🙊 A 1B$ dollar mistake: a tale of discovery, speed, hypotheses & bombs / PM Snacks #28

Olivier Courtois

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Mar 19 · 3 min read

1️⃣ My Billion Dollar Mistake
Apr 2019 • 12 min read • #execution #productculture
You (probably) know my taste for first person stories (or biographies). In this one, Hiten Shah explains how they missed a 1B$ opportunity with Kissmetrics. They went from opening a new category, inventing the funnel & live view we all know, to losing the market. It’s a good reminder of the importance of 1/ discovery, 2/ speed, 3/ leaders not dropping “bombs” every now & then. Hit reply if your CEO never slowed you down with this GREAT new idea ;)

2️⃣ How to stop tunnel vision from hijacking your product launch
Jan 2021 • 3 min read • #manageyourself #thinking
It’s easy to get carried away on a feature, jumping into designing & planning mode. It’s a trap worth learning to escape: 1/ name your hypotheses, 2/ identify the main levers, 3/ run experiments, 4/ build. A short read with great examples to understand the importance of assumptions in product thinking.

3️⃣ Shreyas Doshi — A primer on product metrics
Feb 2021 • 8 min read • #data #execution
Measuring your product, the right way, is the shortest path to execution excellence. Shreyas does a good job at suggesting important questions & metrics to assess: 1/ product’s health, 2/ usage, 3/ adoption, 4/ satisfaction, 5/ ecosystem (see more in 5️⃣), 6/ outcome. I especially love the addition of health & ecosystem metrics on top of the usual suspects.

4️⃣ 5 Ideation Techniques Adapted for Remote Teams
Oct 2020 • 11 min read • #execution
By now, I’m sure you already know how to adapt to remote ideation situations… but anyway, you’ll find in this post a few useful methods for your next brainstorming. My personal favorite to diverge: S.C.A.M.P.E.R (not mentioned so often). If you want to go further, Gamestorming is an amazing inspiration.

5️⃣ Camera Obscura: Beyond the lens of user-centered design
Dec 2020 • 20 min read • #design #ethics
A clear call to arms to move beyond thinking our product only for the targeted users. Most methods imply drawbacks like obscuring the experiences of other actors or removing too many frictions (even the useful ones). For example, when you use Airbnb, you feel how much thought was put into designing hosts & guest experiences… but what about the city planners, the neighbours? We now have to think in ecosystems… You’ll find a few strategies in the article

❇️ AI: from recommenders to creative assistants — Live on Twitch (fr)
Mar 2021 • 90 min watch • #AI #design #productculture
On Wednesday at 7PM, I’ll be joining “L’after Produit” live on Twitch. You can see the replays on their youtube channel (here is the last one). There is many segments but the main topic will be AI in products. I’ll talk about 1/ use cases like recommendation, automation, generation and creatives assistants (powered by GPT-3), 2/ the impacts on UX, 3/ impacts of the team org, 4/ if I’m ready, my first entrepreneurial project (maybe 🤞)

I’m Olivier Courtois, a product maker for 10y+, currently freelance, coach& Startup advisor, former VP Product comet & Product Director ManoMano.

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