all these different third parties, the system gets heavier. It gets bogged down, and, this has been actually a massive problem for the folks that are in the banking world because the infrastructure becomes so heavy, you can't move fast. In fact, if you [00:03:00] have a look at the case study at bottomup.io, we found this study from fraedom and they're basically saying that.

Almost half of the banks that they surveyed named their legacy system as the biggest blocker to them actually growing as a business. So it wasn't a sales problem, but it wasn't a marketing or a brand problem. They're literally strangled by their legacy legacy infrastructure. Now, what's really interesting here is that.

Revolut have decided not to be dependent on third parties. And what's particularly interesting about this is that many other neobanks have not made this decision. So what is really special about Revolut is they're one of the few that have doubled down and said. All in. We're going to build it all ourselves.

We're going to provide all of the services so it's not just a checking account and we're going to build this, craft this together. Now, there's two parts to this story. First, I want to give you a little quote from Nicholas Stranovski and I'm going to read you what he has [00:04:00] said about this, and then we're going to unpack it.

Okay? Is what he said about their longterm business model:"effectively. When you run all of the infrastructure in house, you can actually make money out of this business and the business becomes quite profitable". So that's Stranovski CEO and founder of Revolut. And what he's really saying here is that once they've built their own infrastructure, and I think you got to remember that's a law of capital investment in the upfront.

That's why they've raised so much money, over $800 million. But they're building all this infrastructure. And what happens is because they've built it, they don't have a very many third party dependencies, both either in terms of technology or in terms of pricing. So what happens is that as they introduce these new services, and as they have the network effect, they get more and more customers.

They're actually making more money than their competitors do because they can move faster and they're [00:05:00] actually got less. Cost per transaction. So this is a really powerful idea. It is a risky idea. It is a bold idea because you're effectively saying, we're going to go all in and we're going to build it all ourselves.

And for a lot, I would say majority of banks, this is too big of a risk, but in this case, Revolut have taken a huge risk and they're going out in the world and delivering. A full range of services on infrastructure that largely has been built by themselves. And if you go back to the, product, episode of the show, you'll remember that I dove into a special case of where they built their own feature for a card fraud detection.

And you, if you go back to that episode, you can hear how we break that down and look at what they've done and some of the economics behind it. Again, if you are interested, jump over to bottom app.io and have a look at the, the full case study. It's, it's pretty cool. Okay, so that was idea number one.

They've removed the middleman. They've done this vertical integration or a to Z [00:06:00] or end-to-end. There's a lot of different ways people call this. The point is this, is that they've, they're doing a build versus buy strategy. But number two is that they're way more than just a savings account. So the crazy thing is if you have a look at all the different products that they're offering within the one unique experience, you've got subscriptions.

You've got, opportunity to make money on transaction fees, money transfers, internationally, perks, insurance trading, ah, loans, overdraft, business accounts. It goes on and on. So what you can see, idea number one, they've built the stack, they've removed the middleman. Now they're just offering more and more things on top of that stack and making more and more money, and that's a lot of good revenue in those products.

The other thing that gets really interesting is that they can offer more products more quickly because they control their own stack, the moving at great speed, and then they get the network effect. People like them. Because they're more than just a checking account or a savings account. So more people get [00:07:00] on, they make more money, so they invest more to make more features.

So more people get on, and this is a classic network effect, and you'll start to see some, some really exponential growth characteristics as they get a full set of services in cross or markets. To give you an example, right now, they've only just started a very basic offering in the U S so this is early days for them.

And. I think there's a lot more growth in store for the company. Okay. So that's the first two ideas. They removed the middleman and they've got a multiple products and services that they offer across the platform. I think the other really powerful thing that generates a lot of money generates a lot of positive business growth for them is their premium membership.

Now, what you've got to remember. Is that most banks try and charge you a form of membership fee, through all of these sort of indirect, subtle fees. So when you, when you bring your currency from us to, to, to the [00:08:00] English, pound, they'll get you a few extra points. So it won't even be the best price in the market.

For that transfer. That's how your, your bank will make money on your international transfers. Additionally, you'll get charged just for the privilege of having a, an account open for a dollar and you get nothing special for that. That's just for the basic product. The difference here is what Revolut has done is they've created a ton of perks and value ads so that people are quite happy to spend 10 bucks a month to be part of it.

And I think the point here is that they made a shift from trying to like, you know, death of a thousand cuts, whether we'll grab a little bit of money there and a little bit of money there. They were just like, you can come in and get the, the basic model at no charge and we'll try and upsell you into a real premium service.

So what's really interesting is being very explicit about it, having a very clear value against this premium version. you find that customers are very happy with that and you're not trying to like sneakily grab money from him, but [00:09:00] he, here's some of the things you can get for your 10 a month. You can spend in, over 110 currencies.

I don't know who on earth needs engine 10, but you can, unlimited exchanges on the 27 feet currencies, you know, global express to really a lounge access. I'm sure you get a back massage somewhere, a ton of good stuff. If you want all of that, if that rings your bell, you can pay 10. A 10 bucks a month and it's all yours.

So here again, what we see is a different approach, in the business model behind Revolut. And look, if the first two didn't get you, they have so many premium members, which has been a huge struggle of most traditional banks. I mean, they're already off to a good start there. So there's three ideas around the business or the profit, as we call it, at bottom up, side of Revolut.

So three ideas, no more middlemen, more than a savings account, and premium membership. These are the drivers to the economic engine. I think what's really special about [00:10:00] this is it creates network effects. and that's the idea that when one customer gets on a service, the service gets better for the other customers.

Airbnb. Uber also have a similar characteristic. I really like this as a business. I like it because it's based in simplicity. It's based in removing traditional barriers and Hey, listen, the numbers tell the story. 10 million customers that they started with zero five years ago. 10 million right now, 10 million ladies and gentlemen, and they've only just got started in the U S so you can imagine that this thing is really going to the moon.

So there you have it. This brings us to the end of our four part series on Revolut. It's been a great case study. it is the second case study we've done on bottom up.io We've also done a great one on WEWORK, which is really instructional. it might even be time soon to go back to, to wework.

There seems to be, more trouble. there for we work, [00:11:00] the question being what can we learn? But before we get to another one on we work, we're going to do another case study. I'm actually working on this one right now. It's on zoom video to study the business, the people, the product, the profit and the promotion.

Like how have they built this company? It was doing very well. Pre covert is doing better after it. So who, who can imagine what goodies are in store for us on that one? I want to thank you for joining us here at the bottom up podcast. If you'd like to know more, go to bottom up.io it's been great to have you on this case study for Revolut the Amazon of banking.

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[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the bottom Up podcast. I'm Mike Parsons broadcasting to you from the work from home studio in a world of isolation, but what's not. On its own, uh, the learnings from Revolut, the Amazon of banking. And yes, we're doing our case study and on this show we're going to be doing part three of what we can learn from Revolut.

And so first of all, we did product where we learned that they are building everything themselves. They have a huge focus on simplicity and ease, and they're really building FOS have over 10 million. Users. In the second show, we learned that they have a pretty hard fast and culture in terms of people.

That's the second P and that's definitely created some challenges for them. When you consider the fact that, um, [00:01:00] you know, they churned a lot of employees at the, at the beginning of that. They learned from that, and they have overcome. The third P is promotion. And what's particularly interesting is everybody knows about Revolut.

Uh, particularly in Europe. It's huge. It's just launched in the U S as recently launched in Australia. So there's a pretty high familiarity with the brand. But what's really quite interesting is how little they've spent in paid traditional advertising to build their brand. So they've really used the product at the heart of it.

And that's why I'm excited to share with you this third part of our case study on Revolut. Okay. Promotion marketing, brand growth. How do they do it? Well, there are a lot of learnings from Revolut. I am going to give you a bunch of them. Please remember that. If you want to go deeper, we have a whole master class, uh, on Revolut at bottomup.io where you can get all sorts of goodies.

So [00:02:00] check that out. All right. Lesson number one, it's called growth teams. Now that growth teams are these small, agile, decentralized teams, very local that they deploy and they're, well, let's be honest, they're just kind of skunkworks teams or agile teams or scrum teams, if you wanted to call them that, and they're very small.

And these growth teams are all about getting a bunch of cross functional people, get them into one team, setting a audacious goal and grow like crazy. So usually in their case, they have like the country manager and then a marketer business developer. Comms manager and community manager in the team. So you can imagine that the community is about activating the community.

A comms manager is going to be more about messaging a business developer might be about choosing the right products, features, services, um, maybe bring in some partners. And the market [00:03:00] is all about pulling together a campaign to kind of activate, maybe sign up ah deposits, whatever goal that they have.

These growth teams are really important. And one of the things that is strongly inferred about how they work internally is that this is not dissimilar to how they build their product teams as well. So there's a lot to learn from this idea of growth teams. So you've kind of got the inside piece there.

Let's, let's shift a little bit to the outside piece and let's have a look at how they thought about customers. And there is a huge lesson in Revolut in terms of segmentation. Here's what I mean by that. They focus not on. You know, the mainstream or the, the casual customer, not the early adopter. They went right up into the cutting edge to what they call the innovator segment.

And that's where they've started. Now, this innovator segment, they kind of influence the early adopter who influenced the early majority, [00:04:00] the late majority, and the laggards. So they've really focused on what they saw was sort of a tipping point segment that. Kind of creates a snowball effect across their entire audience, which is everyone, because everyone, every adult over 18 needs a bank account.

Now, what was really interesting about these innovator segment, or archetype or persona, is that they really love entertainment, shopping, and travel and eating out. And this works very nicely with their product because you use Revolut in a lot in all of those activities. So when you're traveling or you know, restaurants, splitting bills.

So this was brilliant. So they picked a segment that had high application, high relevance to the product. So a lot of their success was really finding this high influence, uh, this kind of snowball effect with this early segment. So there you go. You've know that they've got their growth teams, they focused on the innovator.

Let's have a look now at the third [00:05:00] learning, which is all about baking the marketing into the product. This is where they actually kind of made the product itself kind of viable. And the greatest example I can give you is bill splitting. Um, they've made this, um, really seamless to throw a bunch of friends on the list, split the bill.

It goes out to everyone. It happens in just a few clicks. And what's so great about this is. Every single time you use the product, you're potentially recruiting a new customer for them. Now, here's the other thing that they did, and they did a lot of kind of classic tactics, but an absolute classic one out of the marketing playbook is the waitlist.

So what they've effectively gone and done is they've created scarcity, interest, and curiosity around the product. So here we start to see that the way they're promoting is a bit more like Dropbox. So you might say that the product inspiration is kind of Uber like. But if [00:06:00] you look at the promotion and the way Dropbox build itself, this is Revolut is doing a classic Dropbox here.

They're creating scarcity and interest. And if you go and recruit friends, it's good for you. Everybody wins. And um, I think that although it sounds sort of like, so what a wait list. It's a marketing classic. And when done correctly, just like Revolut does, it works a treat. Okay, so let's zoom out and have a look at how they've built this mega brand without many marketing dollars.

One growth teams. They've done a really good job of organizing their internal teams around these audacious stretch goals. They had laser like precision focus on a segment that was not only viable in itself, but they knew would be, um, creating this snowball effect, this kind of contagion, uh, amongst friends.

Next thing they did is they'd put the marketing right in the product. So every [00:07:00] time you're bill spitting, traveling, sharing money. All of these things are generating a member acquisition. And lastly, I deployed the classic white list and they did a lot of other things, but this really captures the broad extent to which the really reframed how to do growth marketing for a neobank or in the larger financial services market.

I think this. Is really cool too, to their success. So there's a lot to learn there from Revolut when we think about our third P promotion and I can't wait to see you for our last episode, which will be around profit, where this perhaps the biggest insight yet. So I hope you've enjoyed it so far I'm Mike Parsons; chief innovation officer atQualitance

We'll see you on the next episode of BottomUp skills. [00:08:00]

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[00:00:00] hello, and welcome to the bottom up Podcast. I'm Mike Parsons, I'm the chief innovation officer at Qualitance and i'm coming to you from the work from home studio. And today is the second installment of our Revolut case study. Uh, we're going to look at the people side of things. The previous show we just did.

Product. So now we're into the people. And this is so fascinating because they have over 2000 staff and they started with just two, five years ago. And, uh, this might suggest why we think they might become the Amazon of banking. Now we learned a ton about how they are. Growing fast and building a product in quite a revolutionary, new way for the category in the previous show.

Today what we're going to get into is the people side of things. And so I want to break this down for you and really help you [00:01:00] understand, um, how team structures and culture and the way you work together really does affect the product. In fact, I would argue that only great teams can build great product and there's no way you can build a great product.

If you don't have a great team. Okay. Before we get into it, if you are interested in going deep on our case study on a not only Revolut but we work or you want to get any of our masterclasses, it's all free. Jump over to bottom up.io and you can grab everything you want there. Listen, tomorrow episodes of the podcast, take master classes, read blog posts, you name it.

It's all there. Okay, let's talk about people. Let's talk about culture at Revolut. Well, I had to think of like one idea that kind of captures how Revolut works, and I think it is best described as being very hard and fast culture. Uh, so what I [00:02:00] mean by that is they move very fast in a bit, uh, common to some of the early days of Facebook.

They kind of move fast and break things. In their case, they're very commercial. They move very fast. It's quite a high pressure, um, working environment. And I think that actually. If there was any of the four P's. So with them product, they're doing exceptionally well, we're going to learn about promotion and profit and as a bit of a heads up, they do pretty damn well there.

I would actually say that it's on the people side of things where they are most challenged and I think it's this hard and fast culture. So let's break it down and talk about what we think is at the heart of this. So I would propose to you, if you have like a hyper speed, you know, fifth gear kind of culture.

This means long days, long nights, often working weekends, working long hours, um, a lot of [00:03:00] stretch goals, um, in how you organize the team. You know, the thing that is the real truth that I think we can learn from Revolut is they had a lot of churn in employees in the early days. And I think it's specifically because of this culture and the truth inside of this is that a hard and fast culture,  has a very small talent pool that will actually have a good fit with the job said differently.

Out of every hundred candidates that might apply for a job. Even if they have the skills, it's the behavior fit around this hard and fast. It's extremely challenging and personally, when I think about all the teams I've been part of. A constant hard and fast culture, like it's quite unrelenting. And I think that very few people have the stamina to keep that up.

Most people need a bit more time and space. So Revolut is actually recruiting for a very narrow specific [00:04:00] segment in the employee. Kind of ask it. And I think that's a why. Hard and fast is not for all. I would even go as far as saying, harden fast is not for the many. Um, it's a really challenging our culture and at the heart of their culture.

I think this is where you see the deep motivational level of this hard and fast culture. I'm talking about. Is there what they call in the terms of their values, they call it getting it done. That's how they've labeled it. If you wanted to say that. Otherwise you could say it's all about ownership and you can check out all sorts of great authors like, uh, Jaco Willink is, is really good on extreme ownership.

But the point here is that you take ownership for the results and you never blame anyone else. You do whatever it takes to get the results across the line. And so they call it getting it done. So it's a very bold, very brave, very 100% [00:05:00] all in. And I think that's the real truth about the culture they created.

And when you go this hard, not only as yet, not for many, sometimes you can like the, the barrier between what is. Uh, the right thing to do versus the wrong thing to do. They can get kind of blurred. And what I mean by that is you can push yourself so hard. You can push the team so hard, the organization so hard, you can be so entrepreneurial that you can almost break things.

So I would actually say in the case of Revolut, they had some serious problems a couple of years ago around this and this getting it done. Culture really got them into some, uh, tricky, uh, shall we say, hot water. So I want to tell you this, a little story that kind of brings this altogether. And, uh, this was all exposed in a wired magazine article.

You can [00:06:00] find out more about just Google wide Revolut and, um, some of the things that they got up to in the early days. So here's how they used to recruit. This is crazy. So let's imagine you and I are potential candidates for a job at Revolut and we raise our hand and said, yep, we send in a CV. Hey Hi [me], Hey Hi [me] and we get a, an email or a call and they want to have a meeting.

So you do your first interview. At the end of the first interview, Revolut used to give out this task. They've stopped this practice after it was exposed, but they, this is what they used to do. They used to say, let's imagine you and I are the candidates. They would say, okay, Hey Mike, if you would like to continue in this process, the first thing you have to do is go and recruit.

200 customers for the platform. And if you go and check out our masterclass at bottom up, I actually have a screenshot [00:07:00] of the brief that they would send to be where you can see they like Revolut home tasks, required applicants for various positions to recruit new app users. 200 or more signups would be a very strong indication that you'd go into the next round of the interview.

Now, just so you know, if you've got the 200 it doesn't guarantee you a job. It doesn't even guarantee you another interview. This is where the hard sell and this hard and fast culture kind of gets a bit over the top and out of control. And that's what I was talking about before. That fine line. Between, you know, on track and where you get a little bit off track.

Now I want to say that this is how they used to do it. They've stopped this practice and what's really interesting is if you jump over to class door and you'll look at some of the reviews and you really have a snapshot of the entire company around culture right there on glass door. So they have good [00:08:00] advocacy and referral rate, and uh, Nicholi Stronovski gets a really good 81% approval as a CEO.

So that's good. And what's really interesting, they highlight two pros in two cons on Glassdoor about the culture. And these are all taken from employee feedback. The company is really fast paced, it's growing, and it gives you a good reputation. That was one of the first ones. The second one is you learn a lot, and so that's the upside of a hard and fast culture.

I mean, you just always learning. It's like really dense. But this is really interesting on the cons, which you know, almost double the amount of references to work life balance in the negative people talking about. 12 to 15 hour working days plus weekends, which has mentioned a lot. And then, um, just generally the long hours that people have to work.

So what's the point here? I think they've overcome some of those earlier challenges, um, and being a bit overzealous and over [00:09:00] commercial. Um, but I want to make this point here. I mean, they're on a big mission and they've got a distinct culture that lines up pretty nicely. They want to disrupt banking.

They've got this hard and fast culture, the growing like crazy. Yeah. But the lesson here is I think that the culture is matching the, the level of ambition. So it's actually really good. I think the other strong thing here is that they have learned from their earlier mistakes. So the reports of churn are way down and it looks like they've really understood that they went a little too far.

So this for me is some really important takeouts as you build the vision of the organization, make sure that your culture and your practices and behaviors, the way you work together, treat each other the way you communicate is in line with that. And I think actually, despite a rough start, I actually think Revolut has done a very good job at getting their culture back on track so they have it.

That's the second P of our case study for Revolut. We've got two [00:10:00] more. Profit and promotion. These ones are fantastic. There's a lot to learn. I hope you're enjoying the ride with me. I'm Mike Parsons chief innovation officer at quality tents. Remember to come check us out at bottomup.com

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Ep. 17 How Revolut cracked their Product: the Amazon of banking

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the bottom up podcast. I'm Mike Parons. And I'm the chief innovation officer at Qualitance, and today we're going to be doing a case study on Revolut who we have called the Amazon of banking. So we're going to dig right into, uh, what they've been doing and see fundamentally what we can learn from them.

