Set Higher Bars for Product Solutions
Key Points
- We often settle for “just getting to the next release,” but product leaders should set ambitious success thresholds rather than minimal viability.
- The “wash‑the‑dishes” problem represents heavy manual work, and a product must be at least ten times easier than the current process to achieve real adoption.
- The “new‑car” problem is about creating a feature that customers didn’t realize they needed, delivering a wow‑factor that makes non‑technical users say “I have to try this.”
- Incremental improvements (e.g., 20% easier) are insufficient for high‑friction workflows because switching costs are high; only substantial, breakthrough gains will overcome resistance.
Sections
Full Transcript
# Set Higher Bars for Product Solutions **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpJbG8y1gnQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpJbG8y1gnQ) **Duration:** 00:08:38 ## Summary - We often settle for “just getting to the next release,” but product leaders should set ambitious success thresholds rather than minimal viability. - The “wash‑the‑dishes” problem represents heavy manual work, and a product must be at least ten times easier than the current process to achieve real adoption. - The “new‑car” problem is about creating a feature that customers didn’t realize they needed, delivering a wow‑factor that makes non‑technical users say “I have to try this.” - Incremental improvements (e.g., 20% easier) are insufficient for high‑friction workflows because switching costs are high; only substantial, breakthrough gains will overcome resistance. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpJbG8y1gnQ&t=0s) **Untitled Section** - ## Full Transcript
we spend way too little time setting the
bar high for good products and I want to
say that because I think a lot of times
we think to ourselves we just need to
survive to the next software release and
that is not what this post is about this
post is asking you this video is
challenging you to step back and look at
your product problems strategically I'm
going to give you three product types
I'm going to ask you which one you're
working on we're going to talk about the
bar for success for each the first one
is the wash the dishes problem it's a
heavy manual process you are up to your
elbows in soap you're scrubbing the
tomato sauce off of the plate the
correct solution and there the correct
bar for the solution is 10x easier the
dishwasher is at least 10x easier than
washing the dishes manually I put the
dishes in I put the soap in it's done
that is it that's the whole solution so
easy I forget about it we do not set
that bar high enough in software I see
too many times where there's a heavy
frictional process maybe it's manual
data wrangling of some sort and people
brag about the fact that their solution
makes it 20% easier that is not good
enough it's not if you are dealing with
something that is a wash the dishes
problem where it's a heavy manual piece
of work in the workflow you must make it
at least 10 times easier to truly Drive
adoption because there is a ton of
switching cost because it's expensive to
get a new workflow into your head it is
expensive in dollars to pay for the
software it is expensive to train people
factor that in and they will not switch
it is not substantially easier and I
think 10 times easier is a good bar for
that problem number two it's called the
new car problem how do you sell a
vehicle to someone who has a vehicle
it's with a product feature that adds
functionality that they didn't know they
needed till they saw it because to be
honest with you e-commerce as an example
didn't feel broken until Amazon
introduced Prime when they introduced
Prime and it was two days shipping
suddenly everybody else felt slow that's
an example of solving a new car kind of
problem where you don't have the problem
until you see the solution it's a really
hard one because your customers won't
tell you if you were listening to your
customers and you're like I'm listening
to what they say I'm only building what
they say and you are solving a problem
that is basically a new car problem
you're never going to win you won't get
there by listening to your customers and
I know that's weird to say because I
love customers I love chatting with
customers but in this case if what you
are trying to build is something that
surprises and delights them with a
feature set they didn't know they needed
till they saw it you have to use your
imagination the bar there is something
that makes someone who isn't in Tech go
oh wow that's so cool I have to try that
and if that's what you're building and
you're not delivering that bar you are
not not going to succeed you're going to
have a lot of trouble driving adoption
because fundamentally that kind of pain
point for customers is one they can live
with they everyone feels like they can
live with the world that exists until a
better one is shown to them and so if
you come back and you're like you know
what let's let's play this tape out
Prime is going to be five day shipping
instead of no one's really wow no one's
really excited by that even if it's
guaranteed five instead of seven it
