Finest-5 Product reads #48
Gamification, Onboarding, growth lessons for product managers and other reads
Hello, happy Sunday!!
Apologies for being absent for 7 odd weeks. Well, I got enrolled in GrowthX and Man!! It has been an engrossing journey. Good news is I am back, and also, I led the winning team for GrowthX demo day
On News side, we all know the economy is bad and a lot of layoffs are on. If you or anyone nearby is impacted, please reach out. I will try to do my best to help in resume building, prep. and forward details to HRs and founders in industry.
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User onboarding: best practices
Often, onboarding is confused with the series of beautifully designed intro screens. Whereas, a great user onboarding experience shortens the time to value, and gets users to their first “Aha” or “Wow” moment.
Key Takeaways:
- Onboarding needs depend on the product: No onboarding, Quick onboarding or complex product training.
- Avoid lengthy upfront or application tours, provide brief in-context, actionable tips or nudges that users can disable with a good reason for each question or data point required.
- Incremental onboarding is a great way to increase the success rates for the long onboarding process by breaking it up into several stages.
Gamification gone wrong: stop the streaks
This was in the days before you could pay to repair a streak, and since then, there are streaks everywhere, and it’s starting to feel a little too cheap as a way of getting users to engage.
Key Takeaways:
- What are the essential ingredients for a streak? Behavior to count, tying count to JTBD, and reward.
- There are many reasons that streaks are effective: The Goal Gradient Effect, Positive Reinforcement, Sunk-Cost Fallacy, building social status, habit formation
- The perceived value of losing the streak increases as time goes on, increasing the likelihood that you’ll do whatever is necessary to maintain your streak.
Navigating the Discovery Phase
Discovery typically refers to the initial period of a product/feature when teams focus most on defining user needs and desired outcomes for a project.
Key Takeaways:
- Connecting with your cross-functional product team is often the fastest way to gain context for a new product/feature and understand user needs.
- During every product discovery, there comes a point where you learn from competitor products. What solutions are out there that currently solve your problem? What features are working for these solutions? Where do they fall short?
- Workshops are one of the fastest ways to bring a group of stakeholders together, identify open questions and answer them.
Four growth lessons I’ve learned from the best product managers
Most of us become PMs as we love to solve hard problems lying at the intersection of multiple subject areas. And one thing that distinguished the best from the rest was knowing how to learn quickly.
Key Takeaways:
- Surround yourself with people you trust. People who have done it before can see problems brewing before you can.
- It’s impossible to learn or come up with good ideas without space. You need two types of space: space to wander, space to think.
- Keep a decision journal. It is a way to dig deeper into your instincts, dissect them, and learn how you decide.
Alternative Product Business Models
The world, as always, is changing–and keeping on top of trends that matter to product teams is an essential part of building winning products.
Key Takeaways:
- Micro subscription and Maxi subscriptions: When the budget is a problem, think micro subscriptions like $1.99 for iCloud storage. If you flip the equation on its head, you may discover opportunities for maxi subscriptions, too.
- API product management is still in its relative infancy, however, companies like Zapier, Lattice use API as a source of primary or secondary revenue.
- With a little creativity, you could craft an alternative business model. For example, Deel chargers customers upon completion of contracts.
Product of the week: Linear
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