So to get you up to speed. These guys have been quite busy the last five years since they started. They have over 10 million users. They have over 800 million in funding. Evaluation is roughly a five, five and a half billion and they have over 2000 staff. So they're doing a lot of things right. I can promise you that.

I think they're moving into disrupting a very traditional market. So that's also very interesting. And I think that, uh, unlike the WeWork case study, I think these guys are pretty strong [00:01:00] across the board and showing all the signals that they are going to dominate the market. So what a perfect time to look in to learn to understand what they're doing so well.

Now as usual, we're going to use our famous bottom up, four P's, people, product, profit and promotion to understand their business. And the reason I really liked these so much is we get to look on the outside of the business, on the inside of the business. It's a very good way for us to understand what they're doing and really to try and try and learn from them.

So. For today's episode, we're going to get into the world of product. Let's dive in there, and I think the first thought that I have for you is this really is not just a good product. I think it's actually a great product, and the reason for this has got two characteristics. The first thing is it's solving a massive problem.

I mean, money is really important to get so much done in our lives. This is not a nice to have. This is [00:02:00] pretty much, you got to have this. And what goes alongside that so very well is this is something that you use every single day, whether your buying things, transferring, checking balances, traveling, you name it.

Um, money kind of comes up a lot. And so they're very lucky. I think of this very much like a venture capitalists, a wet dream. I mean, this is perfect for them. This is. Hey product, that solves a big problem and it solves every single day. So I mean, this is getting on the home page of your iPhone. I mean, this is a great product.

So let's have a look at the kind of five key pillars of what they're doing now. And I will say this, that they are releasing new features pretty quickly. So I think you can expect this to double or triple by 2021. So Revolut will help you manage your money, travel with these, uh, send money, uh, to friends.

[00:03:00] Um, they've got some good security phages and lastly, they've just really ramped up their exchange on cryptocurrency, so pretty solid start there and can, considering that they already have 10 million users, and it's a pretty phenomenal. Job. Now let's break down even further to some of the things that they're doing.

Some of the things that we can learn from how they're building their product, and you might want to put these features into your product to number one. The first thing that they are doing is they have a very clear focus on this thing, which we call that aha moment. And what that is, is they know that when you transfer five-year-olds to a friend, it's so easy, so far, so instant, so satisfying, but you're sort of hooked on their product after that.

You've really got it. And so they really focus on getting customers to that moment of transfer as quick as possible. And now if they do this, you know, they pretty much know that they're gold. And the real, um, [00:04:00] reminder in this product is it is insanely simple. And this enables. Both speed and ease of use.

Like you don't have to think too hard to get the jump down here. And sometimes when I look at how easy it is to transfer money on Revolut, I kind of feel like they've removed every single step or click that they could. Much like in the way Uber, for example, really tries to remove any data entry. Uh, you don't have to get out of your credit card.

So in that way, I think Revolut is quite similar to Amazon. Now, the next thing is that what they do super well is they have this incredible useful search. I don't know about you, but I find search pretty rotten with most of my banking products that I use, either for home or for business. And what they've done is they've done a couple of really, really good.

Um, industry practice practices, first of all, they start pre-loading results as [00:05:00] you type and they give you predictive search, meaning that as you're typing, I try to guess the word that you are are actually typing in. Again, these are little micro seconds, uh, that they are trying to cut out of the experience so you can get there as fast as possible.

So that search is really important and it's almost Google. Like. And the way you search now, why my banks don't make search, and it's such a straightforward, standard, uh, feature. It's just amazing to me that that Revolut have been able to come along and produce something that is just so simple and easy to use and so compelling compared to the industry.

Okay. Next thing. This is the third thing they do around product, which I think is super interesting is they've done some really interesting thinking around the product and how they want to build it, and it means that they can introduce new features really quickly and easily. I will come to how they, how they've actually engineered on the [00:06:00] back end to do that, but I want to stay with the front end features right now.

They offer a really compelling ease of use. When we moved to additional products or features, and this is what we call in the industry that cross sell. So in this case, it's very easy, easy for me to jump into, say crypto, um, when I'm just finished checking my balances and because they make this so easy, it's so seamless.

One app. What's really interesting is a lot of banks that I've used my investment app, it's actually a separate app to the normal banking app. Just a little bit of extra friction there. Revolut have have removed those, so they make crypto investing really easy. Now, I mentioned a little bit about, uh, the thinking in terms of backend architecture and how they think about the product stack.

Now this is the fourth thing that we can really learn from them. They call it banking as a platform. This is just another fancy way of saying end to end application. [00:07:00] So, um, I want to unpack this a little bit through an example. Um, and, and the starting point here is that they, they build, um, most of their core features, if not all of them themselves.

And they have very little third party dependencies. This gives them an, a couple of really key benefits. They are agile. They can release new features really fast. And, um, they understand the product stack. So if they need to, to change something in the way a particular feature works, say a credit check, they can do that with great control and precision.

If you're licensing it through a third party becomes a bit harder because you have to go with a third party now. I've got this great example I want to share with you. Uh, it's around a card fraud detection system. And in the case of Revolute, what they went and did is they went and built it all themselves and they called it Sherlock.

Now, what's really interesting about Sherlock is they built it in just nine months, was actually pretty good. And, um, here's some interesting facts about [00:08:00] Sherlock. They saved a ton of money in production cause they got it done in nine months. Um. It's very, very accurate on catching historical fraudulent transactions, Baton 96%.

But what's really cool is it's predictive technology, um, is actually, um. Very, very accurate. So three out of every 10 predictions turn out to be right so they can predict fraud before it happens. Now, if you're super interested in this, jump onto Google and have a surf around and you'll actually find they've got a whole article about how they built it.

Uh, using the Google cloud platform is just really interesting to show you how they went about building one of the features, um, in their banking as a platform architecture. So. Before we wrap up a couple of key thoughts here. Now, this is where we really start to expand our understanding of their product.

Um, and I'm going to explain to you that their essential product strategy, and [00:09:00] I'm going to do it through a little quote from , founder and CEO of . Revolut and just check this out. This is what he says. The reality is, what we're trying to achieve is to build a 10 X better financial services company. It is 10 X cheaper as well, and the only way to do it.

Is not building just one product, a building a platform with a lot of products on top of it. So we know we can expect a ton more products and features coming on this platform. And what's really interesting is that the bar that they are sitting is not only making it 10 times better and getting the jobs to be done for users like ticked, they're also going to make it radically cheaper.

And it's because they built the platform that they can go. Faster release, more products, release better products, but also because they are in so much control of the platform, you're going to see that they're going to make a lot more money. Now, I'm going to get onto profit in a separate [00:10:00] episode, but this was some really interesting thinking around the product and it's so good to hear from the founder about their product vision.

So, uh, before we do a recap, if you do want to know anything more about Revolut, jump on over to bottom up.io there. You're gonna find a whole ton of work that we've done a whole masterclass on these guys, lots of video and research and data. So jump over to bottom up, got IO and, um, make sure you remember, uh, some of the key principles that Revolut have done in building their product.

Number one, they're solving a massive problem every single day. Don't under estimate that super useful. It's on my homepage. They focus on this aha moment. They know when they've got the customer, they make retrieving data, like so simple, so easy. The delightful, even. And lastly, they've thought about this as, you know, banking as a platform.

So they have a, this is the product of Revolut. Once again, if [00:11:00] you are interested, jump over to bottom up.io and you can get a whole lot more on Revolut case studies on we work in many, many others. That's it for today's episode of the bottom up podcast.

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016 Digital Workspaces

[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:09] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. My name's Mike Parsons. I'm your host, and we are here to share with your skills, tips, tricks for innovators, creators, designers, builders, you name it. Anyone who's out there daring to create something new. I'm excited to share with all of you the fifth and final installment of our top five emerging [00:00:34] technology series.

[00:00:35] I've been doing this now for four years, picking the top five technologies. It creates so much conversation, argumentation. I love it, trying to pick winners. You know the reason I like it so much is it forces you to think through what's going to succeed and you keep on working on this and you just get better and better and better.

[00:00:55] So we've had a lot of exciting picks so far, we've had four. Here's our final one. It's called digital workplace or said better, if you want to be customer first, you need to be employee [00:01:08] first. So, if you want to learn about this or any other of our top five emerging technologies, head over to BottomUp.io.

[00:01:16] Everything's there for you to read, digest, sign up, get the master class, get the video. You'll thoroughly love that and everything else we've got on offer there. So, the digital workplace. What on earth are we going on about? Well, the anchoring idea for this is that, if you want to be customer-first, if you want to provide all these great, amazing services and experiences for your customers, we often neglect [00:01:42] the people that actually have to build, create, and support, maintain these experiences.

[00:01:46] And that's the employee. So, this puts firmly at the top of the table, the importance of the digital workplace. So, what do we mean when we say digital workplace? Like what are we talking about here? Mike? Well, it's the tools, the apps, the dashboards, and all of the services that we use during our day to power all of the experiences that our customers' touch.

[00:02:08] So this can be workflow management, process management, systems management, application layers, all of the web [00:02:16] service connections that might service a product or a service. That's what we're talking about. It's the ability for the team to get together and deliver these products and services, keep them going to maintain the beating heart of a business.

[00:02:31] So let's cut through all the hype about digital workplace and all of that. And let's get to the three big things that really matter that you need to know. Number one, when we talk about employees and working, there is a huge boom in remote and virtual working. Not only, you know, [00:02:50] the classic freelance,

[00:02:53] global traveler archetype, but actually even within large organizations, more and more they're seeing advantages in letting their teams work remotely. Perhaps not permanently, but definitely on particular days on particular projects. Remote working is huge. I think with the 2020 virus context, you're going to see a ton more remote working.

[00:03:13] So digital workplace, which we picked way before. Any mention of a virus has now doubled down on this one cause it's going to be huge. The next one is that business [00:03:24] overall is going through an enormous transformation. I mean, a lot of the catchphrase in enterprise circles right now is about digital transformation, which is firmly not only about delivering great customer experiences, but it's also about creating employee experiences.

[00:03:43] And, like the best companies, if you really understand that you've got to nurture your employees with the tools, the apps, and the services that they use, you're only setting yourself up to be able to better deliver [00:03:58] customer experiences. And this remote working and digital transformation are two things happening on the inside of a business that are radically changing the digital workplace. But if there was to be one thing that is causing those two changes, which I've left for last, it is the huge growth we've seen in omnichannel customer experience. Even if your business is not in retail like Amazon or not in search like Google, you're [00:04:32] kind of competing with Amazon and Google. Let me explain why. If we use Amazon and Google every day, we become enabled with a sort of a defacto standard that every experience will be as quick, efficient, elegant, and seamless as Amazon and Google. So, what happens is we, therefore, transfer these expectations into other categories, other use cases, other products, and services, even if they're not retail in surge.

[00:05:03] We still expect them to be as good as an [00:05:06] experience as those from Amazon and Google. And this is the big catch. Every business now has to deliver its product and service as good as Amazon does this because our customers are using them. And here's the real flip, on the inside, enterprise technology actually has to be that level of consumer-grade too.

[00:05:29] And way too often, we forget the employee. In fact, if you look at the data, it's almost a factor of [00:05:40] 1000 times more investment, this is the one number that counts, 1000 times more is invested in understanding customer behavior than is spent on understanding employee behavior. It's crazy, but yet the employees are the ones that have to create or the magic for the customers.

[00:06:00] So there is this huge opportunity with the digital workplace. So, let's do the pros and cons here. Okay, without a doubt, if you make a great digital workplace, your employees are going to be more engaged. [00:06:14] And what do we know? If an employee is more engaged, they'll stay better, they'll do better work, and they will go, and they will advocate about working at your company and bring other good people in. I mean, that's an undeniable, huge benefit, you know, putting employees first. So. Okay, if this sounding pretty good, Mike, what's the catch? Well, listen, the truth really is the digital workplace. That employee experience is sort of an emerging field because truth be told, most [00:06:48] businesses have neglected the employee experience.

[00:06:52] And so when we talk about creating great employee experiences, most companies have never met the employee user journey. I bet you they've mapped the customer journey, but the employee is something that's been neglected. So, if you don't know the journey, it's very hard to digitize. So, it means a lot of time and effort has to go into doing things for the first time.

[00:07:16] And as we all know, doing things for the first time is a bit harder than doing it the second or third, or fourth. [00:07:22] So we're getting like-new muscle memory inside of the organization. Enormously challenging time, effort, resources. You know what, that just equals one thing, money. And we haven't traditionally had a big line item for the employee experience.

[00:07:38] And that's why if you want to be customer first, you have to be employee first. Why this digital workplace is so damn hard because it's often a first-time adventure for the enterprise. So, there you have it. Digital workplace number five of our top five [00:07:56] emerging technology trends for 2020. Just to recap, we had number one was 5G networks.

[00:08:03] Number two was a prickly one. Mass surveillance. Number three, boundless automation for the collective cloud. I mean, these are some killer, killer ideas here. The last one, digital workplace, I mean, there's so much here. So, as you decompress on some of these topics, head over to BottomUp.io. Get one of our courses and masterclasses.

[00:08:25] Make sure you dig into the top five emerging technologies. There's plenty of others too, [00:08:30] including design thinking. There's all the skills, tips, and tricks you need to be a better innovator. I'm your host, Mike Parsons here on the BottomUp podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it. We'll see you bottomup.io.

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015 - Cloud

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. My name is Mike Parsons. I'm your host and it is a pleasure to bring you part four of our top five emerging technologies. And here today we're going to give you skills to grow, design, build, create your new product, service, or business. That's what we're all about at the BottomUp podcasts.

[00:00:31] And today, our subject [00:00:34] is the collective cloud. That's right. You're probably very familiar with AWS, Azure, Google cloud, or Red Hat. You've heard about all these guys. Things are really cooking in the cloud. All these different clouds, both private, public, on-premise, you name it. It's all starting to come together.

[00:00:53] And that's why we've called it collective cloud so that it's part four of our top five emerging technologies. Now, if you're very interested in all of these emerging technologies, and you'd love to get the master class, the video [00:01:08] keynote or anything around essential skills for innovation, go to BottomUp.io and you'll find all the goodies you need.

[00:01:16] All right, let's get into the world of cloud computing. So, what is this thing? Well. Cloud computing is all about moving away from having all your applications sitting on a local server in your office, right physically next to you, and moving to our remote or virtual model where the server is actually online, as they say, in the cloud.

[00:01:40] So Google docs [00:01:42] is a great example of something we all used to do in Microsoft Word 20 years ago, 15 years ago, and now so much of our word processing is done online, in the cloud, on a server rather than being installed locally. It's a great example, and you're probably using a ton of services like Dropbox and so forth.

[00:02:02] Even of course, what we take for granted now are services like Netflix. They're all driven by the cloud. So, that's what the cloud is all about getting all that hassle kind of out of the office. I mean, [00:02:16] I even remember the excitement, Oh gosh. When was this? 1997 when we got our first web server. I think it was a son's box server, and literally we had a physical server.

[00:02:28] Nobody does that anymore. It's so amazing how web applications, in particular, have transformed how everything has moved to the cloud. So, let's cut through all the hype in the conversation and cut to three things that really matter about cloud computing or what we call collective cloud.

[00:02:47] Well, the first thing that's probably come across [00:02:50] your inbox is the scandal around the JEDI project with the Pentagon. Now the Pentagon actually awarded this 10 gazillion Chilean billion-dollar project all exclusively to Microsoft. And well, Amazon, they were very upset, and this has been all over the place for a number of reasons. There was all sorts of Trump stuff involved, but it was also a pure-play.

[00:03:15] They chose one vendor and we see the whole movement to a collective cloud, which is hybrid cloud. Many different providers, many [00:03:24] different installations on-premise, off-premise, public and private. This JEDI contract has been huge in the cloud community because it was one of the biggest deals ever signed.

[00:03:35] So check out that JEDI contract with the Pentagon. Now, I mentioned Amazon, and when we talk cloud, you have to be talking about AWS, their web services division, which really pioneered this technology as a commercial offering. They're the market leader, but Hey, Microsoft is catching up as is Google. So, this is a very exciting place [00:03:58] because you've got a number of tech titans duking it out.

[00:04:02] AWS and Amazon leading the way, but don't count out the guys in Redmond and the guys at Mountain View, they might catch up. So, it's a very exciting couple of years in cloud computing and all of that competition, that's good news for you and I, because it actually means competition will drive new products and services.

[00:04:24] It will drive a more affordable service. And frankly, you know, cloud's pretty affordable, but it could even get more [00:04:32] affordable as that competition matures and the market grows. Third reason why we're all talking about this is actually the dark horse in this race is an old company. Yes, IBM. Now you might thought IBM in cloud, not so sure about that, but their recent acquisition of Red Hat has really brought a different idea to the table.

[00:04:57] Red Hat, a much more open source, IBM is becoming more and more so that way. So, we've got our very exciting, more agnostic [00:05:06] proposition coming into the market with huge power and distribution of IBM. I think this is very exciting for the collective cloud game for the cloud computing industry.

[00:05:16] That's three reasons, the JEDI contract, AWS, all the big tech titans, including IBM, are getting in on this game. Let's see what happens there. But if you want to know one number, I love just picking one number. One number that tells the story already in 2019, cloud computing makes up 30% of enterprise [00:05:40] IT budgets. That's already 30% I can guarantee before we know it, it's the majority of what IT spends its money on because it is such a better proposition than having server racks sitting in the back of your office and trying to maintain, update, and create new products and services on top of that legacy infrastructure. Forget it. It's all in the cloud, baby. Now, let's quickly wrap this up with some pros and cons.

[00:06:08] Okay. Look, I don't work for any of these cloud providers, but I will tell you this is the ultimate [00:06:14] proposition. Cloud is faster, cheaper, better than its previous version of local native installed applications. I mean, almost in all cases it's a better proposition. So that's the pro. Now you're thinking, okay, my good luck finding a challenge with this.

[00:06:31] Well, it actually, I think it is such a paradigm shift in computing, actually, the biggest challenge for business is the lack of skills and expertise in running large scale cloud environments. I mean, we're talking about DevOps load [00:06:48] balancing. We're talking about a lot of, you know, weaving together a web of microservices, running across a lot of different platforms.

[00:06:56] This is no easy task and actually there's not a lot of people that have actually got much experience or expertise doing this and then cut it down. Like once you say, we're real serious about doing a large-scale application, serving hundreds or maybe even thousands of simultaneous concurrent users, you're getting into just a handful of people in any city can really do that well.

