How many of the apps or websites you use
are truly remarkable?
How many of the apps or websites you use
are truly remarkable?
I mean, truly remarkable!
Not apps that do what
you would expect from them.
I'm also not talking about
websites with great design.
I wonder, where are the fantastic,
positively surprising,
joy-sparking digital end-to-end
experiences?
We have more computing power in the palm
of our hands than was
used for the moon landing,
and also we have more possibilities for
building amazing digital
products than ever before.
remarkable digital products?
I believe it all comes down to how we
develop digital products.
Let me use a metaphor.
Modern software products are developed
like industrial Hollywood blockbusters.
Movie companies' departments are
typically filled with
talented people, often the best
in their respective field.
However, individual trades are broken
down into their atomic components.
And as a result, none of these talents
has a meaningful stake
in the final product.
A final product that is put together from
many good individual
parts and yet something
is off, something is wrong
with the sum of all parts.
You could say its soul is missing.
The point is, the lack of actual
ownership beyond a tiny
single product fragment and
a missing shared vision weighs heavier
than an army of
well-paid talented people.
Even directors don't fully own their
product in this setup.
Venture capital is used to finance the
operation of a modern Hollywood
production andin balancing
the risk versus the reward of the
deployed capital, reusing
known patterns and known
characters as a creative choice,
ultimately made by the
business analytics team, not the
director.
Welcome to the franchise system, where
everything looks the same and
the space to operate becomes
narrow even for directors.
The lesson from this parable becomes even
more apparent when
comparing it to its antithesis,
the film d'auteur.
It's obvious what makes product created
by Hitchcock,
Tarantino, Tykwer, Herzog or
Nolan so different.
It's the ownership to execute a vision or
a meaningful part of it end to end.
What if we thought about
digital products the same way?
What if we thought about
digital products the same way?
It's not the size of a developer team
that is decisive for
the amount of output.
It's how the team is structured, how
decisions are made or
whether individuals can be proud
authors of their work.
How we work defines if we can be a
product-led startup, a
sales-led startup or if we are
free to choose the best from all worlds.
How we work defines our burn
rate and our capital efficiency.
Figuring out how we work first is the
answer to how to build
great digital products.
And there was never a
better time to do so.
It can be done.