Turn Off Your Lizard Brain
Seth Godin “You don’t need to be more creative – you need a quieter lizard brain” –Seth Godin Your brain is not your friend. At any moment now you might encounter something scary or unexpected or just plain wacky that…
The balance between too hard and too easy
Like you, I have lots of accounts for applications. And I usually remember the passwords (ok, maybe not always). To avoid this problem, I use two factor authentication whenever possible. Two factor authentication is the use of an external token…
You are competing for attention
The average person can hold between five to seven items in working memory. You are probably using a couple of those items already. The takeaway – especially when you’re asking customers to do something for you – is for you…
Today, I met a customer face to face
Websites are inherently anonymous. I don’t mean unknowable in the absolute sense of the word, but rather that when your first interaction with a customer is through email you can lose sight of that person’s humanity. When you talk to…
Stop what you are doing and remove half of your product
I love words. Probably too much. I love words so much that often use too many words when only a few are needed. It’s not because I want you to know about all the words. It’s that I want you…
Donuts make everything better
A couple of years ago, my wife started a donut business. Her purpose was simple: make delicious vegan and gluten-free food that people liked for a reasonable price. She test marketed batches of donuts, did some product-market fit work by…
The magic in products is knowing what to leave in
Reading Mark Suster’s excellent post on product design left me with this thought – what if more products were literally designed by the customer? As a thought experiment, leave aside any skepticism you have about the customer making bad choices…
Share some interesting things with customers every day
Here’s something interesting I read today on the effects of smartphones on shopping. The article matters because it’s about a big trend (changing habits in shopping, especially in everyday environments like grocery stores) and has long-term societal implications. For example,…
Delight the customer when you pick up the phone
Your customers will call you when they want to talk, so you should publish your phone number. It may sound counter-intuitive, but customers actually want to talk to you. Catching the customer at the moment when they really want to…