[00:07:18] So that's the challenge on the cloud computing side, but it will [00:07:22] all come good as the market matures because, without a doubt, cloud computing is faster, cheaper, better. It's super exciting. Now, with all that excitement you're thinking, where can I find out more information, Mike? Well, the good news is you go to BottomUp.io, sign up for one of our masterclasses or keynotes. Get all the information not only on the top five emerging technologies, but you know what? You can go and discover a whole bunch more, design thinking, future of media. It's all their BottomUp.io. My name's Mike Parsons. I'm your host of the BottomUp podcast.

[00:07:55] It's [00:07:56] been so great to share cloud computing with you. We'll see you for the last installation of the top five emerging technologies.

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014 - Automation

[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:09] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. I'm your host, Mike Parsons. And as usual, I am here to share with you some essential skills for innovation, design creation, building good stuff. And today we're reviewing the topic of automation. In fact, I call it boundless automation, ubiquitous automation, and if you're [00:00:34] thinking, ah, well listen, I'm a creative type, this doesn't apply to me.

[00:00:38] It does. Because whether you're a consumer or an entrepreneur. Automation is becoming ubiquitous. It's essential to understand. It's the third part of our five-part annual top five emerging technologies. I really love doing this. This is the fourth year of my top five emerging technology picks. I'm really grateful to all the feedback I've had over the years.

[00:01:01] On all my different picks. If you'd like to know more about some of the retrospective picks, some of the winners and the losers [00:01:08] pop over to bottomup.io because you'll find all sorts of goodies there. Not only a full master class and keynote on this entire top five emerging technologies for 2020 but you can get access to a whole bunch of courses on design thinking, lean, agile, and innovation overall.

[00:01:25] So that's bottom up.io. Okay. Let's get into this boundless automation universe. Firstly, what is it? Well, it's really super simple. It's all about using technology to automate, especially these complex [00:01:42] business processes. Sometimes today we might find that those processes have a lot of manual work.

[00:01:48] They can be slow and inconsistent, and frankly, computers and robots can just do them better. So, what we're talking about is using automation to improve, you know, payroll, order processing, even a lot of marketing processes that have a lot of data, perfect thing to automate. So, when we talk about boundless innovation and boundless automation, it could be that classic kind of factory robot, you know, [00:02:16] Amazon or Ocado kind of vision that you have of just a few people and millions of robots.

[00:02:21] But it can also be software too. And that's what's so exciting about it. It's sort of a hardware-software play. So why is this so hyped up? What's going on here with boundless automation? What's behind the story? Well, the real truth here is there one company has pioneered this perhaps better than any others, and that's Amazon because they have the hardware automation happening in their factories and distribution centers. And then they have the software automation happening in their [00:02:50] retail and online environments. It's the Amazon effect. They are just more efficient than any other retailer on the planet. And that's why with their championing of this cause everybody's talking about automation.

[00:03:06] They are the poster child of automation. They are absolutely killing it. We haven't even seen the end result yet. I can assure you that there are some super macro, long-term economic cycles for us to go through. We will see the true power of automation. Number two, why is [00:03:24] this so, so important? Well, it is hugely efficient, particularly in 2020 as we go post virus, we're going to see a huge push on efficiency.

[00:03:34] Automation will deliver. And the reason that automation is just so powerful is that it can take error-prone, slow human processes, and just do them better. And you know, the truth here is that the power of hardware and software automation can get so much done and deliver so much cost savings to the bottom line [00:03:58] of an organization in 2020 I'm sure that is going to be the number one driver.

[00:04:03] The third thing that's got us all talking about this and why we've picked it as a top-five emerging technology for 2020 is the whole conversation about job displacement and the job fears that people have about automation. Now in the master class that we've got on bottom up.io, you will see that yes, we did find the data that actually proves that there will be job displacement.

[00:04:32] [00:04:31] Without a doubt, there will just be some jobs that go away. We've been seeing that in manufacturing for years. But here's the thing. The world economic forum found that 75 million jobs will be displaced, but by 2022 automation will create a net new 133 million jobs. So, come on guys. We don't have to be so freaked out.

[00:04:53] There is an upside to automation, and that's why we're talking about it. So, the Amazon effect, it's hugely efficient and it's not really about job displacement. It's about job [00:05:06] growth. That's why it really matters. Now, as usual, I've got one number that matters and this one's going to blow your socks off.

[00:05:13] Deloitte found that by 2023 the adoption of robotic process automation, RPA, will be nearly ubiquitous in industry. 89% will have adopted this because it's so damn efficient. So just think about that. This technology is on track for ubiquity within the next three years. Boundless [00:05:40] automation, whether it's in hardware or software, you can bet your bottom dollar, particularly with the tough economic climate of 2020 this is going to be huge.

[00:05:50] So let's look at the pros and cons and sort of frame the boundless automation conversation. Without a doubt, the big benefit is this thing saves money for business. I think we've made a good case for that, but here's the con: automating a non-digital business is actually quite hard to do.

[00:06:09] And that's the big catch because often these processes have not been mapped. [00:06:14] There are no journeys. Nobody actually has a workflow. So, we have to capture the workflow as it is today. But then there's another job we have to ask ourselves rather than just how do we copy-paste what's offline and put it online, we actually have to ask ourselves, how can we make it better as a process, as a workflow with technology, and this is not easy to do. It's both left and right brain. It's creative, it's hardcore engineering. This is why automation, great proposition, great [00:06:48] benefits, but actually as you'd expect, it's going to take a bit of hard work to get the job done.

[00:06:53] So there you go. That's pick number three of our top five emerging technologies. It's boundless automation. It's this opportunity for us all to have a little bit of Jeff Bezos magic in our business, in our product, in our service. I hope you've enjoyed this. If you want to download all the goodies you can at bottomup.io, my name is Mike Parsons.

[00:07:16] I'm your host here at the BottomUp podcast. It's been a pleasure. I can't wait to have you on the fourth [00:07:22] installment of our top five emerging technologies.

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013 - Mass Surveillance

[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:11] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. I'm your host, Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm here to share with you essential skills for innovators, designers, creators, builders, you name it, people building new products and services. And today we're reviewing the topic of mass surveillance. This is actually the second part of our [00:00:34] annual top five emerging technology picks.

[00:00:36] We've been doing this for four years now, and this one, mass surveillance is one of the trickiest. Now you might be thinking, what is mass surveillance? Well, I'm going to tell you everything, but if you want to go super deep into this topic and to many other emerging technologies and skills for innovators, head over to BottomUp.io and you can get a bunch of goodies. It's all free and you can grow as an innovator. All right let's talk about mass surveillance. Well, what do we mean by mass surveillance? Well, it's kind of two parts. The [00:01:08] online privacy world, you know, the classic, the cookies, they're being tracked online.

[00:01:12] And secondly, and equally as important is what happens in public spaces outside. That's the monitoring of civilians by video face recognition and so forth. Two big pillars, the on and the offline bit. No matter how you play it, this is a big, big topic. As emerging technology is put both online and, in our worlds, in our public spaces.

[00:01:35] There's never been a time where we've been under monitor and surveillance like we are today, [00:01:42] and that's why we've picked it as our second of five emerging technology trends that are essential to know about as a designer, as a creator, as an innovator. So, let's ask ourselves, what's all the hype around this?

[00:01:56] Well, there's probably three big things that I point out that make this topic du jour. Number one: Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. This really exposed what happens with our personal data and how users really don't appreciate when they sign up for those privacy terms. [00:02:16] What companies turn around and do with that information and this whole expose around Cambridge Analytica really demonstrated to us that our data is not secure. In fact, it gets shared with many different other online companies who get to leverage, utilize, and exploit that information. Now, the next big thing that's been happening is not only in China but even in places like the UK we're seeing this explosion of surveillance [00:02:50] cameras. When we walk around those cities, you will be surprised that there are some cities.

[00:02:56] Both in China and in Western cities where there are over 100 cameras per 1000 people. It's exploding. It's a way of preventing terrorism. It's preventing crime monitoring the social and public spaces. But this is happening everywhere. And if you look at that in the online world, nearly 80% of all the sites you visit will be [00:03:24] tracking you.

[00:03:24] So no matter where we go, at home, on the internet or outside or to work, we are being watched. And that's why it's so important to understand. And if you want one number. That points to why we selected this as something that has to be on the table, has to be in the discussion, is that this amazing fact found by Deloitte, which is less than 5% of online users actually read the privacy policies that they accept and agree to.

[00:03:54] And what this means is we have no idea what's happening with [00:03:58] our personal data. And when we elect governments, we really have very little sense of what rights we've given them to have our data, to have our personal image. This is enormous. And this brings up this pressure cooker conversation about who owns our data, what are our rights?

[00:04:17] And this is why mass surveillance is critical to understand. And it's also, even if you're not in government, even if you're not an online publisher, if you have a product or service without doubt, at some point, there's going to be a transaction of data. And [00:04:32] what I encourage you to do is to be open, to be transparent and respect that data.

[00:04:37] And in turn, your customers we'll respect you. Okay, just to wrap up, what are the pros and cons around this whole mass surveillance discussion? Well, number one, without a doubt, this kind of surveillance both on and offline, it deters crime. It deters terrorism. I mean, it even improves safety and performance and delivery of public services and infrastructure.

[00:04:59] I got you there. But equally on the other hand, what's the big catch here? [00:05:06] It's our loss of privacy. So as citizens, we should be aware, but also as entrepreneurs, here's a chance for us to protect the data of our customers. And if we do the right thing by them, they'll do the right thing by us.

[00:05:20] Okay, so that's it, mass surveillance. That's number two of a five-part series looking at the top five emerging technologies for 2020. I'm still pumped. I got three more to go. I can't wait to share them with you. If you want to know anything about these top five emerging technologies or anything about [00:05:40] skills that will help you innovate, then you should just pop over to BottomUp.io and you'll find everything you need there. I've hope you've enjoyed this short conversation on mass surveillance. My name is Mike Parsons. I'm the host of the BottomUp podcast. I'll see you next time.

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012 5G Networks

[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:09] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. I'm your host, Mike Parsons, and I am so glad to be sharing with you today some brand-new skills for innovators. That's right, today we're reviewing the world of 5G networks. This is going to be big for anybody creating a new product or a service, and this is the first of five parts in [00:00:34] our annual top five emerging technology keynote. Now, if you would like to get the full one-hour keynote, you can do so at BottomUp.io. I highly recommend you jump over there and get not only good is about emerging technologies, but about design thinking. Lean and agile, all the good stuff, all the modern-day tools of innovation.

[00:00:57] All right, so we're talking about 5G. I think this is going to have huge implications on how we build, create, design, develop new products and services. Let's get [00:01:08] into 5G networks. Now, first of all, what are we talking about here? We're talking about fifth-generation cellular technology. The most likely situation is that you're listening to this very podcast on perhaps a 4G, maybe a 3G cell connection. And this delivers some, you know, pretty remarkable speeds if you think about having broadband in your pocket. But wait for this 5G, fifth-generation cellular technology, this is going to mean speeds of up to and including a hundred [00:01:42] times faster than 4G. This is massive and no wonder there's some hype, but when we do our top five emerging technologies, we try to cut through all that hype, cut through all of the noise to find out what really matters.

[00:01:57] Now, if you ask me like why does 5G really matter? I think there's three big driving factors that are getting 5G on the list to talk about and why I picked it as a top-five emerging technologies for 2020. Number one: fifth generation [00:02:16] cell networks are crucial parts of the mobile industry.

[00:02:20] Here's the thing. It works beautifully as another reason to upgrade AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, you name it. All the huge global networks need a reason for you to upgrade because we're on cycles now of every two to three years, we upgrade our device. And we move into a new renewed contract. So often the mobile carrier will dangle a new device, a new feature, a new speed through the [00:02:50] network, has a reason to continue with them.

[00:02:53] So everybody's got hooked on this three-year rollover model that has meant that we continually upgrade our iPhones. We continually upgrade our contracts with the mobile providers. So, this is why it is getting so much hype. You will have seen in 2019, everybody in the US all those big cell providers desperately trying to shout and scream about 5G as a reason to stay on their network.

[00:03:22] So this is reason number one, that the [00:03:24] hype is so big. Number two, totally different trajectory here, Huawei. A lot of concerns around a Chinese state influenced organization providing the infrastructure for many modern Western governments and industries and economies. So, no doubt, no matter where you are around the world, you've probably heard conversations, discussions, perhaps arguments about whether your government should approve that national 5G infrastructure should be provided in part or in whole by Huawei. And this has caused a [00:03:58] lot of conversation. This is an essential part of the whole business economy of the mobile business. We've got huge government security concerns coming up through Huawei.

[00:04:09] And lastly, somebody who's a little bit more off the radar but is super important why the hype is so big, is some of the health concerns that exist around 5G. Without doubt, there's certainly some concerns around radiation and the different radio waves that 5G uses in order to get those super-fast adrenalized speeds.

[00:04:30] So that's why the [00:04:32] hype is happening. First thing I want to give you though, after all of that to cut through it or is a number that matters. And if there was one single number that is going to make the point of why 5G's going to be so big, it's the Qualcomm forecast that in 2020 there will be 200 million active users of 5G.

[00:04:53] That's not 2021 it's not 2025 they're talking about. Ladies and gentlemen this year, but Huawei not to be outdone. They've actually countered that and said they believe [00:05:06] that China alone will have 200,000,000 5G network users in 2020. Look, it really doesn't matter who you're going to believe. The truth here is that so much infrastructure has already been put in place.

[00:05:20] The handsets are coming in 2020 it's going to be fireworks, and 5G is definitely one of our big picks for 2020 so just lastly to wrap up pros and cons. Well without doubt, what's the real benefit here for the user experience? We always bring things back to the user and I think [00:05:40] that finally, the promise of these rich services and experience delivered either in a remote or a virtual capacity will be able to happen with 5G.

[00:05:49] People won't need fiber to the home if they have a 5G device. People will be able to have great services like telemedicine, remote working. This could be really huge for 2020 particularly with all the remote working and work from home that has kicked off in the first part of the year. I mentioned earlier if there's a con to this whole thing, there's some real concerns around [00:06:14] radiation around all the different radio frequencies that are used here. I mean, the only way they can get these speeds is to get busy on a number of different frequencies with a lot of throughput. We heard stories in both the Netherlands and Japan of birds mysteriously dying around 5G towers.

[00:06:31] So yeah, there is a bit to be worried about. There's a lot of conjecture and conversation there, but the real impact here is regardless of the pros and the cons, one truth remains, 5G is going to be absolutely huge in 2020. So if you want to know more about [00:06:48] 5G, if you want to get the masterclass, if you want to download the whole keynote, or if you want to know about anything else, that's an essential skill for an innovator, hop over to BottomUp.io and get all the goodies there. I'm your host, Mike Parsons. It was great having you on the show today. We'll see you next time.

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011 - Presentation - Survey Monkey - Tools and Technology

[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:08] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. I'm your cohost Mike Parsons and as always, I'm joined by the presenter himself, Mr. Chad Owen.

[00:00:19] Chad: [00:00:19] I don't know why, but I always get a little sad when we reached the end of any of our podcast series, but we're going to leave you on a high note here because this is where all of your hard work finally pays off.

[00:00:31] Mike: [00:00:31] Indeed because the greatest [00:00:34] irony about this episode is that if you don't really practice the art of presenting surveys to others, then everything else that we talked about in the last six episodes goes to waste, doesn't it?

[00:00:45] Chad: [00:00:45] Yeah. And we'll just cut to the chase and give you advice. Don't pull up surveymonkey.com in a meeting and start scrolling through the results pages because that's not going to get you the results you're looking for.

[00:00:59] Mike: [00:00:59] No, no, no, because I think that what we have to remember, let's just assume that all of our audience are busy. They've got [00:01:08] surveymonkey.com open right now. They're getting all this great advice and, they're about to. Walk into the room and present. Everyone's like, so Chad, Mike, what have you learned right.

[00:01:20] The thing is that you know, we will have spent hours and hours and hours, days, and perhaps weeks working on this research. So, we'll have lots of the context and rationale and we'll be hanging on the responses of every single question. But the truth here is that you don't build products in isolation.

[00:01:40] You're often part of like a [00:01:42] core team, but perhaps there are stakeholders and sponsors and all sorts of people, third party partners, lots and lots of people, and let's say you've done a bunch of research using Survey Monkey and everyone's keen to like know what you found, the truth really is it's your ability to tell the story and just don't bombard them with numbers and don't read to them like in a rote manner.

[00:02:08] 42% of people said yes to question two. 38% of people said no to question [00:02:16] three. Because the truth here is, they have none of the real context insights and understanding. So, you need to be much more of a storyteller. And after years and years of learning, I think we've kind of cracked a very nice way for you to tell your story.

[00:02:30] So where does that start? Chad.

[00:02:32] Chad: [00:02:32] I'm going to call an audible here. I'm going to invert your framework here because you said something that fired the neurons in my brain. You said, you know, tell the story. So, I think rather than leading with the data and the numbers. Start with the recommendation of what you should do based on what you've [00:02:50] learned.

[00:02:50] And so if you can say, well, we need to test this thing in the market, you can say, well, we need to test this thing in the New York market because we had an insight from the data that there was, you know, strong scores in the Northeast. And we know that because, you know, 80% of people in the Northeast gave us a score of eight or higher.

[00:03:08] So, rather than starting with the data, you can start with the recommendation. It came from an insight from the data that came from the hard number. Does that seem like one potential strategy for sharing the information?

[00:03:20] Mike: [00:03:20] Bang on. Whether you, you know, lead strong or [00:03:24] you take them on a logical path, I think the real beauty is you can go either way. But the key thing is, be clear in what action you should take as a result of the survey. Because if you don't do that, everyone will deduce their own imagination, their own perception of what we should do, and you won't have alignment.

[00:03:46] Now, if you're working on a fairly big, ambitious early-stage product, you cannot afford for that misalignment. For example, I would be as bold [00:03:58] as using examples like this. We should only launch our MVP in the state of New York, and we shouldn't move out of New York until we get an NPS of 8.5 and above.

[00:04:13] Let me tell you the insights behind that. Like I would be really declarative in how I make my recommendations and then almost unpack that in the storytelling. Because when you do a big bunch of research work, there is so many nuances that could be [00:04:32] jumping-off points for people to go off the reservation and draw their own conclusions.

[00:04:36] If you want people to be aligned on the insights, you have to make strong recommendations and almost the very act of making a strong recommendation forces you to have good insights. And if you need good insights, you need to always go back to the data. And this is the three-part approach: have the data, have the insights, have the recommendations.

[00:05:00] I love the way you said it, like don't just open up Survey Monkey in the meeting, put it on the screen and say, [00:05:06] okay, should we scroll through? That is so perfect. That is like the worst meeting ever because someone says, stop, stop, stop there. Where did you get that data? Oh my gosh. We're off track.

[00:05:15] Chad: [00:05:15] And like you might get distracted by Survey Monkey's, awesome export features, and you're like, Ooh, I can just put this straight into PowerPoint. Again, you're missing the point of why you were doing this in the first place. Like go back to your research plan and figure out like, what you were trying to learn, and then, you know, use that data to make those strong recommendations just like you're saying.

