“Let’s make it look more…tactical.”
Raymond Sellars and his nuggets of wisdom on building fantastic products.
A bit of a detour; I love Robocop. Specifically, the older movies. So when I heard of a reboot, I was rather sceptical. Of course, the trailer changed all of that — today’s technology has made the Robocop franchise better than ever. And the actual movie? That was pretty good too. I’m not entirely sure why Rotten Tomatoes gives it an average rating — perspective, I suppose. Granted, the plot wasn’t exactly all that different. But the graphics, the tech, even the overall remake of the Robocop look — yep, loved it.
Anyway, this post is about something else, entirely. Apart from a subtle snub of America’s usage of drones overseas, one thing that really struck me was the insights the CEO of OmniCorp, Raymond Sellars(Michael Keaton) had, on building and shipping products that would work. Keaton nailed that role, and there were three separate instances where Sellars throws these nuggets of sheer wisdom. I personally feel those nuggets are pretty interesting to think about, and maybe even work towards.
“We need to give Americans a product they can love. A figure they can rally behind.”
This line’s from the beginning of the movie. A bit of context — OmniCorp supplies combat robots and drones to the US military for use overseas. However, the Dreyfus Act prevents them from supplying the same hardware for domestic law enforcement — which also happens to be a huge market for them. That’s when Sellars comes up with this quip.
I’ve seen a lot(read: dozens) of startups falter and ultimately, die — simply because they don’t really care much about building something their users will love, and talk about. With them, it was always about building something that’s quick and easy, something that could probably bring in quick traction, revenue, maybe even an exit in a couple of years.
Sorry, old chap. If you aren’t building something people love, something people talk about in excited tones, something I’d make a family member or a coworker or a friend — or even some random person on the subway — if your product isn’t something I’d get after their lives, make them use it — I’d reckon you’re just doing it wrong.
“Okay, but, Dennett, I’ve gotta give the American people something they can root for. Something aspirational, right? They have to believe in this thing. “Pretty good”? I don’t know how to sell “okay.” We, you and I, have got a release date, and we’ve gotta make it, okay? So I don’t care how you do it. I’m askin’ ya, come on, can you help me? Just get him to do that. Get him to do that.”
This quote comes in a bit later, after Dr. Norton confronts Sellars about the impossibility of Alex Murphy having the same response times and efficiency levels as that of a drone, due to the characteristics of human nature. Sellars responds with the quote above, and then tells him to “get his ass back to China and fix it.”
The takeaway here is two-fold. One’s about releases. People just don’t take it too seriously. Hell, I don’t, I’d admit. We just don’t take them seriously enough. “Oh, we’ve blown past the release date and might have to extend our timelines? Meh. No biggie.” I’m not entirely sure that’s a great thing, all the time; Maybe once, maybe twice, but I’d say, if you start to blow past a release date for a third time, something’s really wrong. Maybe you aren’t able to manage your time right. Maybe you’re not able to get your team all synced up. I don’t know. There’s just something wrong, and you have to fix it.
I think the second part to this is about delivering. Here, I mean delivering expectations. Yes. If you followed the first point about building something your users will love, then your users will have expectations. You will have to track them. You will have to take care of most of them, if not all. And if you don’t — let’s be honest, why would I love a product that doesn’t listen to me? If I have some sort of expectation(s) from a product’s release, I’d love the chance to put them across to the people building it. And if they can’t build it, I’d probably even love to know why. That would actually make me love the product more, since I’d feel a sense of ownership as well. So that’s something you’d have to think about too.
“People really don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
Last, we have this line, that comes in when Sellars decides to give Robocop a black paintjob, make him “look more tactical”. Now, this doesn’t exactly hold true, at first. I mean, aren’t we always working with the assumption that the customer knows exactly what s/he wants?
You’d be surprised. Or..maybe not.
IMO, this does hold true, to a certain extent. Customers actually don’t know what they want, unless you show them something that suddenly clicks with them, and makes them say, “Aha! Now that’s something I want to use.”
I’ll illustrate this point with a simple example. Before Docker was released, sure, I knew about Linux containers. I knew they were a great way to virtualize code. But I didn’t know what I wanted, out of any container tech I adopted. Until Docker came along, showed me the possibilities. Since then, there have been others; there was Google’s container engine, plus Rocket. But Docker set the standards. That’s where you want your product to be. It doesn’t have to be something original. But it has to set the standards, so later, people use your product as a benchmark. And that’s what gives your product lasting value, which, in turn, makes an impact on your customers.
I have this sneaking suspicion that the scriptwriter for this movie spent some time in the Valley. Or s/he seems to be quite familiar with startups. I don’t know. Maybe what I spent ages thinking on — the results of which you just read — maybe all that’s a pile of trash.
But it might just make a tad bit of sense. I hope it does, to you.
