You are NOT doing it wrong
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Hello! It’s your product and you can run it any way you want. That’s one of our conclusions from interviewing founders and product managers from 10 bootstrapped software companies while writing Kill the HiPPO. I went into the project assuming there would be some “best practice” system in use by the founders I admire and look up. Our aim was to identify these best practices, along with the popular prioritisation frameworks founders use. After the first three interviews, we suspected that this assumption was misguided. Misguided it was. After 10 interviews, no strong pattern came out. There were common headaches and pitfalls along the way, but no-one had discovered the “works for everyone” approach. And that’s the key. You don’t need to use a system simply because another company uses it. The reality is, what works for feature prioritisation for one company at one phase of their life doesn’t work for other companies - or even for the same company in a different phase. Even when we found two companies both using a similar framework (the “Shape Up” framework from 37signals), each had adjusted it to their own needs and style of running the business. Here’s an excerpt from Kill the HiPPO where Max Seelemann from Ulysses talks about how they use Shape Up: One of the founders I interviewed told me later that they were unsure about taking part in the interview because they didn’t have this “creating a product with all the right features - and none of the wrong ones” problem all figured out. They’re not alone. None of us do have it all figured out. So to repeat (and I want you to remember this, and even print it out and put it somewhere you’ll see it every day): It’s your product and you can run it any way you want. And be wary of anyone claiming to have the perfect methodology - they don’t. Marketing Kill the HiPPO - a video?I’ve had this experience twice: I’m in a casual conversation, and someone asks about my book. So I describe Kill the HiPPO: why we wrote it, what is is about, and some of the findings. While I’m talking about it, someone gets out their phone, goes to Amazon, does a search for Kill the HiPPO, shows me the screen and asks “is this it?” I say “yes”, and they immediately buy the book. It makes me wonder: am I much better at “selling” the book in person than I am via online channels? And would a video where I pretend I’m in one of those casual conversations capture that? So I’m going to make a short (maybe 60 seconds or so) video of me talking naturally about the book, as if I was talking to you, dear reader. I’ll then post that video on Kill the HiPPO’s home page. I’m pre-announcing this video, because it is one of those things I’ll find any excuse not to do - unless I’ve publicly committed to it! Until next time, keep making great software. Steve McLeod PS: If you’ve bought Kill the HiPPO, have you written a review yet? |