[00:05:36] Mike: [00:05:36] I think this is a good sort of baseline. If [00:05:40] you're presenting key research findings, everyone in that room should have read and agreed with your research plan. I have witnessed people with really great ideas presenting research findings, and people have said, well, I disagree with the whole research approach.

[00:05:59] I don't understand why you did quant. You should've done qual. I don't understand why you did this. You should've done this another way.

[00:06:04] Chad: [00:06:04] Why didn't you talk to this customer instead of that one?

[00:06:07] Mike: [00:06:07] Right. But then you get in an argument about the means, not even the findings, and it basically [00:06:14] invalidates the findings because if someone says, I don't agree with the approach, so, therefore, I can't get on board with the findings, then you're sunk.

[00:06:22] Like as a product owner, you're sunk, like you're dead. Then you're also probably full of all this inspiration, excitement, and insight, and then you're like, oh, I didn't bring my defensive argument for the method of research because you're so convinced, but your stakeholders might not be.

[00:06:39] Chad: [00:06:39] This comes back to why we are doing these surveys in the first place, and it's to validate an idea, a hypothesis or [00:06:48] prototype or an MVP that you have. And so, you should be making these really strong recommendations for how you need to move that project forward and you can be confident in doing so because you have the insights from the data.

[00:07:01] Mike: [00:07:01] Absolutely right. And I think there's a real joy that you can find, looking at the data, asking them what does this mean? And then the next question is, what should we do? And the clearer and the more concise you can be about what you think we should do, we'll actually [00:07:22] provoke you to be really sharp on the insights in the data.

[00:07:25] Because if you are like, we should do this, we should test it only in California and only in San Jose because, and then if you will, as you're saying that going, I'm not really sure I totally believe this. That should be a warning sign that you haven't got the right insights because you're trying to draw a conclusion and a path to action that doesn't feel convincing. And it may be a continuous cycle of going back through the data,

[00:07:52] what's our data? What does this mean? What do we do? And you [00:07:56] might be kind of stuck in that. I think another practical advice, work in a pair. Don't try and crunch your big truckload of data on your own.

[00:08:07] Chad: [00:08:07] You'll get lost in the numbers. It happened to me.

[00:08:10] Mike: [00:08:10] You want to talk pivot tables?

[00:08:13] Chad: [00:08:13] I have named it my beautiful mind moment. I was presenting a spreadsheet of pivot tables to Mike, and at one point he just stopped me, and he just said, stop, you know, get out of the spreadsheet. I'd spent way too much of time with the numbers.

[00:08:28]Mike: [00:08:28] I was actually on the [00:08:30] subway and I was looking at the pivot tables on my iPad, and it's like the worst device you could possibly try and look at the world's biggest set of pivot tables. And I remember just scrolling out and out and out. It was like good to into like five-point font and whatever, and I'm trying to like, oh my God, I know why this is so much data.

[00:08:48] And I'm like, okay, let's zoom out a little bit. You know, Chad, we've been through a bit of a journey here because we've really traveled right the way through Survey Monkey, and there's been some really, really core learnings. And I think there's a huge [00:09:04] truth to the idea of think before you do. I think in the case of Survey Monkey, you really need to have a good research plan and know why you're doing this quant research and just take the care and the time with the designing and the previewing.

[00:09:19] Chad: [00:09:19] And keep it simple.

[00:09:20] Mike: [00:09:20] Yes, that was a good one. Keeping it simple. And your favorite one is the acceleration through the recruitment right.

[00:09:26] Chad: [00:09:26] Yeah. That buy targeted responses option, it can allow you to get results in just a matter of hours. So, if you're under some time constraints, it can be a real lifesaver.

[00:09:37] Mike: [00:09:37] And then [00:09:38] obviously get rigorous with the filter and the compare function in the analyzed results. And as we've been saying on this last episode in this series, really ask yourself, what do we learn? What do we do? And really think through the storytelling, the narrative of what you've learned. How does this propel us towards building a great product, telling a great story about this product, and I think you'll be in good shape.

[00:10:02] Chad: [00:10:02] Yeah, and don't forget you can link this quantitative survey with other quantitative surveys or go through the magic sequence of quant qual, quant, qual, that we [00:10:12] outlined in the first episode. So, you don't have to just rely on one survey, and you shouldn't just rely on one survey. You should, you know, approach learning from your customers in any and all ways that you can.

[00:10:25] Mike: [00:10:25] Absolutely. Well, there we go. We have the Survey Monkey series in the bag. What are tour I mean; we use this so much. The two other tools that we're going to cover this year, again, it'd be Otter.ai and dovetail. Also, huge fans of those tools. I mean, this is the innovator's toolkit. These three, I mean, this will get you a long way, [00:10:46] but we're going to segue out of tools for our next series and episode, and we may be going to what is definitely a home game for us, maybe our true love, which is drum roll. Chad Owen, are you ready to announce what our next series is going to be on the podcast?

[00:11:04] Chad: [00:11:04] I don't think it could be anything other than Design Thinking.

[00:11:08] Mike: [00:11:08] Ooh, so get your horses ready, because we'll be off to the races into a world of design thinking. All right, Chad, we're done on Survey Monkey, I think, don't you?

[00:11:19] Chad: [00:11:19] Yeah, [00:11:20] it was fun to share. It's a bit of a secret weapon of ours, I mean not so secret anymore now that it's on the BottomUp podcast. But you know, you can get a more in-depth masterclass on Survey Monkey and many more on BottomUp.io so be sure to check out our learning platform there. And yeah, I can't wait for the Design Thinking masterclass series here on the podcast Mike. I think we're going to have a lot of fun.

[00:11:44] Mike: [00:11:44] Yeah. Me too. Really, really love that one. I'm just going to have to not talk too much.

[00:11:48] Chad: [00:11:48] Yeah. Otherwise, it'll be 28 episodes. It would be a year's worth of content.

[00:11:53] Mike: [00:11:53] Exactly. [00:11:54] All right. Thank you to you, Chad, to our listeners here at the BottomUp podcast, remember you can find us at bottomup.io. Thanks again, and that's a wrap of the BottomUp podcast.

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010 - Results & Reports - Survey Monkey - Tools and Technology

[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:09] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. I'm your cohost. Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by Mr. Results, Mr. Chad Owen.

[00:00:19] Chad: [00:00:19] So you spent all that time crafting the survey. You double, triple checked it. You gone and recruited your 80 plus-year-old fish owners in the UK and your results are pouring in.

[00:00:33] Mike: [00:00:33] There's a [00:00:34] deluge. You're swimming in it.

[00:00:36] Chad: [00:00:36] I see what you did there, Mike.

[00:00:37] Mike: [00:00:37] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know, I know. I've been working on that one. So, yeah, you're very, very welcome to continue listening to this podcast, but you will double up the value if you go to Survey Monkey.com and you're logged in there cause you'll understand some of the tips and tricks that we're giving or alternatively come back to this and listen a second time with your browser open.

[00:00:57] But this is all about helping you work out, what's the results here? How do I report it back? Because you got a ton of data. You might have a hundred, you might have [00:01:08] a thousand respondents, and we're now moving into the world of how on earth do we work out what's the story here and where do we extract the most value?

[00:01:17] Because, it's good if you've asked some insightful questions in your survey, but you can actually make the results great, if you know how to do one key thing, and it's a double-barrel concept. It's all about comparing and contrasting the results or the responses of users. [00:01:42] Again, you've got all these users, all of their responses are in the database.

[00:01:46] If you can compare them, and if you contrast them in the right way, this is where you can get amazing understanding of what's going on and you can do this almost forensic isolation of the key drivers of motivation, of intent of activity. What are the real pains that people experience with products and services?

[00:02:11] What are the gains they're looking for? You can often use this [00:02:16] comparing and contrasting, and it reveals magic. And Chad, this is where you and I just go OCD in Survey Monkey. Tell me, what do you love about getting into the analyze results tab of Survey Monkey?

[00:02:31] Chad: [00:02:31] Yeah so, if you're following along with us, the second to last tab when you're creating your survey is the analyzed results tab and you won't have anything here unless you've gotten some responses setting up your collectors. So be sure you've set those up beforehand. And really what Mike's getting at is don't just simply take [00:02:50] the data that you've collected in the survey and just export it and call it a day.

[00:02:55] Because what Survey Monkey allows you to do is both filter and compare the data. So, if we want to know the spending habits of dog owners versus cat owners versus fish owners, by clicking on compare in the filters area, we can compare all three of those and their spending responses, which is something that we could export into a pivot table and manually figure all that out.

[00:03:22] But Survey Monkey does all of that [00:03:24] work for you and it's really simple to set up.

[00:03:27] Mike: [00:03:27] And so the key thing that you can dig around and discover is whether there's, you know, causation between factors. If people live in rural areas, therefore they're 10 times more likely to do X, Y, and Z. So, you might have direct causation, or you might have what we call correlation between data. And whether it's either a cause or a correlation, the power of these insights is very [00:03:58] specific towards taking action.

[00:04:00] The things you should do based on the data that you've collected. We're going to deal with that in our last show on Survey Monkey, but what I really want to get comfortable with, in Survey Monkey in the analyzed results tab is you will see that when you click on filter and compare, you can do some amazing things.

[00:04:19] For example. You could say, I want to filter based on a particular aspect in my survey. I only want to see people that, and through social media, I only want to [00:04:32] see people that answered on a particular day. So, when we talk about filtering, this is your capacity to isolate something. So, let's say I asked people what their age was in my survey.

[00:04:45] Then I might want to filter out any results of 18 to 24-year olds. Or inversely, I might only want to see a snapshot of this segment of my customer base. So, what you do is you select, that question and Survey Monkey reloads the results. only shows you the [00:05:06] answers of the entire survey from those who were in that filter criteria.

[00:05:11] Now, this is really interesting because as you're getting to know your customer, I just chose a simple demographic, but you can actually select a particular question. So, let's say we had a question. Let's keep going with the goldfish angle. Let's say you asked people about their preference on color for goldfish, and you want to identify like what's going on with all the people who love blue goldfish, so you could see only the answers from them.

[00:05:37] And this is the power of filtering. [00:05:40] You can just cut down your data and really see how things change between different segments, different personas that you may have screened into your survey. I mean, this is pretty cool stuff. Chad.

[00:05:51] Chad: [00:05:51] Yeah, and it makes it really fun and easy to highlight the most interesting results from the data. Or even tailored to the audience in which you're sharing it. So if you're the global director of marketing and you're going on tour, you don't really want to bring up your middle East and European and Australian consumer numbers when you're in the US so you can just filter out all the others and only focus [00:06:14] on US respondents.

[00:06:15] It can be as simple as that. Or you could say, I only want US-based, 25 to 34 greater than $100,000 of income, what device do they use? Android, iOS, or none.

[00:06:27] Mike: [00:06:27] So good, but it doesn't just stop at the filtering. Okay, so in the analyzed results tab, you'll see next to filter, right beside that is the compare filter, and this takes things next level because side by side, let's use the age question again. I'm going to choose the question, [00:06:48] which was what is your age?

[00:06:49] I’m going to compare 18 to 24 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 and then I hit activate. And then what happens is the entire results of my survey, are shown in three parts, every single question right next to each other, there's a chart for each of the age categories that I selected.

[00:07:12] I'm actually looking at an old survey we did hundreds of people filled it out, and I can see that 25 to 34-year olds on question three had a [00:07:22] wildly different response then the other two segments. Again, same thing here on the next question. What I notice here on the fifth question is that 18 22 to 24 we're way less likely than 35 to 40 fours on a particular question.

[00:07:38] This is gold because you can see all the variations and permutations in your customers, and this enables you to go, oh my gosh, I think our core audience is 25 to 34s. Or we know that the user behavior of those [00:07:56] 25 to 34 has a much higher frequency than other age segments. This is gold. If you're creating products, if you're launching marketing campaigns, it doesn't matter.

[00:08:07] These insights can all be unlocked by just using these filter and compare options.

[00:08:14] Chad: [00:08:14] Yeah. This is where the fun is in Survey Monkey.

[00:08:17] Mike: [00:08:17] Right. On this survey, Chad, there is, I think more than 20 different compare or filters that we ran on the report in order to try and decode some [00:08:30] insights and some learnings over 20 of these comparisons, try and isolate gold.

[00:08:35] I mean, how cool is that? I mean, that's how deep you can go.

[00:08:38] Chad: [00:08:39] And again, this is the fun part because this is where you're uncovering the insights. Like again, you could export this data and put it into a pivot table and try to figure it out for yourself. But Survey Monkey makes it so easy by using the filter and compare filters under the analyzed results.

[00:08:54] Mike: [00:08:54] And I must say a lot of people who are on a budget, will use Google survey, which just kind of feeds into Google sheets. The [00:09:04] reason we choose Survey Monkey above and beyond anything else over any other option is what we're talking about on this episode, results, and reports. This is the best filtering and comparing you'll be able to do this is what really saves you tons of time and effort and drama trying to work out what it all means.

[00:09:26] This is like a massive accelerant.

[00:09:28] Chad: [00:09:29] Well that and buying targeted responses, don't forget that.

[00:09:32] Mike: [00:09:32] There you go. So, one, two punch. Have we decoded results and reports?

[00:09:37] Chad: [00:09:37] Yeah. But we [00:09:38] can't let these insights stay stuck inside of Survey Monkey. So in the next episode, we're going to talk about how to get all these results out, but not only that but how to best present it to your ultimate stakeholder audiences to be sure that you can get the most out of the data that you've spent so much time and effort to get.

[00:09:55] Mike: [00:09:55] Fantastic. I would say my last advice, probably want to listen to this episode again, make sure you go through and get the most out of filtering and comparing cause you'll have the best results if you do that. So that wraps up the second last part of our Survey Monkey series [00:10:12] here on the BottomUp podcast.

[00:10:13] Thanks for joining us. That's goodbye, from Mike and Chad.

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009 - Collectors - Survey Monkey - Tools and Technology

[00:00:00]Mike: [00:00:08] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. I'm your cohost, Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by the survey guru himself, Mr. Chad Owen.

[00:00:18] Chad: [00:00:18] Now, if you remember from last episode, I said that we're going to reveal my favorite feature of Survey Monkey here. So what do you think that a feature is, Mike?

[00:00:28] Mike: [00:00:28] I have [00:00:30] a feeling it might be about sending the beacon, lighting the fire and getting hundreds and thousands of people flooding into your survey and telling us what they think and what they feel.

[00:00:43] Chad: [00:00:43] Yeah. And Survey Monkey can do it for you. That's the best part. You don't need a giant email list. You don't have to buy a list or spam people. Survey Monkey does it all for you. And so, we're going to talk to you about that in today's episode on Survey Monkey's collectors.

[00:00:58] Mike: [00:00:58] Yeah. So once [00:01:00] again, if you are not able to get online and log into Survey Monkey while we're chatting, totally cool. You can listen along. You will get an extra boost if you are actually in Survey Monkey because you actually see the things that we're talking about, which will be a more powerful learning experience.

[00:01:15] If you want to double down and really learn, you can go to BottomUp.io and you can grab one of our masterclasses. We've done a whole masterclass on Survey Monkey that you can check out too. That'll take you right through, but we're just giving you some of the highlights here. [00:01:30] Let's talk about getting people to fill out your survey.

[00:01:32] Now, obviously, if you know your customers, if you have a customer base or if it's for employees or you want to survey your sports team or whatever, you can make a web link with Survey Monkey and you can send it out to those people. You can have Survey Monkey/Janessoccerteam. And when people go to that, they can fill out the survey.

[00:01:55] So when we talk about collectors. It's not only that way [00:02:00] that I just mentioned with the web link to bring people in. There's actually a lot of different ways you can get people to your survey. So you can push this directly into your mobile app. You can put it into Facebook messenger. You can even have it in an analog kiosk.

[00:02:15] Survey setups are when people come into your cafe or your retail store, you can post it to social media. You can actually, something I don't usually advise, Chad, is using the email collector where Survey Monkey [00:02:30] will email directly the people your survey. I think if you're going to do that, you actually want to use a professional mail service or if it's to a known group of people, just send it through your corporate mail.

[00:02:40] But I think we want to spend the most time talking about buying targeted responses. I think this is what is the icing on the cake, the joie de vivre for Chad Owen and when we talk Survey Monkey.

[00:02:54] Chad: [00:02:54] And one thing to not forget here is Survey Monkey tracks [00:03:00] everything, like absolutely everything. So when you get to analyzing results, you can even filter the information based on how you went and collected the information. So if you have a list of customers that you are manually, you know, sending through your CRM, the survey, and you're also buying targeted responses from the general public, you can compare those two different audiences inside of Survey Monkey.

[00:03:22] But, I don't want to gloss over this feature. That Survey Monkey will allow you to move some sliders and choose [00:03:30] some attributes of targeted survey takers and then recruit, pay them a nominal fee, and get them to take the survey for you. So without any work on your part, other than choosing some demographic and geographic information, they'll get them all of the survey takers that you will pay for.

[00:03:45]And

[00:03:45] Mike: [00:03:45] so this is particularly relevant if you want to talk to non-customers. If you want to talk to people in different markets, let's say you've got a great product in the UK and you want to launch in Australia, you could do a quick [00:04:00] survey from the UK. Survey Monkey will recruit the people in.

[00:04:03] So if you've got a consumer product, if you want to talk to the general population in a market in a city, you can actually do so. And the beauty here is that Survey Monkey will recruit the people. And I would say, Chad, it's not perfect. But it's absolutely good enough to give you directional feedback. And what I mean by that is you will struggle a little bit to find [00:04:30] 35 to 55 medium to high-income professional executives using this tool.

[00:04:35] The reason why is because those people don't have time to fill out surveys during the day. But in general, it's a very good way to get a quick read. And I must say that when I've compared Survey Monkey's results to other real enterprise surveys, there is a definite correlation in the data. I even had time recently where the [00:05:00] US data that we surveyed on Survey Monkey was very close to the patterns and the insights that this big global brand had from surveys and feedback that they had done with their existing customers. So the risk, obviously in that situation was that we said, Hey, we've got all these insights about the American market, and then they go, well, all our surveys are giving different results. That would have [00:05:30] been really tricky to try and work that out.

[00:05:32] But the really pleasant surprise we had is the themes and the insights and recommendations, all ran closely together. And that was a really powerful moment for me when I realized like, wow, so they make you use gold because it's correlating well. So the people that they can recruit, they're doing actually a good job on recruiting real human beings to give real feedback.

[00:05:55] So it gets really interesting. I mean, it's been a really powerful tool for us, hasn't it? Chad?