doesn't get close enough to
instantaneous that people's imaginations
are
sparked and so it took something that
was a bold commitment like two-day
shipping to actually get people to think
differently to get people's imaginations
going to change the nature of
e-commerce and I think we don't
challenge ourselves enough in that
regard either I talked in the first
example of how we set the bar too low on
dishwasher problems I think we set the
bar too low on these problems around I
call them new car problems basically
what is the feature set that makes you
want to buy the new car when you have
the car anyway it's something that
Delights you it's a surprise and Delight
problem and we just think a little bit
of delight will go a long way and the
truth is oftentimes you really have to
give someone a wow moment to make this
kind of problem solved right that's
problem number two new car problem
surprise and Delight problem what have
you number three is a platform
problem where fundamentally there is a
desire to use a particular tool that
exists but at the end of the day you
don't have the combination of software
Hardware the tool set in place to get
what you want
done and what's interesting about that
is it's not just for businesses you
might think businesses are the ones that
use tools to get jobs done but consumers
do too my favorite example here is
actually the classic example of the
iPhone consumers had phones before
iPhone was certainly not the first in
the market they weren't the second or
the fourth or the fifth they were very
late to Market but what they brought was
a platform that let you get stuff done
it was so effective it spawned multiple
billion dollar companies like
Instagram and that would not have
happened if they had not taken the time
to build a coherent experience where
this felt like a single effective tool
to spend your day on and now we complain
about that with our phones but the point
is people want wanted to use their
phones to do more than their phones were
letting them do before and they needed a
platform that was going to make the
phone disappear so they could focus on
the task and that is one of the key
success criteria for an effective
platform if you stop talking about it
and you just start focusing on the task
at hand that's fantastic I saw a really
interesting take actually that the
reason we don't dream about our phones
is because our phones mentally disappear
when we're working on them and we don't
think about the device we think about
the task and I think that's a wonderful
analogy of the importance of building
good platforms so you might not have a
new car problem you might not have a
dishwasher problem maybe what you have
is a platform problem where what you
need is to build something that is a
single unified tool set that lets
someone get the job done and it's so
effective it just disappears if that's
the case then coherence is the bar
you're looking for everything in that
experience has to knit and fit together
and if it doesn't there are going to be
janky edges that make it really
difficult for people to use that tool to
get their work done and people are going
to get frustrated and that is going to
dramatically lower usage and one of the
things platform tools need to succeed is
regular usage iPhone would not have
worked if you went there and used your
phone in the store and then used it for
30 days afterward and forgot about it
iPhone works as a product
because it is woven into your life as
it's a successful platform and that is
the marker for successful platforms is
the way you use and reuse them and if
you're solving for that kind of utility
you need to solve for smooth coherent
edges on that experience everywhere you
look workflows have to be knitted
together and end to end every time
because your goal is that no one thinks
about the platform they just think about
getting their job done and again I see
people bragging about additional featur
teachers they added to a platform and
they don't think about the platform as a
whole and that is one of those strategic
errors that means that so many of the
platforms we use are too frictional
they're tiring to use we talk about them
because they aren't fun they're
exhausting maybe we can get the work
done but it's not not any fun to use we
don't recommend it to people and that
slows adoption for the companies that
build these kinds of platforms so if
that's you if you are working on a
platform make sure that you are thinking
about the whole experience it is worth
it to think end to end there is no
substitute for that okay so the three
things we talked about the dishwasher
problem you have to set that bar high on
automation the new car problem you have
to make sure you are finding a surprise
and Delight that genuinely makes people
go wow and this last one the platform
problem it's all about coherence can the
workflows be endtoend coherent I hope
you enjoyed this um I certainly had fun
talking about it I don't think we talk
about product and problem types enough
let me know if you have other problem
types you'd like me to go into I thought
this was a fun introduction but there's
always more to go after all right cheers