What can quilting teach you about building a product?
It’s an unusual analogy, but it’s something I’m passionate about.
I’ve been in tech for a little over a decade and I’ve heard a lot of analogies. Maybe it’s just me but often times the metaphors fall flat. I’ve heard more than my fair share of analogies about sports and military formations. One analogy that stands out was when the CMO of my last company turned the boring theme of “swing” as it relates to the sport of rowing into a story about why the Spice Girls eventually fell apart. It was something I could relate to, and if nothing else, it was a great excuse to use photoshop and make the leadership team into the Spice Girls. This is a series about my own weird view about how building a quilt is a lot like building a product.
When I first started in product marketing, my manager told me that one of the reasons he hired me was because I was unapologetically me. I’m an extremely passionate person, and my husband would tell you I‘m the biggest dork ever. To which I would probably object that I’m more of a geek than dork, but since I care about the difference he’s probably right on some level.
I first realized the similarities between quilting and building a product when I was making a quilt for a close friend and mentor, a fellow product marketer, who was about to have a baby girl. It was my first time quilting with a pattern and I was surprised to find directions on how to press open my seams (in plain terms, ironing the fabric I sewed together). It didn’t really click until I was sewing my rows together that the ironing was helping me avoid a bunch of additional bulk which is hard to sew even with a machine because you are basically taking two things that are thick and smashed together. When I was done I looked at both the front and the back of my quilt top, and thought that while the front was pretty, it was almost a shame that no one would ever see how beautiful it all fit together on the back side of the quilt. So I took a few pictures and told him about it the next day at work.
We ended up geeking out about my insistence that backside of the quilt was beautiful. Since we both worked with product teams, he was able to follow how my diligence in ironing led to things coming together better — much like the understated and hidden work that a product team does on the backend to build a product.
Since I’ve started in product marketing, I’ve learned that being crazy passionate can be a bit of a super power. My hope is that by sharing my weird but enthusiastic way of viewing building a product can inspire others to embrace their way of viewing the world.
If you’re up for the ride, let me take you through the journey of building a quilt and what this can tell you about building a product from planning to completion. Step 1: Planning
Special thanks to my current & former colleagues in tech who’ve inspired me to take the time to write this out and share it. I hope that even if you aren’t into quilting that this series can give you a new perspective.