[00:06:00] [00:06:00] Chad: [00:06:00] Yeah. For just a couple of hours and a couple of hundred dollars. You can get some, as you said, valid data that correlates to what you would maybe have to pay tens of thousands, if not hundreds, thousands of dollars for going, you know, to a professional research firm, or we had another client,

[00:06:18] they thought this was magic. They were like, oh my God, how did you get this information? And so quickly? we have whole teams of people doing this and here you're able to do it overnight and granted, it’s not the same kind of data, but it's certainly [00:06:30] directional and points you in the right direction when it comes to understanding, you know, customer sentiment.

[00:06:34] Mike: [00:06:34] Well, let's really break this down a bit and let's actually get into how deep you can actually get into this. So you can actually go into the Survey Monkey tool. And right now, obviously, we are in these collector’s area that we've been talking about.

[00:06:51] Chad: [00:06:51] Yeah. Collect responses and then the buy targeted responses, that's the key area.

[00:06:57] Mike: [00:06:57] Now, so here's the interesting thing [00:07:00] is you can configure this like crazy. So you load it in, you're going to get probably the following default settings, country, all of the US gender or genders, all ages 18 and above or incomes. Now, Chad, we have to warn everybody what happens as soon as you start playing with all the targeting options and all the filters on an audience.

[00:07:27] Chad: [00:07:27] So as of the beginning of 2020 [00:07:30] that gen pop survey will cost you anywhere between like $3 and $4. But as soon as you start narrowing it to, you know, surveying only women or only the UK or only people that make $150,000 or more, the cost per survey participant goes up quite a bit.

[00:07:47] Mike: [00:07:47] Let's look at some fun ones. You could do employment status full time, part-time retired, so you could actually prescreen all your respondents to those. You could do it on technology. What devices [00:08:00] do they own? What are some other fun ones? Do they like gaming? For example? You could just survey Xbox users.

[00:08:06] Chad: [00:08:06] Do they have cable or satellite or internet only.

[00:08:11] Mike: [00:08:11] Yeah. This is great. Pet ownership. Oh, this is good. Owns a dog, owns a cat. Are you ready for this next one, Chad? Owns a fish, cause I'm dying to know what fish owners are thinking. Okay, no disrespect to all our listeners that own fish. But this [00:08:30] is the power, right? So you can go and look at how much they frequent movie sinners.

[00:08:35]Do they have mortgages? You know, what kind of vehicles? What sort of social media do they like? The caution here is obviously, not only does this get more expensive, but the more refined your targeting gets, the longer people take to fill it out.

[00:08:51] Chad: [00:08:51] Yeah, so if you're looking for overnight results, you might not be able to get it. You might have to extend the survey time to several days, if not a week or two.

[00:08:58] Mike: [00:08:58] Exactly. [00:09:00] But for me, Chad, I must say, I agree. The ability to recruit an audience in is so turnkey. Because think about what would be your other option if you couldn't do this. Like what would you do if you couldn't recruit a firm and you're in a different country, you just couldn't do it.

[00:09:17] Chad: [00:09:17] You'd have to pay a recruitment from tens of thousands of dollars is what you'd have to do.

[00:09:22] Mike: [00:09:22] And you and I both know because we do recruit via professional consumer recruiters and it is very expensive.

[00:09:28] Chad: [00:09:28] Now granted, those are for in-person [00:09:30] experiences or interviews, but still Survey Monkey, just by the fact that you know, it's been around for, I remember running into people from Survey Monkey at South by Southwest in like 2008 or 2009. So they've been around for a long time and they've got the user base that they can just go out to blast out these surveys and do much if not all of that recruitment work for you.

[00:09:51] Mike: [00:09:51] There you go. So this is the huge benefit from the Survey Monkey platform. If you use their collectors, it's a great way to quickly [00:10:00] understand what customers are thinking and feeling, particularly when you want to go global, your ability to leap into another market and quickly get a taste of what people are thinking.

[00:10:08] It is so, so powerful. But Chad, we've got two more episodes left of the Survey Monkey series. What's left for our listeners.

[00:10:17] Chad: [00:10:17] Well, everything that happens after you've sent out your survey and you're starting to collect all of those wonderful responses, but it doesn't just stop there because data in Survey Monkey that doesn't go anywhere is no good to you. So [00:10:30] we'll wrap up the series talking about reporting and sharing out

[00:10:34] all of the wonderful insights from the surveys that you spend a lot of time and creating double, triple checking and recruiting for.

[00:10:41] Mike: [00:10:41] All right, so there you have it, everyone. That is the fifth part of our seven-part series on Survey Monkey. If you're keen to know more, head over to BottomUp.io you can get all our podcast archive. You can even grab your own masterclass and we've got two more really useful episodes left [00:11:00] in the SurveyMonkey series of the BottomUp podcast.

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008 - Preview & Review - Survey Monkey - Tools and Technology

[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:08] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. I'm your cohost Mike Parsons, and as always, I am joined by the Survey Monkey himself. Mr. Chad Owen.

[00:00:18] Chad: [00:00:18] Well, here we are in the fourth episode in the Survey Monkey series. We've given you an intro to why quantitative research is important. Talked about, what do you need to do before you even dive into Survey Monkey to prepare and create a research plan, talked a little bit about designing [00:00:34] surveys in the last episode, and here we are with the, my hand is hovering over the button.

[00:00:39] I'm about to launch it to get a thousand responses and oh wait, there's a missing question or a huge typo, or we forgot to upload the image.

[00:00:48] Mike: [00:00:48] Yeah. Hold the press. Just hang on a second. Because before, which will be in our next show, we talk about how to get people into your survey. A tried and tested warrior's advice from Chad and myself to all of our listeners. [00:01:08] Please preview and check your survey before you send it out.

[00:01:12] Chad: [00:01:12] And then check it again and then have someone else check it.

[00:01:16] Mike: [00:01:16] All right, so here's the thing, why this is a bit different to maybe publishing a website. Let's say you've got a typo on your website; you can update it and then you know from now on it's all fixed. The problem when it comes to quant research and doing a survey in Survey Monkey is you've often invited people to fill it out, and once you start changing the questions midstream through recruitment of people to [00:01:42] respond to your survey.

[00:01:43] You are basically invalidating the data because not everybody saw the same set of questions. So, you can't draw a really broad analysis of the data because you essentially have to split all the data up. Doubling down on this, Chad, the big booboo is when you've paid to recruit people in and then you realize you didn't preview and check your survey, and so it's not only cost you time,

[00:02:06] it's costs you some dollars.

[00:02:08] Chad: [00:02:08] Yeah. And if you're sending it to more than a hundred people and you're changing things, or you're getting back data, that could be a several hundred-dollar mistake. [00:02:16] The numbers only just go up if you're sending it out to even more people.

[00:02:19] Mike: [00:02:19] And more specialized people as well. You could easily find yourself spending a couple of thousand on recruitment, so you want to make sure it's right first time.

[00:02:28] Chad: [00:02:28] Yeah, and Survey Monkey actually gives you some really great tools to preview your surveys on not only just desktop computers but mobile and tablet. Mike, I think we probably get over half responses coming from mobile devices. So, there's a great way for you to check that out and preview it straight from within Survey Monkey.

[00:02:45] Mike: [00:02:45] Yeah, because the catch is you're often building this on a computer, on a laptop, but it's [00:02:50] actually often responded to via mobile as much the same in terms of, you know, newsletters and so forth that it's a majority mobile these days. I think the greatest thing to do, simple thing, take the survey yourself.

[00:03:04] And actually you should be in surveymonkey.com if you can be while we're doing this show, so you can actually see the area we're talking about, but there's actually a tab there that runs from left to right that says summary design survey. And then where we are right now is preview and score. Now when you're in your preview and score, you get to see the survey as it [00:03:24] would appear to a respondent, and you can actually do it as a respondent and you can do it on a PC tablet,

[00:03:31] or mobile and it's really good and right next to it, it has this survey score that we've talked about in the previous episode where they give you an estimated completion rate and your estimated completion rate is basically telling you, out of every hundred people that do this, here's the percentage of people we think will actually complete it.

[00:03:50] Because the thing to keep in mind, Chad, is the longer your survey gets, the [00:03:58] lower your completion rate is going to be because people simply bail on your survey, don't they?

[00:04:03] Chad: [00:04:03] Yeah. I mean, you start getting over five questions and that estimated completion rate can start going down pretty quickly.

[00:04:10] Mike: [00:04:10] Yeah. So, we have seen time and time again when a team is working on a survey, and particularly when you've got perhaps a broader team that includes maybe a client or a vendor. Before you know it, everyone's got a smart question and you're at 20, 22 questions. I would never, ever send out a survey with 22 [00:04:32] questions.

[00:04:32] If they were 22 amazing questions, I'd send out two different surveys a week apart because people don't want to fill out that many questions. I think that's been one of our biggest learnings, hasn't it? Chad.

[00:04:42] Chad: [00:04:42] Yeah, I mean, I'll say it again. Keep it simple, stupid. Find out exactly what you want to learn from the survey ahead of time, and then be sure that all of your questions are delivering on that promise of finding out what you want to learn.

[00:04:56] Mike: [00:04:56] If you're getting a really bad survey score, a prediction of your completion rate, I think the best advice we'd give you is, try and break your survey up into two [00:05:06] parts and do a second survey at a later time. Let's say you had 16 questions, which would be too many, okay? I would much rather do two surveys of eight questions,

[00:05:17] than risk sending a survey of 16. Eight questions. You'll have a really high completion rate. You'll learn some things from that. That maybe change some of the questions in the second eight questions. This would be a far wiser approach than that of just trying to cram as many questions into one go. There's plenty of chances to survey your customers and your users. Don't rush it.

[00:05:40] [00:05:40] Chad: [00:05:40] And one thing that we always love to do as well is send the survey to our colleagues first, before sending it out. Because every single time we've done it, someone has, you know, made a suggestion and how to improve it. Either adding or removing an answer, rephrasing a question to make it more clear what you're trying to learn and understand.

[00:05:58] It can only get better by sharing it with others and it just makes the user experience from the survey takers' point of view that much better.

[00:06:04] Mike: [00:06:04] One sort of last advance Ninja tip is that often advanced surveys, we'll have a form of logic in them, meaning that [00:06:14] if a respondent answers the question in a particular way. For example, if they choose answer A, you're going to send them to a different page or question than if they answer a question B.

[00:06:25] And what happens is in the preview and score, you can actually preview the logic side by side as you go through the survey. In a side panel, Survey Monkey will show you the logic that's underneath what you see, and this is like really, really helpful, as you preview and check. And Chad, look, I think I've got some even more folksy [00:06:48] advice.

[00:06:49] I think if you're getting to the point where you're not sure if the survey is good enough to send out, is it maybe too long other the questions right? I would honestly give people this advice, pause, go home, sleep on it, come back to it in the morning. Because with this, it's kind of like better not to send it, then send it wrong.

[00:07:09] It's a bit different to a website. A website, people are like just get it up. We can always change it. You don't have that privilege with surveys. Do you.

[00:07:17] Chad: [00:07:17] Well, not without spending more money to get more responses.

[00:07:22] [00:07:21] Mike: [00:07:21] Exactly. If you're actually surveying your existing customer base like you should be sparing in what you ask because they only have a limited appetite to share with you what they're thinking and feeling.

[00:07:31] Chad: [00:07:31] So what do we do after we've proofed and checked it? How do we get people to actually fill out our surveys?

[00:07:37] Mike: [00:07:37] What a golden segue there Chad Owen, yes. In the next episode of the BottomUp podcast, we're going to look at collectors in Survey Monkey. These are essentially the doors and windows that open up a world of users giving us feedback to our survey, and there are some dark arts. There's some complexities here, but there's also some great opportunities to [00:07:56] get massive insights into how your customers and users are thinking. So that will be on the next episode of our Survey Monkey series. Chad, are you ready to sign off and jump into a world of collectors?

[00:08:08] Chad: [00:08:08] You're going to learn actually my favorite feature of Survey Monkey in the next episode, so stay tuned.

[00:08:13] Mike: [00:08:13] Ooh, sounds good. All right, everybody, if you would like to know more about the bottom app podcast, you can jump over to bottomup.io. This is Mike and Chad signing off for the BottomUp podcast.

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007 - Designing the Survey - Survey Monkey - Tools and Technology

[00:00:30] Mike: [00:00:30] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. I'm your cohost Mike persons, and as always, I'm joined by Chad Owen. Are you ready to design your survey in Survey Monkey Chad Owen?

[00:00:51] Chad: [00:00:51] Oh you mean I can finally go to surveymonkey.com and play around?

[00:00:54] Mike: [00:00:54] Good point. So for all of our listeners there, follow Chad's very wise advice. You are [00:01:00] very welcome to just enjoy the show in its audio form. But if you'd like to get the most out of this show, jump into surveymonkey.com, create a free account because we're going to be poking around in there and sharing with you some best practices on how you might design your survey and design it well. Now, as a way of introduction, as everybody is scrambling around typing in surveymonkey.com, I have to say the reason this episode [00:01:30] is going to save you time and money is, like many things in life, once you get into it, you realize it's going to take you a lot more time to do it properly than you first thought.

[00:01:38] Have you had this experience, Chad Owen?

[00:01:40] Chad: [00:01:40] Yes. I always get something wrong. I either ask the wrong question, I leave an answer out, I send it to the wrong people. There's always something that goes wrong.

[00:01:50] Mike: [00:01:50] I had a time once where I forgot to make a number of questions compulsory so that in the survey, they were skippable [00:02:00] and I remember I couldn't work out. There was like, I don't know, two or 300 people had completed the survey, but I would have like, any three-quarters of people answered a question.

[00:02:10] I'm like, this is the weirdest thing. And I realized that I had left the mandatory like the question must be answered, radio button. I hadn't ticked it

[00:02:20]

[00:02:20] and I was like, oh, no.

[00:02:22] They probably spent three or 400 extra dollars on those useless answers.

[00:02:27] So this ladies and gentlemen is why getting [00:02:30] the design right matters. Because if you think it through and do it rigorously once, there's a huge benefit here, isn't there Chad?

[00:02:38] Chad: [00:02:38] Yeah. My mantra with surveys is K.I.S.S.: keep it simple, stupid. So if this is your first one, try a survey with just two questions, that's it. You can always send out another survey later, but if you're just trying it out for the first time, I would say, you know, pick either one of Survey Monkey's templates. Which you'll see have very few questions.

[00:03:00] [00:02:59] So, the NPS survey is just one question that's mandatory, and then there's a follow-up. If you want to type in your thoughts or leave a comment, and even if you're not going to use one of the Survey Monkey templates, I did advise you to look through them because they have seen millions of surveys designed and know what a good survey looks like.

[00:03:18] And so you can use those as inspiration.

[00:03:21] Mike: [00:03:21] And so if you follow this line of thinking that we're on, what we're really saying is, look, getting a survey, right takes time. [00:03:30] But there's a great feature inside of surveymonkey.com. If you just go to the create a new survey tab, what you'll see is you're going to be presented with a couple of really important options.

[00:03:42] One copy a past survey. Now this one works really well. If you've got like a corporate branding in your survey and you design a nice template, you can just copy that template that you've made for a previous one, or you can just copy a survey and it picks up the questions, the look and feel and makes a new survey. [00:04:00] Saved you heaps of time.

[00:04:01] So this is one way to move fast with surveymonkey.com copy a past survey. If you want to be a bit more structured about it, the second option you have is start from a template. So you can actually build custom templates. So you say, use our corporate branding, use this branding or, whatever look and feel is appropriate.

[00:04:18] Chad: [00:04:18] Here's all the demographic questions we ask every single person.

[00:04:21] Mike: [00:04:21] Yes, and it's right there, Chad, that once you've rigorously built a template, you should have like warning signals going off. If you [00:04:30] hit the start from scratch button in Survey Monkey, you should just be like, hang on, Mike and Chad said, touch this as a last resort.

[00:04:38] Chad: [00:04:38] Grab a coffee and be in it for the long haul.

[00:04:41] Mike: [00:04:41] Because it really, you have to rebuild everything to look and feel and the questions. Now I'm thinking to myself, okay, I followed Mike and Chad's advice. I opened up a survey. There's a couple of key things here when you're building a survey that I think we should touch on, and if you look down [00:05:00] the left hand side of Survey Monkey you're in a survey, you will see that you can click on the question builder and it gives you all these different choices.

[00:05:11] And I think it's important that we sort of call out what these are for. Invariably, I think you're going to find yourself going for multiple-choice as a starting point. Chad, wouldn't you say that's the survey classic, the good old multiple choice?

[00:05:24] Chad: [00:05:24] Yup. That and or the radio boxes where you can only choose one.

[00:05:29] Mike: [00:05:29] Yeah. Now [00:05:30] you can start to get a little bit more fancy. I think one of our favorites is the rating scale where you say to someone, one being terrible, 10 being great, can you please rate your customer experience for us? Now, what's interesting about that is that you get a little bit more nuanced than just, you know, click which option best describes your customer experience? Good. Bad, otherwise. You start to get more accurate statistical data, that can [00:06:00] be very helpful. Now, once you go beyond just asking questions, you can actually build into your survey stimulus. What we mean by stimulus is you could show someone a picture and say, tell us what you think.

[00:06:14] So you can actually embed not only images using the question builder, you can actually embed video, all sorts of content and so forth. And this is where you really started having like a rich quant survey where you're not only asking them about [00:06:30] themselves, but you're actually providing them with stimulus and starting to give feedback.

[00:06:34] Now, Chad, we've done a number of design thinking workshops where after the first day, we've actually put the workout to survey overnight so that when we come in on the second day, we already get like a global point of view. Do you want to maybe talk about what we've done and how we've done that? Because that's a great thing to design into your survey.

[00:06:53] Chad: [00:06:53] So essentially, we spent a whole day working in collaboration with customers to figure out what their pains and gains are and what they [00:07:00] want for a particular solution. And rather than just, you know, go home and sleep on it the first night, we actually have Survey Monkey do all this work for us. So at the end of the first day, we come up with an image and a headline to kind of represent whatever our best idea is to solve the customer's pains and give them the gains that they're seeking. So maybe we have four or five different versions of that. We send it out to a couple hundred survey participants recruited by Survey Monkey, by the way, [00:07:30] and then we can come back in the morning and have all this rich data around work that was only completed the day before.

[00:07:36] And it's just as simple as uploading an image and asking a question. It could be a rating or it could be a forced ranking. There's a number of ways that you can do it on Survey Monkey.

[00:07:45] Mike: [00:07:45] You can even in your surveys, ask the user to upload content and share that with you as well. You can even go as far as creating all sorts of things like logic. So if people [00:08:00] identify as being from, say, the East coast, they fill out a different set of questions to those that come from the West coast. I also think another great practice in design is break up your survey.

[00:08:10] If you've got 15 questions, I'd break it up into three parts of five questions each, because if you put all the questions on a page, there's this weird thing where it freaks users out. They're like, wow, that's a lot of questions. But you could ask the same question in three steps and they think that's totally fine.

