Always invert ♻️
Amsterdam Product Club #16
Inversion
As a product manager, I'm always on the lookout for ways to sharpen my decision-making. One of my favorite thinking tools is inversion. I learned it from Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet’s right-hand man. It's simple: Munger asks, "Show me where I die, and I will not go there."
Inversion is about finding out what not to do, which is much easier than hitting the bulls-eye. Instead of asking yourself, "How can I succeed?" you might ask, "What would surely cause me to fail?" This is about dodging major screw-ups. By doing so, Charlie and Warren netted the most profitable run in investing ever.
Farnam Street - one of my favorite blogs is fans too:
Despite our best intentions, thinking forward increases the odds that you’ll cause harm. Thinking backward, call it subtractive avoidance or inversion, is less likely to cause harm.
Inverting the problem won’t always solve it, but it will help you avoid trouble. You can think of it as the avoiding stupidity filter. It’s not sexy but it’s a very easy way to improve.
If the concept is powerful enough for Warren & Charlie to grow their investments to $750 billion, there might be something for us to learn here.
Applying Inversion to Product Management
So, how does this fit into product management? Let's flip things and ask: "What makes a terrible PM?" By dodging these mistakes, we can find our way to being good at the job.
How to be a terrible PM
Be Unreliable: Always break your promises. Get known for being the one who always drops the ball.
Be Consistently Wrong: Hold onto your opinions, especially the wrong ones. Make sure your team starts doubting your judgment.
Be Indecisive: Keep reopening settled discussions. This will slow down your team and keep everyone stuck in talk mode.
Have a Vague Strategy: Be unclear about what you're building and for whom. The more vague, the better.
Ignore Your Users: Don't bother talking to your users. Make it really hard for them to give you any feedback.
Lack Tech Understanding: Stay clueless about the technology behind your product. Don't bother understanding its capabilities or limits.
Misunderstand the Market: Avoid learning about your market. Don't read up or talk to anyone who might know something.
Flip it around
Now, let's turn these around. By not doing this stuff, you're already not a terrible PM. Being reliable, making good calls, being decisive, clear about your strategy, understanding your users and tech, knowing your market, learning from others, being good with data, getting your team on your side, keeping stakeholders happy, and owning your actions – that's what good PMs do.
Inverting the launch of our mobile app
I’ve used the same principles when thinking about our strategy for VEED.IO’s mobile app. How can we make sure nobody downloads and uses it?
My answers?
By focussing on a problem nobody cares about
Instead, I looked at which of our tools were generating the most revenue on web, and at which landing pages were popular on mobile. This gave me a good heuristic on what mobile users would like.By trying to do too many things at once, resulting in a low-quality product
We decided to do one thing (captions) really well instead.By being hard to use
We opted for a very simple interface.By being hard to find (ASO)
I’ve spent 50% of my time on marking the product, not on building it. Because I knew for the product & team to be a success, our distribution needed to be great.
Wrap up 🌯
Inversion helps you look at things differently. By knowing what not to do, you can steer clear of failure. Sometimes, not messing up is the best way to do well.
Thanks for reading, see you next month!
What happened in Dutch tech? 🇳🇱
“Reprogram the government” launched
Alexander Klopping and my friend Onno Blom launched:Does Europe get better stock option laws?
France launched better stock options laws, probably the biggest unlock for the tech ecosystem. Will the Netherlands follow?https://twitter.com/matthieurouif/status/1716718997826089182
Adyen’s network effects
Former Adyen employees raised a big round to build more fintech.
It's super interesting to see the second-order effects of one huge fintech success.
Internet things I enjoyed
Better link sharing
Arc created a better way to share linkshttps://twitter.com/patrickmoberg/status/1717556949137449302
Thiel on complex coordination
Peter argues that innovation doesn’t need to be so much about doing new things, but about putting the right pieces in the right place.On why products are never done
Stratechery & Karri Saarinen explain your customer’s expectations are constantly evolving. “Only way to keep being a great product, is to keep pushing the experience forwards.”
https://twitter.com/karrisaarinen/status/1721929553319260354
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Nice one!