[00:08:28] I don't know what that is, [00:08:30] but it's like just make it digestible and you can do all of these things inside of Survey Monkey. I think the real point here is it takes a lot of effort to build a survey. I think Chad, we probably have, out of all the work we do across all the offices, maybe five templates that we use most of the time.

[00:08:48] Chad: [00:08:48] Yeah, and we might just swap in a question or two, but yeah, it could take an hour or two to get this survey created the first time. But as Mike was saying, if you're hitting that start from scratch button every single time, you're doing something [00:09:00] wrong, in Survey Monkey.

[00:09:01] Mike: [00:09:01] Yeah. Avoid at all costs. All right, Chad, I think this was a big time-saving episode, don't you?

[00:09:06] Chad: [00:09:06] Yeah, and the most important part, I think is actually what comes next, which is going to be previewing the survey and double, triple, quadruple checking the survey before sending it out. So stay tuned for that episode. Coming up next.

[00:09:22] Mike: [00:09:22] Yes, indeed. Now, if you want anything else, any goodies, archive shows from the BottomUp podcast, just jump on to [00:09:30] your browser and go to BottomUp.io and you can find all the goodies there. All right. Thanks, from Chad and I, this is another episode of the BottomUp podcast.

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006 - Preparing the Survey - Survey Monkey - Tools and Technology

[00:00:00] [00:00:00] Mike: Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast on your cohost, Mike Parsons and I'm joined by Chad Owen into this journey into the wonderful tool of survey monkey.

[00:00:21] Chad: I don't know about you, Mike, but I'm really enjoying these short, punchy information-dense episodes here on the BottomUp podcasts. It's a nice way to share.

[00:00:29] all of [00:00:30] our learning

[00:00:31] Mike: It

[00:00:31] is. It's pragmatic. And I like this idea of punchy, so let's really throw some punches about how to think about preparing your survey for survey monkey. Now you're going to first think, Hey guys, on the last show, you gave me a bit of an introduction to surveys and quant research, and now before we open up the tool surveymonkey.com we're going to talk about a research plan, and you're like, [00:01:00] guys, this is a whole lot of planning and talking.

[00:01:02] Chad: Yeah. I just want to get in and create this survey.

[00:01:04] Mike: Right. Right, right. Exactly. But how important is it, Chad? Because if you don't think through a survey on survey monkey, if you don't think through your research, well number one, you're not going to get the most out of it, but it takes a fair bit of time to build a survey that works properly. So, you want to make sure that the plan, what you're hoping to learn from it is actually thought through.

[00:01:26] Otherwise it can be a long and somewhat expensive [00:01:30] process. Right.

[00:01:30] Chad: Oh yeah, you can go down roads you'd never meant to go through. Going back to this story about doing interviews and in surveys in China, I was so worried on that trip because I was literally flying around the world and you know, a week beforehand, I kind of had an oh, no moment where I realized that I hadn't quite solidified everything in my research plan because I knew that once I started, I couldn't really stop. So,

[00:01:55] imagine knowing that you're going to talk to 50 different people [00:02:00] conducting 50 different interviews in 50 surveys. You have to know exactly what you're going to do ahead of time because you can't change it midstream cause that's going to affect the data and information that you're collecting. So, I can't stress how important it is to have a research plan in place because it really just makes the data rock-solid in the end.

[00:02:18] Mike: It does, and it's a survival tool as well. What's really important is it points out a very distinct. Difference between quant and qual research, because Quan, you need to always keep the baseline the [00:02:30] same,

[00:02:31]

[00:02:31] so you can't change the questions in the survey midstream because then the data doesn't match because the first half of the respondents answered these questions.

[00:02:40] The second half of the respondents answered different or slightly different. So, therefore, it's harder to compare them. So, I think our big piece of advice for this show make a research plan frame how you're going to think about your research. And I think one of the most important parts of a research plan is what [00:03:00] questions need to be answered.

[00:03:01] How many of our customers are aged 18 to 24 is a very legitimate key question to be answered. What interests do our customers have? How much do they spend on fashion every month? Just as an example, do they live in urban or rural areas? Just get that clear because often your survey is not a kind of isolated one-off event.

[00:03:22] It's part of maybe an effort to build a product, to do a marketing campaign to improve customer experience. So, you should have a research plan [00:03:30] that you share and present to your colleagues and or clients. And Chad, how beneficial is it when we get our research plans together and we share them with each other and our clients.

[00:03:39] I mean, when you've been in that process, how has this been helpful for you when you are like owning the strategy for a huge new product.

[00:03:47] Chad: The clients demand it. So, at the outset, it can really just be a Google doc and you start with like, what do we want to learn? What are our goals in conducting this research? Then you should have some important [00:04:00] questions to be able to screen your respondents to be sure that you're collecting data from the right individuals.

[00:04:05] So that can be demographic or behavioral psychographic.

[00:04:08] Mike: Can we talk about screens just for a second, Chad? Sorry to just capture you in mid

[00:04:13] Chad: they're so important.

[00:04:14]

[00:04:14] Mike: But seriously thinking through your screening questions is a chance to say, well, who is our target audience here and who's not? Because imagine if you did this big survey and you forgot to have a location screener, and you [00:04:30] had people may be from a different country, or maybe you're just on the East coast of the US and you've now got people from California answering the questions.

[00:04:38] You're really diluting the data.

[00:04:40] Chad: And spending a lot more money.

[00:04:42] Mike: Right. And so screening questions, so they're only talking to people that you want to talk is really important. But you were saying goals and screeners, and then what's next in a research plan?

[00:04:52] Chad: How the data's going to be collected. You know? Are you putting it into an Excel spreadsheet that everyone's looking at? Are you putting it into a really awesome tool [00:05:00] that we use called Dovetail? You know, a database and just being sure that you have a plan to keep and store the data and be able to share it with everyone that needs to have access to it.

[00:05:09] Mike: Socially, because you know, so often people are like oh, where's the stuff? And they're like, all the data's in this place. Well do, I have access? Ah, no, you need a login. Oh, I don't have a login. And you just lost 48 hours.

[00:05:23] So a research plan can be so practical like that. For example, if you're working with a virtual team, you're like, Oh, we're going to need to [00:05:30] give, you know, Joe and Jane access, because they're in a different market.

[00:05:34] And then, I think once you recognize that your quan survey is perhaps part of a larger series of efforts to get closer to your customer. We talked a lot about this in the previous episode. Why don't you share with us Chad like, how did you find it when you've been making research plans? What's the benefit of sort of mapping out the process and the context in which this survey's going to like happen in a broader program?

[00:06:00] [00:05:59] Chad: The best thing for me actually was because I had such a detailed research plan, I could recruit a partner to help with the research. So, imagine having to source your own survey and interview subjects in four different global locations. That can be pretty tough if that's not your daily work. But because I had the research plan, I could share that with a third party, and they helped recruit the right

[00:06:22] individuals to give us the right information for that particular project. So just having the research plan makes it so much easier to keep everyone on the [00:06:30] same page and know where this part of the research fits in the grand scheme of things. So, this may be your first quantitative survey that you're doing, your deep mapping exercise, or it could be later in the process as you're validating some ideas, maybe that you and your team have come up with.

[00:06:45] Mike: Totally. Totally. Now, before we run away, let's give everyone a couple of quick best practices that we have learned through long, hard suffering. If you've got your research plan, here's the next golden advice. [00:07:00] If you're making a survey, never, ever make it more than 15 questions and make sure that it can be done realistically in about five minutes because Chad, what starts to happen when there's too many questions and it takes too long?

[00:07:16] What have we seen time and time again? Even when you get close to 15 what starts to happen if you're asking too much of the user.

[00:07:23] Chad: Well, they're either dropping out and exiting the survey, or you're getting really crappy answers to the survey questions.

[00:07:30] [00:07:30] Mike: Yeah. And Survey Monkey actually has this great little genius indicator, and it tells you what the likely completion rate of your survey is. And as a ballpark, very practical advice, we would always advise you to try and get your completion rate above 75%. That's really, really handy, but we should, before we go, let's just quickly talk about good types of questions. To put cast in a negative,

[00:07:53] don't ask too many open questions because then you're going to have a ton of data to look through and it's very hard [00:08:00] to draw a statistical relevance from. So how do we like to frame our advice around what type of questions Chad?

[00:08:06] Chad: Well, you should always ask, well, not always, but you should ask more closed questions, which are simple yes, no's multiple choices. We love using, you know, the rating scale zero to 10. I've found that maybe sliding in one open question can kind of be that catchall for, you know, crazy ideas that your customers might give you, but you really shouldn't ask any more than one open-ended question on these surveys because again, you want [00:08:30] them to be able to do it in less than five minutes and you want it to be able to slice and dice the information in the data easily, which you know, you have to have the rigidity of the multiple-choice,

[00:08:39] yes, no, and the scales to do that.

[00:08:40] Mike: Exactly. Well, there you have it guys, too big, oh geez, lifesaving bits of advice. I wish we had known this a decade or two ago. One, have a research plan to keep it short and simple with some closed questions and you'll be on your way and get ready ladies and gentlemen because, in the next episode of the BottomUp [00:09:00] podcast, we'll be designing your Survey Monkey survey.

[00:09:03] So we're going to get right into the tool and unlock some value there. So, there you have it. That is another BottomUp podcast. We'll see you next time.

[00:09:24]

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005 - Survey Monkey - Crash Course - A Quick Intro

[00:00:00]Mike: [00:00:08] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. I'm your cohost Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by Chad Owen.

[00:00:17]Chad: [00:00:17] Hey Mike, I'm really excited to bring a hyper practical series here to all of our BottomUp listeners, and why don't you introduce the subject of this next series. [00:00:30]

[00:00:30]Mike: [00:00:30] Yeah, so episode five of the Bottom Up podcast, and we are taking a turn away from our WeWork series, which was a lot of fun. And we're going deep into the world of a tool that we use all the time. It's Survey Monkey. You can find it at surveymonkey.com and this opens up a world of surveys and surveys open up a world of quantitative research.

[00:00:55] And Chad Owen, I've got to start with, there is no better way. If [00:01:00] you want to get a quick baseline on what your customers are thinking, what your potential customers are thinking, what your employees are thinking. Knocking out a good survey is like a fast way to get going on your journey of design thinking and just trying to understand what users want.

[00:01:16]Chad: [00:01:16] Yeah. As far as like a reward to effort ratio, it's kind of hard to beat surveys oftentimes.

[00:01:23]Mike: [00:01:23] Yeah, that's true, isn't it? I mean, we get surveys, of all different sorts and flavors. I mean, customer feedback after you've bought [00:01:30] something, maybe as an employee, you have an NPS, maybe it's market research. We're probably all familiar with those. But what I love about surveys, and particularly what I love about Survey Monkey is they've made it very easy.

[00:01:43] And in particular, if you're like us, Chad, that you're either working with customers that are not geographically close to you, like in your city. Maybe they're on the other coast, maybe they're on another continent, Survey Monkey, stands above all because you can [00:02:00] quickly knock out a survey and get to people without having to get on planes, buses, and boats and all that good stuff.

[00:02:07] But the killer thing, Chad, I propose to you is, if you're after consumers, they will even help you recruit consumers and you can literally send your survey out at night and come in the next day, and all the answers are in. They've done the recruiting. I tell you what, creating user experiences, trying to just find out what people want from a [00:02:30] product,

[00:02:30] this is a must-have tool, right?

[00:02:32]Chad: [00:02:32] Yeah, but it's not the only tool in the research arsenal. I come to the table having much more experience in the qualitative side of things, doing things like interviews. But, you've kind of unlocked this magical one, two, one, two, jab, hook, jab, hook,

[00:02:51]

[00:02:51] sort of sequence here where we're combining the quantitative data that we get from surveys and then can follow that up, [00:03:00] investigating themes, you know, through qualitative interviews.

[00:03:02] And so there's this really amazing cycle, that you advocate for where you go between surveys and more qualitative, research to really just, exponentially increase the value of the information that you're gathering.

[00:03:16] Mike: [00:03:16] Yeah. So let's just try and quickly debunk what you'll hear a lot of people, talk about like Quan and qual research. In its essence, doing a survey is quant research. It's data-driven. [00:03:30] It's often very, strict question answer, and you want very statistical outputs, right? 10% of people like this, 90% of people prefer that.

[00:03:39] That's quant research, and that's what a survey is. Its sister field is qualitative, and this is rather than hardcore data. Qualitative is really like, a discussion. So it starts with, rather than having, structured Q&A, you just have a discussion guide. You conduct an interview, it's often over [00:04:00] Skype or maybe even in person, and you're looking for themes.

[00:04:03] And the biggest difference between a survey and an interview is often in the interview, you're more likely to be asking, tell me why. Explain more, why is that? How does that work? Whereas with the survey, you just need a statistical baseline. So I want you to imagine those two things. You've got your quant and you've got your qual.

[00:04:23] Something you and I have done a lot together, Chad, is in an order to work out like what's a great product, [00:04:30] to go and build, perhaps what's a good MVP? Or even if you're really living up to BottomUp thinking, what's a great prototype we should build? I want to come back to this one, two, one, two punch. If you conduct quant as a step one, you can get, a baseline, sort of what I call a deep mapping exercise.

[00:04:49] And, this gives you just an anchor point, a foundation like, who the hell is our user? What do they need? What's bugging them? [00:05:00] And Chad, we've done this together a lot of times. It's so powerful, isn't it? When you can just create that first step, that baseline, like who is our customer.

[00:05:09]Chad: [00:05:09] Yeah, and it's kind of like the top of a marketing funnel. We kind of cast the net wide just to understand who exactly is a potential target customer and what are some of their pains and gains, and once we get a little bit of signal from that first round of quantitative surveying, we can feed that

[00:05:27] information and insights into the [00:05:30] qualitative interviews that are done so that we're already kind of pre-qualifying the people that we're talking to, getting closer to the ideal customers. And again, kind of peeling the layers of the onion to understand, what our customers are thinking, feeling, and doing when it comes to the offers that we're making.

[00:05:46]Mike: [00:05:46] Exactly, and that step two often becomes a chance in one on one interviews to go much deeper on what you've learned from your first round of quant. And then at that point, you're really starting to dimensionalize how your customer feels. So the [00:06:00] third round, okay, this next round, you go back to quant and you start proposing solutions.

[00:06:05] You start proposing new ideas, new concepts on how an idea might help them get a job done, relieve some pains, create some gains. And then after you've done that, you can close the entire loop with this last round of qual where you're actually really starting to understand the constraints of this solution.

[00:06:27] If it's a product or the story, if it's more marketing [00:06:30] based, you can really start to find out how this all comes together as a complete set of user insights.

[00:06:39] Chad: [00:06:39] You could even make like customer propositions in that fourth round of qualitative, you can almost begin to try and sell the customer or even have the customers, you know, tell the story and advocate to another customer.

[00:06:50]Mike: [00:06:50] Now we're getting to the highest form of qual interviews and testing. Why don't you kind of explain a little bit more, I mean, I remember [00:07:00] when you recently went around the world testing for one of our clients. You actually had user to user testing. Do you want to just explain that as we...

[00:07:07] Chad: [00:07:07] It was not only user to user testing; it was user to user testing in Chinese.

[00:07:13]

[00:07:13]So there were actually four people involved and they were the two customers, the translator, and myself. It was a really fun process where I had a standardized set of nine questions. Quantitative questions that I asked every individual around these potential new healthcare innovations.

[00:07:29] And [00:07:30] off the back of those answers, I then asked qualitative questions. So I was poking around kind of the outliers. So if someone gave a score of one or a two, I dug into that. Or if they gave a score of a 9 or a 10, I dug into that. Or if I wanted a really high score, I said, well. You gave it a five what would make it a 9 or a 10 and so the qualitative allows you to kind of fill in the gaps of the quant, but doing the survey at the outset is really important because that just gives you like a [00:08:00] baseline understanding of where your customers are starting from.

[00:08:03]Mike: [00:08:03] And lastly that end product that you had on that project

[00:08:07] Chad: [00:08:07] Oh, so many pivot tables.

[00:08:10]Mike: [00:08:10] Oh my gosh, yes. We could do a whole show on your pivot tables. I can tell you what. But having gone through around of quant qual, quant qual, but also, in particular, having used Survey Monkey to do great quant surveys, great quant research, and backed it up with some qual.

[00:08:26] Take us to that point, you've just toured the world, you've tested [00:08:30] all these ideas. Tell us how did it feel in terms of your confidence about those products?

[00:08:35]Chad: [00:08:35] I don't think I could have been any more confident than having gone through that process. You know, it boiled down to about three or four really important numbers, out of the quantitative research that boiled down to some insights and gave me the confidence to recommend strongly, you know, the courses of action that were backed by those numbers and then had some really fantastic quotes pulled from the qualitative interviews [00:09:00] that really just drove home,

[00:09:02]you know, the numbers. It created a story behind the numbers. That's why I think it's so important to alternate, and, you know, use this magic combination as you call it, of quantitative and qualitative research.

[00:09:13]Mike: [00:09:13] Well, they have it. That's the first of our seven-part series into the world of Survey Monkey. So get ready. We'll be preparing your surveys and planning your research next, but that's it for now on the Bottom Up podcast.

[00:09:26]

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004 - WeWork Case Study - Profit

Mike: [00:00:01] Hello, and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. This is episode four. I'm your cohost Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by the man with the plan himself. Mr. Chad Owen.

Chad: [00:00:13] Here we are at the profit-focused WeWork case study show Mike, and we're going to talk all the numbers big and small, negative and positive, the ups and the downs. I'm like real excited to, pick apart why I think, WeWork failed ultimately. And that was really just a lack of fundamentals, in their profit, aspect.

And, and when it comes to breaking down businesses in the four P's.

Mike: [00:00:40] Totally. It's such a powerful lesson. And I know if you've been tuning into the earlier episodes, we've had a lot of positive, things to say about WeWork despite what everyone is saying these days. The truth really is they did build a good culture. They did build a great product. It did disrupt a category.

They really did a thing there. But the truth is, when we look at the numbers, there is like a huge distraction in the numbers and that is the ridiculous growth of this company. Let me put it into perspective for you. So, we've got a slide on our case study that you can get at bottomup.io and this is it.

In, 2015, they had 40,000 members at WeWork. By 2019, they had over 400,000. So, it's like a 10 X increase in a very short time. That is one steep line of growth as the same thing with their locations from over 50 to over 500 and year on year from 16, 17 to 18 they enjoyed 100% growth in their revenues each year.

Now, any company that can grow 10% a year is happy on the top line. These guys were growing 100% so you did a million on year one. You do, 2 million on year two? That is so, so off the charts. it's, really, Tremendous growth, and that's when you've got a great product and you've got great promotion.

These things do tend to work out, don't they?

Chad: [00:02:18] Yeah. WeWork opened half of all of their total locations in the last 10 months. They were opening four or five locations a week across the globe.

That is. How quickly they're growing. Imagine having to open up, you know, a hundred thousand or 200,000 square feet of office space, fully staffed and furnished and built out.

Not every week or every month, but every single day.

Yeah, the growth is, mind-boggling.

Mike: [00:02:51] Yeah. And to put them in perspective, you know, when you've been in the office and someone says, let's change the office, or let's move to a different floor. This is a massive. Like undertaking. Just something we can relate to. So when you think about the build-out of a new place, the utilities, the furniture, health, and safety, or the facilities, employing the staff, getting all the fobs to work, like the amount of things that can go wrong on a new office build is incredible.

But somehow, they grew like crazy. And as I said earlier, total distraction because, in a culture where everyone was looking for hyper-growth companies. Investments came quick and fast to WeWork. However, there was already a publicly listed company that we compare in this case study is called IWG, and many of you might know this largely from a brand they have in market called Regis, who technically were in market, quite a time before WeWork.

But the crazy thing is that they had a business similar to WeWork. They weren't promising to be a tech company. Many of their fundamentals were actually significantly better.

Chad: [00:04:01] They turned a profit. How novel

Mike: [00:04:04] Should we start with; they actually made some money. but they did really smart things. Chad, they had what we call recession clauses in their leases.

So, if, their property experiences recession, then they are actually able to renegotiate their lease down. Now, which competitor of theirs not only took leases at the top of the market but did not include any recession clauses? Can you name to me which company? It starts with W and ends in work

and this is the problem right.

Chad: [00:04:39] there's an interesting, a chart that just shows the fundamentals of both of the businesses and the biggest ones that stand out to me is they have similar square footage. They have a similar number of workstations, but the biggest two differences is WeWork has lost billions of dollars, and IWG has made some money.

But this evaluation of WeWork at the time was $47 billion and IWG was just shy of four. So WeWork was getting tech company like, you know, priced earnings valuations that a tried and true, hospitality real estate company just could never, get. So going back to this promotion, the previous episode, you know, WeWork was definitely selling themselves as a new kind of company, a new tech-focused company, so that they wouldn't be put in the same category as a company like IWG that actually has sound business fundamentals.

Mike: [00:05:37] Yeah. So, this is what I talk about, the distractions. So, the growth of WeWork distracted everybody. and once they actually filed their S1 and people could see the real numbers, things just simply didn't add up. And, what's interesting about this is it really challenges us to find, the rigor to go deeper than just like, are we growing, or I can imagine a lot of startups are like, do we have a bunch of customers?

How many new customers did we get? Because those are good questions. But I think what WeWork illustrates is a far bigger learning. And in order to get into that chat, I want to share with you what I think the big problem with WeWork was. Are you ready?

Chad: [00:06:31] Lean on me.

Mike: [00:06:32] All right, here we go. Here we go. So, what's really interesting in the S1 filing, if you look at the revenues of WeWork, between 2017 and 2018 they went up. $1 billion. So, any company that can sit there and say, Hey, our revenue is up $1 billion year-on-year, you're like, awesome. Right? Party time, or as in Adam Newman's case.

Bring on the tequila. Now, what is really interesting is if you look at their cost structure and cost base at the same time, I think we can uncover the real problem. So, in the same period that the business grew by a billion, they actually increased their losses by a billion. So, what this means, Chad, is if you get $1 billion in growth, is it costs you $1 billion to get.

Therefore, what was the point?

Chad: [00:07:28] They had negative margins. Like how crazy is that? For every dollar they make, they spend two. So, you have negative a hundred percent margins. It's not a business that's a money pit.

Mike: [00:07:38] It's, one of those situations, Chad, where like you see these top line of growth, but if you actually have the capacity to go rigorously, almost forensically, it brings you to this big idea. I think this is the biggest learning, not only for this episode but of all the four episodes that we're doing on WeWork, I think this is where it comes to, it's called customer acquisition costs.

Okay, it's a very simple formula, but the real truth here is that WeWork, were totally preoccupied with the number of new customers, but they never address that through the lens of what are the total costs of our sales and marketing operation and how many customers do we get for that?

Because, if they had revealed to themselves and studied this number, like by the first half of 2019, they were almost at $3,000 as a cost to acquire the new customer. $3,000 but then if you actually ask, well, how much money do we make over the lifetime with this customer?

You could have asked the question, is this worthwhile? And I can tell you that not only, is this a classic thing that trips startups, it really catches them by surprise. They're like, oh my gosh, our search words are highly competitive, or it takes much longer to close the deal with our customers, or we have a leaky funnel where we're churning.

The truth really is here, that they could have asked themselves, what is the appropriate investment to be profitable? And look, they may have found that they can only afford $1,500, to acquire a customer, but they were close to 3000 and then you could have address this by changing not only your advertising costs, but you would've looked at it as sort of a full-funnel approach.

This customer acquisition costs was a number that they never acted upon, and it costs them daily.

Chad: [00:09:53] It only went up over time.

Mike: [00:09:55] Yes, and so the worst thing is though, if we explore this as a number, if you've got increasing costs when it comes to acquiring your customer, you have to then increase the total lifetime value in order to protect your margin.

Because let's say in this case, I pick an arbitrary number, let's say over the lifetime of a customer who stays on average. I don’t know, two years that you make it $3,000 in profit, but if you've paid $3,000 to acquire them, then if that number is going up, at a certain point, you're in the negative.

So, then you're forced to look at a bunch of tactics to improve your margin. Now, just quickly. The biggest thing, if you and I were sitting at, WeWork right now, they have to do a couple of quick things. First, with their existing customer base, they've got to improve the cross-sell or the upsell.

There's plenty of things that they could be offering people like yourself. Chad, our office in New York is based out of that beautiful, Docklands area. what's it referred to as?

Chad: [00:11:00] Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Mike: [00:11:01] The Brooklyn Navy Yard, so there's an opportunity, but chat, if you were there and you were looking at how you're going to reduce costs and radically improve your lifetime value of the customers, what else comes to mind?

Chad: [00:11:15] Well, I would suspect that they have more money in sense. And they have thought, well, everyone is our customer, so, let's advertise and market to everyone. And how much does that cost? Well, billions and billions of dollars. So, I would create some customer profiles and personas that. are going to be much more targeted so that they can direct their ad spends and get the customers that they know are going to have not only a higher spend, but a longer, you know, tendency and, a bigger lifetime value.

Because, I am going to be a very different customer than a corporate client like McKinsey that may move, some of their, you know, thousands of employees into this space. So, a small business owner versus a larger enterprise, they're very different customers. Therefore, you should be spending your advertising dollars in your customer acquisition dollars, much differently.

Mike: [00:12:05] Yeah. I think you make a really good point like we've talked about, you know, the cross-sell and the upsell and existing customers. I think where you're going is like they should not only improve the funnel by better targeting but also, they might find new segments that they could specifically appeal to sort of widen the funnel.

I think the last thought I have here is I don't think WeWork, builds gets better. The more people that are using WeWork. And if you think about Uber and Airbnb, they enjoy these great network effects. For Airbnb. The more hosts, the more guests, the more guests, the more hosts. And so, the product gets better.

It's always a funny thing at the moment. Like WeWork, the more people in your space, like at a certain point, you're like, Oh, I wish it wasn't as busy because. You know, I can't get a call booth. Right. I think they've got to ask themselves like, how do we provide more value to the Chad's of this world?

The more people that are in the space.

Chad: [00:13:07] Yeah, and I think this is actually my biggest criticism of the product. To bring it all the way back to our first episode, they sell community hard. But they don't follow through on it. And I don't see the network effects, materialize. You know, they sell you on, Hey, you know, you're working with a bunch of cool creatives and you know, you're gonna collaborate and bump into one another and work with one another.

And, that is not supported in any way, shape or form by WeWork the company. It's all dependent upon the individuals and the people in the companies, unique to each location. And so, I think you're absolutely right, that that is a huge opportunity for them, that they're promising and overselling, to be honest, but not delivering

Mike: [00:13:48] Exactly. Well, there you go, Chad. I mean, this is really a lesson on being a bit more rigorous on the numbers, isn't it?

Chad: [00:13:56] Yeah. And you know, to be clear, I think both you and I think that WeWork nailed it on the product side and did some pretty good things in the people and the promotion side. But when we, you know, had a chance to look under the hood and the public markets had a chance to look under the hood, figured out that, they were making too many financial sacrifices, to make it a sustainable business. And so, I think the WeWork that we're going to see six months or a year from now is going to be very different. I have high hopes that they stick around, but I see a follow-up episode in our future here, Mike.

Mike: [00:14:32] Well before we talk about that you found this, great study that's going to be our goodie, our little giveaway. Do you want to talk about that for a second?

Chad: [00:14:41] Yeah. So, I think, some people from, the Harvard business, did a case study. Why WeWork won't, and what they do is just go through the S1 filing to shine, you know, the sunshine on it and poke all the holes in it. I think for those of you that really, enjoy the kind of Harvard business, financial times sorts of, breakdowns, it's a really great breakdown on, why the business fundamentals of WeWork don't work.

And it's, again, a great elaboration on many of the points that we've talked about here on this show and many more.

Mike: [00:15:15] Fantastic. So that's a bit of a wrap up now for our case study on WeWork. I hope you, have enjoyed, our sort of quick, short, sharp compress breakdown on product people, promotion, and profit. There's a ton of learning in it. Do you think we achieved a fairly balanced view, Chad, or did we beat them up a bit too much at the end?

Chad: [00:15:35] I think we've highlighted some, good things that we can learn and take away, from WeWork successes and we've learned about the caveats, of their story as well. But if we haven't done a good job, please let us know. Yeah. You can go to podcast.BottomUp.io and, Leave a message there for us. And you know, we'd love to not only hear your thoughts about this show and things that we might've missed or not but what other ideas, topics, companies, case studies, methodologies that you would like to hear from us. The next one coming down the pike is all going to be based on our design thinking at masterclass.

Mike has a fantastic masterclass up on our learning platform, bottomup.IO. But we're gonna break it down into its components and share it with you here in short bite-sized chunks. We're really excited to share it with you.

Chad, it's actually going to be 14 different episodes of the show. So, we break it down, make it really bite-size. We're going to, study Airbnb and how they do design thinking on the inside and on the outside. We're going to look at the complete toolset, our view, getting to a validated, Product that is really going to knock people's socks off.

So, stay tuned lots and lots of design thinking goodies coming your way.

Yeah. And for everyone, I just wanted to say thank you for coming on this new podcast and journey with Mike and myself. We're very curious to get your thoughts. Don't forget to check us out. leave us a review on iTunes that helps other people discover the show. And you can go to podcast.Bottomup.IO to get all the show notes, previous episodes, future scheduled episodes, and all of the goodies in there as well.

Mike: [00:17:24] Woohoo. Well, Chad, that is, WeWork done and dusted and I cannot wait to dive into a world of design thinking thanks to you and to all our listeners. That's a wrap of the BottomUp podcast.

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003 - WeWork Case Study - Promotion

Mike: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. This is episode three. I'm your cohost Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the man from New York state, Mr. Chad Owen himself. Hey,

Chad: [00:00:13] Mike. We're, in the middle of our WeWork case study, podcasting here. What's your biggest takeaway so far?

Mike: [00:00:21] Well, you know, for all the criticism WeWork have had, they did some good things and I just don't want us to lose sight of those.

How about you?

Chad: [00:00:29] Yeah, I mean, certainly here at the end of 2019, they're getting tons and tons of bad press, but I think that's why you and I are sitting down here to catalog. Both the positive things that we can learn from, WeWork as well as maybe some of the missteps in the lessons we can learn from that.

And so today we're going to continue the discussion talking about the third P, the promotion, of WeWork and what they did wrong and what they did right and what we can learn from that.

Mike: [00:00:55] Exactly. So, this is all about decoding a business under the four P's. So so far, we've done the product, we've done the people, we're in promotion.

Now the next show will be all about profit, which is the big, stinky, hairy one. Let's just. Get it out there. and we really hope that on this show today that we can share with you one insight that you can take away a bite-sized, compressed, a little practical tool or tip, that will help you build better products or a better business.

So, promotion, well, you know, it's fitting that we use promotion as our third P because WeWork with the grandmasters of self-promotion. Chad, who rivals. WeWork, particularly Adam Newman, the founder over the last few years. Do you think there's any company? Maybe Elon Musk is a great self-promoter. I mean, Adam did an amazing job.

Chad: [00:01:52] I would put Elon above Adam, but yeah, Adam Newman's was certainly giving Elon Musk a run for his money.

Mike: [00:01:59] and there's so much to unpack here. not only on a positive side, there are some very critical learnings. and I think we're going to start with a great little tool that we love to do when we're working on projects.

It's a free tool, Google Trends where you can look and quantify, you know, generally awareness or some version of intent by comparing, different search queries. So, here is a massive insight. WeWork is actually bigger as a brand than the entire category of coworking. Keeping in mind that it popularized and brought to life this world of coworking.

But if you put into Google Trends, so just. Typing Google Trends into your search engine, you'll get there. But if you type in WeWork and compare the search interest with the term WeWork and the term coworking at its peak, WeWork with almost 10 times more popular as a search query than that of coworking.

I find that ridiculous. Chad, this is enormous.

Chad: [00:03:12] It's the Holy Grail for brands, right? Becoming synonymous with, right. You don't ask for a tissue, you ask for a Kleenex. You don't ask for a, you know, sparkling, sugar water. You ask for Coke.

Mike: [00:03:23] Right?

Chad: [00:03:24] And yeah. You don't, talk about, Oh, doing, coworking.

You talk about WeWorking. I think its kind of the brand Holy Grail to get there. Where

Mike: [00:03:31] yes,

Chad: [00:03:31] you've overcome the category in which you're in.

Mike: [00:03:34] So for me, that's just a great little tool that anybody can use. So, if any of our listeners just, it's so fun. You can do your Pepsi versus Coke.

you can do new England Patriots versus the San Francisco 49ers whatever you like. and compare that data and it gives you a really good sense of what moves the needle on search activity, which should be a proxy for awareness and intent, of your product. And, I think that this is where we should also credit, not only the company but particularly Adam Newman, their founder.

In the previous episode, we mentioned that he was the one that went out and got the first, investment, from SoftBank. And, he played a massive part in, getting so much press, so much awareness and conversation going around the brand. It was a credit to him, and I think, the fact that they were bigger than the category is a big idea.

But I think Chad, this is where we kind of pivot into some of the cautionary tales. I think the second idea that we want to bring you around promotion, building a brand and marketing, is that you need to be very careful of the promises you make, and they had a big promise at WeWork. What was it?

Chad: [00:04:50] To elevate the consciousness of mankind?

Mike: [00:04:54] I think if we were looking at Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, I believe that might be at the top, Chad.

Chad: [00:05:00] Yeah. But I think you can lose sight of the fact that you know, their business fundamentals, make them a business that's in real estate, right? So how do you get from real estate to elevating human consciousness?

Mike: [00:05:14] Right? And that's where we talk about being careful of the promises you make, because not only did they say they were elevating the world's consciousness, that they also said that they were a tech company. And the truth really is that when you make a big brand promise, you will be held accountable to it.

So, one of the things that happens is there becomes a reality distortion when the things that you say don't match the things that you do. And we've got this great, data, from CB Insights, which produce a lot of really good work. And they actually studied over the course of three or four years, the volatile new sentiment that was around WeWork.

And what you see are there, these peaks where they do interesting things such as new offices, partnership with MasterCard, something like this. But then what you see is how fragile that is because it's so big. You're really held to a very high account. And, what you see is that the sentiment in news shifted from.

Positive two incredibly negative in just a few months. The first news that really started the avalanche was that WeWork disclosed that their founder, Adam Newman, had taken loans from WeWork, had then bought buildings, and then leased those buildings back to WeWork.

Chad: [00:06:45] If that's not self-dealing, I don't know. It is.

Mike: [00:06:47] Yeah. And you can make these fine nuanced argument between, was it legal or not? And you might even find ways of saying, Oh, actually I didn't break any laws. But when you've gone out to the world and said, we're raising the world's consciousness, you know mankind's consciousness.

When you behave in such a self-serving way, it's so contradictory to that promise. You can see an enormous downside in new center. People started getting very upset with WeWork because of this lesson that we're sharing, which is, be careful what you promise to the world. And if you're out there self-promoting and getting yourself on the front of every magazine, just take heed because you'll be held to a high standard.

And Chad, this kept going, cause you gotta tell everyone what happened when their S1 got filed.

Chad: [00:07:39] Well, this is the other thing you, talked about the reality distortion field. I think this is where a lot of startups can get into trouble as a private company because you're not required to disclose really how you're running the business and how profitable or not you are.

You know, how you're spending your money, where your expenses are going, how you're getting your revenue, et cetera. But when you're filing an S1, at least here in the United States, you know, if you want to become a publicly listed company where the public can buy and sell shares of your stock, you have to get very specific and you have to lay it all out there.

And I think what WeWork found was when they tried to bring this, lofty narrative of elevating human consciousness, and we've got this amazing founder, and I think, the words community and Adam Newman appeared like 150 times in the S1. But when people started to look at the numbers and start to see these things, like, how money was flowing from the company as loans to Adam and then back to the company as rent payments and all that.

Like, I think that sunshine, kind of burst that bubble of that promise that WeWork made, and they ultimately couldn't live up to it in the minds of the public markets, and that's, you know, that's why they took such a hit in their valuation when they tried to take the company public.

Mike: [00:08:58] Yeah. So, everybody was buying the dream and WeWork had a valuation of around $46 billion. Right, as of today, here we are in November of 2019. It's down to four or five. But one of the interesting things is that as soon as the S1 filing, which disclosed all their numbers and financials, there's this great story that we have in the case study on BottomUp.IO,

and I'll just give you a short insight into it. But effectively, once the world saw the true numbers, it was such a contradiction to the vision and the promise that they had made. Google alerted WeWork and said that it was the most alarming swing to negative sentiment that they've ever seen in history for a company that's either on the stock market or planning to list on the stock market.

And I think I want to bring this all back. Be careful of what you promise because if you are acting in contradiction to it, the retribution will be very, very negative and very quick and strong. And in the course of two months, the company lost approximately 90% of its value. All the key execs got booted and it's on life support.

Like this company will have a great challenge to survive and many are saying that the rescue funds, committed by SoftBank are essentially the only reason they got that money because no one else would give them a cent, is because SoftBank couldn't afford for the loss of face, of, WeWork going into bankruptcy.

So, they were very fortunate that their main investor couldn't afford for them to go out. They were too big to fail.

Chad: [00:10:52] Yeah, and I think had WeWork not inflated their story so much, they might not have fallen at all. Sure. They might not have risen to such great heights, but the differences made extremely starkly in the second, little goodie that we have to share with you.

And it's an investor deck that WeWork put together in October of 2019. After their intention to go public, kind of backfired and then they had to go back out and try to raise some funds to save the business. the language is completely different. They're no longer talking about elevating human consciousness. They're no longer singing the praises of their founder, Adam Newman, who's no longer with the company, and they really just focus on the fundamentals of their business. You know, we're a lease arbitrage company we lease and build-out for less, hopefully than what we're charging customers.

And you know this is our plan for growing the business. And it's just the stark difference between what they were promising. in the S1 versus probably what they're more likely to be able to deliver in this investor deck is really stark and it kind of shows you, the perils of promising too much.

Mike: [00:12:06] Exactly. Well said. And, Chad did a great job of pulling together the original S1 filing and the subsequent investor deck. So, all of our listeners can see the stark difference, perhaps between the dream and reality. And, I think that really brings it together for the end of this show, which is, you know, be careful of the promises you make.

You can go out there and self-promote, but make sure it's sustainable. Make sure that you are on the right side of reality. Because what we clearly saw from WeWork as, whilst they were great at self-promotion, they pushed it too far and things fell apart at an incredible, never seen before rate so there you go, we've broken it all down, Chad. We've had a look at the promotion and prior to that, we've done people and product that only leaves us with one P left.

Chad: [00:12:59] That would be the profit P and I can't wait to go through all of the zany numbers associated with WeWork in, it's rise and fall. But yeah, that'll be, in the next episode where we conclude this four-part case study on WeWork, can't wait to share it with

Mike: [00:13:15] Alright guys. Well, that's a wrap of the BottomUp podcast. We'll see you next time for the last episode on breaking down the case study of WeWork.

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002 - Case Study - WeWork - People

Mike: [00:00:07] Hello, and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. This is episode two of the BottomUp podcast. I am your co-host Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by the man with the plan, Mr. Chad Owen himself.

Chad: [00:00:22] Hey Mike, and I just wanted to say thank you, listeners, for continuing to join us here on this journey into decoding and understanding WeWork. We've got part two of a four-part case study here. that comes straight from a case study that we've put up on the BottomUp.IO coursework. And, Mike, I’m curious,

if we couldn't just get right into the second P or people, and break down kind of, WeWork's successes and maybe failures when it comes to, people and their business.

Mike: [00:00:55] Totally well, much like the product side of the business that WeWork, the people side is a big tick. They got it right in a big way. And the interesting thing here is that obviously their employees were really happy up until very, very recent times, but there's a bigger learning in this, Chad, which is, and this is one of our tenants in BottomUp thinking, which is that great teams build great products. And,

if you don't have a great team, we really believe it is impossible to build a great product. And we've heard many great entrepreneurs talk about, the fact that if you want happy customers, then your customer support team need to be happy themselves. How can you imagine? Like calling up a call center.

And if everyone's very, very unhappy, there's no magical thing. that will instantly mean that they give a great customer experience. So, there is a direct, correlation. You may even say causation between great culture, great people, they make great products. And I think the story is what we have here with WeWork that the employees were really happy.

Don't you think Chad?

Chad: [00:02:05] Yeah. They certainly got, all of the benefits of working at a typical startup company. And I would say even beyond, all employees got perks, like insurance, wellness programs, unlimited sick days, which, I don't know many people have. And you know,

their work experiences would culminate in these, annual retreats that were often treated like summer camp.

I think they actually called them WeWork summer camps, but you know, places like Big Sur in California and, the coasts in England. And of course, with every startup comes your stock options and equity plans, that I'm sure you know, padded out to everyone's compensation packages.

Mike: [00:02:47] Yeah. And I think, the truth here is that. You've got to create great underlying wellness and culture in your organization. If you want to do big and ambitious things in the world. I mean culture and wellness are the things that keep everything together when it's tough. Culture and wellness are the things that when you face adversity, those are the things that get you through that stopped people quitting when it's tough times. and I think that the comprehensive nature of what they gave to employees was remarkable. Now, I think the lesson here is that you need great people in order to make great product. I think it's also fair to say that. You could argue with the unlimited cash that WeWork had for several years.

They were in a position to give so many perks. And so, I'm not going to argue that, but I think that the really positive learning here is if you take good care of folks, they will go out and build a great product. And I think we've established; they've got a great product right.

Chad: [00:03:48] Yeah. I think many of these benefits were even offered all the way down to people you know, that were, the community managers and people in charge of, operating and keeping the buildings going. So, this wasn't, things that were just offered to the leadership teams or management.

Mike: [00:04:03] Yeah, and so these benefits and perks. You could say, well, they cost a lot of money. But, if done in a proportional way, you can create really great sense of wellness. and Chad, you and I have just worked on a project with a client, which was all about creating employee wellness through design thinking.

And you can see how much people yearn to work in an environment that not only respects them and takes care of them but gives them. the benefits to have some sort of harmony in their life. And if you provide these things, it creates enormous loyalty, doesn't it?

Chad: [00:04:47] Yeah. And I think, my experience of people that are former employees, current employees, they have their own accord, have kind of created the WeWork family to support one another, both to find new jobs and opportunities within WeWork. But then when someone's ready to leave the company also, be very helpful

in, you know, going through their networks and being sure that they're also landing in a good place once they leave WeWork. And as you're saying, you know, these types of cultures, they don't just kind of happen by accident. It's very intentional and I think it speaks to the types of individuals and hard workers that WeWork has been able to recruit over the years.

Mike: [00:05:25] Yeah. So, one of the great ways that you can measure your company's culture and wellness is, doing some form of NPS, or net promoter score, asking folks how likely they would to recommend. the company to family and friends. And that can be a very good indicator of where you stand with culture.

So that's called NPS. I've done that several times in my own organizations or with clients. Very, very good. And in the case of WeWork, you can actually go to Glassdoor and there are hundreds and hundreds of reviews. Have been done by employees themselves of WeWork. And this gives you a really good, insight into actually what's going on in a company.

So, if you want to know how things are going inside of your company, this is a really good tool to use. The other thing you can do is, you know, for those of our listeners that are considering going to a new company, I would strongly recommend that you check out things like Glassdoor to see what people are actually saying.

The more informed you are about the environment, then I think it's all about your own empowerment there. And you can see here the recommendation rate. You can see an evaluation of the leadership, not only for, WeWork for thousands and thousands of, companies. I think this is an invaluable tool, don't you, Chad?

Chad: [00:06:49] I do, and one thing that we've maybe overlooked up to this point. But it would be remiss if we didn't talk about is the importance of the founding team and, or the founder, and leadership of the company. And I don't think anyone would argue, that there have been some issues with Adam Newman, one of the cofounders of WeWork.

And, so maybe lapses in judgment and good businesses stewardship, that has probably, likely led to, you know, some of the reasons why their IPO, was met with such resistance and skepticism when it was announced in August of 2019.

Mike: [00:07:28] Yeah. I think the founders bring so much to an organization, but the best teams that they put around themselves will be teams that not only do the things they ask but who will challenge them. And, I think there is perhaps too little challenge of Adam Newman too late. He's no longer with the company, but Chad, this time you've brought a great little goodie, a great little download, for our listeners.

Tell us a little bit about this very famous letter.

Chad: [00:08:02] Well it's been hard to find, things to bring, to share with y'all. Cause there's so much amazing coverage about, WeWork and what's been going on inside and outside of the company. But there were two pieces, both from the New York Times that I thought were fantastic to read, kind of in opposition to one another.

The first is, a profile done of Adam Newman by a reporter at the times, Amy Chozick and

It kind of lets you into maybe how he was left to his own devices. And as you said, Mike, not held accountable to and not challenged enough. Certainly, having a 15-minute meeting with, Masayoshi's son, you know, in charge of the vision fund, that led to an investment of almost, you know, four or $5 billion.

Like. That's going to bolster your confidence a lot. Just like, huh, I just have a 15-minute conversation with someone in charge of billions of dollars in, you know, they just decided to write me a check. and you know, with much power comes much responsibility, but there's also a story in the times.

About a group of, WeWork employees called the WeWorker’s Coalition, that wrote a letter to the management, really putting themselves, are distancing themselves from Adam. Even going as far as to say, we are not the Adam Newman's of this world. And so, I think, if we want to learn about how maybe people can go a bit wrong inside of an organization.

Reading these two stories. You really understand how disconnected, specifically Adam Newman, but other members of the leadership team, how disconnected they became from their people and not, you know, listening to, the will and the wishes of their people. And, you know, now they're trying to, kind of organize and save.

The great culture that they had inside of WeWork despite this, mismanagement at the top.

Mike: [00:09:54] So there you got it. You got two great goodies to follow up on this. If you're interested in that more cultural and team side. I want to, say though that I think the biggest learning here is that we do confirm that great teams do in fact build great product. But I do want to put a little caveat on this.

A great product is not necessarily mean a great business. So, there we got it Chad. that's the people side of WeWork before we run away. Yeah. What are the next two shows?

Chad: [00:10:27] So we're going to talk about the promotion side of, WeWork, and then cap it all off with, I'm sure, what all of your most interested to hear and learn about. And that's the profit side, AKA the business model side, AKA the vacuum that has imploded here in the past few months.

But yeah, you have those two shows to look forward to as we, continue that. We were a case study and. We'll have many more shows beyond that, including, shows, all from our design thinking masterclass, which is live now on BottomUp.IO where you can go and sign up for yourself to get that design thinking course.

This WeWork, case study and video form, and many, many other, materials for you to apply in your day-to-day.

Mike: [00:11:11] Well done, Chad. I think that's a great wrap. Thank you, everyone. That's another episode of the BottomUp podcast.

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001 - Case Study - WeWork - Product

Mike: [00:00:08] Hello and welcome to the BottomUp podcast It's a very fresh a very new episode one of the BottomUp podcast I'm your cohost might pass ins and as always, I'm joined by the man in Brooklyn himself Mr. Chad Owen

Chad: [00:00:24] This is a it's feeling a little different here isn't it Mike

Mike: [00:00:28] This is a brand-new podcast Chad and I am so excited about this How are you feeling embarking on this new journey together

Chad: [00:00:37] Great. So, if those of you have been following Mike and I and the Moonshots podcast this is our second venture into podcasting And what we want to do here on the BottomUp podcast is get very practical And transfer some of the skills that Mike and I have been picking up over the years doing design thinking and working with clients and deliver some short less than 10 minute episodes With some bite-sized skills practical tools and tips all so that we can work in this new B world

Mike: [00:01:13] Absolutely And we have collected so many methodologies frameworks and tools what we really hope for everyone that listens to this show is that they can get one practical thing from each short compressed episode That they could literally press pause on the podcast and start doing at their desk so that they can create better products And Chad we've got an absolute cracker today It's based on one of the case studies that you can find on bottomup.io But where shall we begin this adventure Chad

Chad: [00:01:49] So we're in November, 2019 and one of the startups that's been in the news the most recently has been WeWork and We're going to spend the next four episodes going through four different areas of WeWork's business a decoding it to figure out what we can learn about WeWork's product what we can learn about their people their promotion as well as their profit or lack thereof As I'm sure many of you have been reading about lately

Mike: [00:02:24] yes So this this show is not only our first in the BottomUp podcast but it's solely gonna deal with the WeWork product So let's jump straight in I think Chad the thing I want to propose to you that without question we're not going to think about the fact that they had buckets and buckets of money we're just gonna focus on the product itself And the truth really is WeWork is a great product Right

Chad: [00:02:52] Yeah I'm recording right now from a lovely conference room here in the dock 72 WeWork building in the Brooklyn Navy yard and I've been a member for almost four years now And as a consumer I must say I do enjoy working here much more than working up from my cramps tiny Brooklyn apartment

Mike: [00:03:14] Well not only that I think it's a far cry from how we were all working just 10 20 years ago I mean if you think about how almost industrial age factory like workplaces have been really up until the creation of WeWork It was all about being in a cubicle It was all about a lot of gray and I'm hardly the most inspirational place but right now we live in a world that is firmly in the digital age firmly in the knowledge age And if you want the best knowledge the best insights the best ideas from your employees then you've got to create a great work place And what I propose to you Chad is I think the big product insight that we can take away from WeWork is they found a very old dusty industry that was all about the gray cubicle and they went in and totally disrupted it is exactly the same as Uber did to an old dusty industry called the taxi industry WeWork in this case went in and totally re-imagined The workspace and I think at the core of this and this is something I mean you're such a great test case because you've actually been working in these spaces and you're in one of their premier showcase properties Now what I propose to you is that from a product insight They discovered that people have different modes in the journey during the day or the week in the office Sometimes it's about focus sometimes about learning or collaboration or socialization and they designed very intentional spaces to that And this is why it was so radical In contrast a stark contrast to the world of the gray cubicle So tell us Chad you use this product every day Tell us about these modalities Because I think what we know is that it was this that created such an exceptional product

Chad: [00:05:22] Yeah So even some even a creative like myself would be you know stuck at the kitchen counter and essentially have you know only one place from which to work But I would say one of my favorite parts of the WeWork buildings is There's no fewer than a dozen and sometimes even 20 different kinds of workspaces that you can work at So whether that's by the cold brew taps working at kind of a high top bar or it's like a cozy little booth next to the eating area or it can be you know an enclosed conference room And then of course you've got your private office spaces as well But when this building first opened it was fun for me just to go and explore all the different types of workspaces and it can be subtle things is as simple as in a conference room Why not have a standing high top table as opposed to a you know a seated table So even just the standing and working in in discussing versus sitting I think they've done a really good job at diversifying those different workspaces

Mike: [00:06:27] So a massive really a massive change in an industry that had essentially been the same for close to a hundred years But the there was another big part of what was so radical about the WeWork product which is it liberated companies from these massive 10 15 sometimes 25 year Corporate or commercial leases it liberated them from the idea of at a minimum in traditional leasing of commercial property you would have to take an entire floor which means that if you're not at 30 40 or maybe 50 people you were in a no man's land And they came along and offered this idea of fractional ownership meaning share your space With many others so that you could enjoy all the perks of a large company even though you're small Now this next thing about fractional ownership is really big because by doing so not only were you able to get a really nice space with all these modalities that made you more productive but what WeWork could in turn do is offer you effectively a lease That was 66% less than the standard lease which included like the build out in the operating of the space So they literally came along to the world and said you know what You can have an amazing space and you can have it for 66% the less than what you would normally do I mean Chad

Chad: [00:08:05] it's month to month You're not locked in for five 10 or 25 years Just have to give 30 days’ notice

Mike: [00:08:12] Exactly I mean that is like I can't say no proposition so often one of the things I think about is that when your proposition is so good everybody like can't say no but they almost want it to be true Great.

Office A third the price and month to monthly so that if things change you can shrink or expand exactly how you like no waste whatsoever Now we're going to put aside the fact that WeWork as a business It's profits paid a huge price for offering this That's in a that's going to be an episode four so a little teaser but this is an amazing offering

Chad: [00:08:55] It's a no brainer Like you said it's like irrefutable Like again you start to question like how in the world can they offer this office space for $500 a head You'll have to wait until episode four until we figure out kind of the ramifications of that But as a product offering I think they came onto the market as you said into an industry that was ripe for disruption Typically companies would have to hire architects and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building things out And yet here I can come in as a small business owner and Enact act as if I'm a much larger corporation I've got training rooms and conference rooms and kombucha and Rosie on tap you know It's like

Mike: [00:09:37] stop Stop

Chad: [00:09:39] to afford

Mike: [00:09:40] Yeah So here's the thing Not only was the product great there's also the delivering and the pricing The way to own was also really great So as a total product experience the essential product itself was already great but they made it vastly cheaper So now they're getting going from good to great and they go from great to exceptional When they say look it's a month by month lease So this is like This is home run everywhere you look It's not just the product itself it's the pricing it's the delivery method It is a complete home run Now the other thing is a great test of any product is what customers say about it And I'm in a in the case study you'll find on bottom up dot AAO we found that the actual users of the product the customers the startups the scale-ups They loved it I mean across three major cities in the world you're looking at an average of 4.4 4.5 out of five in terms of the reviews on Google And that's hundreds and hundreds of reviews So we know that they got something very right And I think that was a huge gift that they could offer us in terms of the product the way they delivered it the way they priced it And the real proof was customers Were enamored with it They were just simply in love with what they had to deliver to the world And Chad as a customer where are you on your experience with WeWork

Chad: [00:11:09] it's not for everyone but I'm definitely I caught myself as I advocate for WeWork I think You know for the price you get a lot And for small business owners it's you know it's going to I think save you a lot of money in the long run and also give you the flexibility to pay more attention and to spend resources on other parts of the business that can help you continue to grow So you know While I might have some issues with the long-term viability and you know practices of management of the company Again as a consumer I it's kind of hard to

Mike: [00:11:46] Exactly So so much to learn there and great product great delivery over it so please take that away I think we challenge all of our listeners just to go and tune into this Have I got a great product Am I pricing it correctly Am I Reducing the barriers to participation in the product and I think and another thing here is if you're looking at a tide old dusty industry you're probably gonna find that there's an opportunity for you to bring your own disruption just like WeWork where people have sort of accepted the de facto standards and it's just right for disruption I think that's another a big takeout that we can all have on Wheeler

Chad: [00:12:27] mm And Mike you've gone back done some research and found some interesting surveys from which Hmm We've kind of discovered WeWork you know built their product on the back of you and say a little bit more about that and share some resources with our

Mike: [00:12:43] Alright So yeah good point at the end of every one of our BottomUp podcasts where you actually going to give you a free download template that really will inspire you to go out and build better product and a better business And this one is it's a bit of a classic It's by a very esteemed architectural firm called Gensler And they did a workplace survey in 2013 which captured The essence of these mode these different ways people work in the office And you can see how WeWork as built their product off the back of these And you're going to find a link in the show notes at bottom app.io where we've actually found the entire workplace survey where it outlines all the different modes of people working So yes for all the budding architects They can check it out But I think look we all work in workplaces and I'm sure many of our listeners will be looking to ask the question how can they create a better environment in which they can work And this survey from Gensler around workplace design is really inspirational So you'll find a link to that in the bottom up.io a section for the podcast Just get all the goodies there and well Chad I think we're pretty much done It's short It's sharp It's compressed I think

Chad: [00:14:03] Yeah but there's more episodes

Mike: [00:14:04] Oh yeah Yeah So where do we go next

Chad: [00:14:08] we have three more episodes going over the three other PS of WeWork I've got people promotion and profit and then we've gotten such a great response from everyone that's gone through the bottomup.io coursework I think the design thinking masterclass is a favorite and so we're going to bring that to you here on the podcast in short bite-sized podcast episodes so that'll be our next series here on the bottom of podcast Got at least a dozen great episodes for you all in on design thinking Can't wait to share that and all the resources we have for you in those shows as

Mike: [00:14:48] Awesome Okay Thanks everyone for tuning into our very first episode of the BottomUp podcast There's going to be plenty more Thanks again This is the BottomUp podcast