Successful tech-oriented products fix in a straightforward way deep user pain points. My favorite ones are those who disrupt experiences related to an unpleasant feeling : for instance, Doctolib, that manages to transform a stressful and opaque healthcare patient pathway in a quick, efficient and connected one. This makes me think about lovable products.
Instead of delivering a Minimum Viable Product (MVP, concept coined by Eric Ries, entrepreneur and author of “The Lean Startup”), teams could focus on building instead a Minimum Lovable Product (MLP). Scott Cook, founder of Intuit, considers that the MLP is intended “to deliver a solution that is so extraordinary on the most important dimension that it inspires positive emotion in your customers.”
What are the main differences between a MVP and a MLP ?
Semantics matter. A “lovable” product encapsulates a better experience for the user than a “viable” one.
The MLP is more customer-centric and also accountable to customers.
MLPs generate more than satisfaction, they generate delight.
Jiaona Zhang, ex Head of Product at Airbnb, now VP of Product at Webflow and lecturer at Stanford, considers that companies should focus more on the product’s lovability instead of viability in order to stay competitive :
“The minimum viable product was appealing because it was cheap, and you could get it to market faster. But we’ve advanced past a world where products are ‘the first of X’. Stiffer competition means that MVPs aren’t going to cut it anymore. If startups truly want to stand out, they need to strive toward creating a minimum lovable product instead (…) When you’re only relying on the MVP, the fastest and cheapest functional prototype, you risk not actually testing your product, but rather a poor or flawed version of it.”
That doesn’t mean that you should solve all the problems of the industry with your product, but you should be able to observe a very positive reaction of the customers testing your product. They should be genuinely enthusiastic about it.
As Jiaona pinpoints : “Your user’s face should light up when they try out your prototype. If the user isn’t lovestruck, you probably aren’t solving a high-value problem — and people won’t be willing to pay for your solution”.
🇫🇷 In France, the term of delightful products was discussed by Jean-Charles Samuelian, co-founder of Alan (the first French digital health insurance company) in his book “Healthy Business”. Jean-Charles emphasizes that details matter : small things can make a huge difference, especially when dealing with experiences that usually are not fun at all, as healthcare invoice management.
“We try to be detail-oriented. People notice the details. We avoid as much as possible the automatic and impersonal tone in the relationships we have with our members. An email response that would make you smile, word-playing, or just a very well written message, can make the difference between an unpleasant moment and a nice treat. "The devil hides in the detail" says Nietzsche. At Alan, we believe it hides in happiness too.”
Storytelling, motion graphics and micro-interactions are tools that can enhance a delightful user experience. This is team work : product people, designers, engineers and quality assurance specialists must join forces in order to tailor a lovable product. The goal is to solve a problem in a graceful way and to create habits that stick.
🛠️ Helpful tools to build lovable products
Hotjar - collect user feedback and see how users really use your product
Productboard - capture user insights and plan features accordingly
Smaply - enhance customer centricity
How to measure the lovability of a product ?
Moonshot transformed Google’s HEART framework into a lovability framework.
✌️Know your customers
Another exemple of a lovable product is Blablacar, the well-known carpooling service that revolutionized mobility. I had the pleasure to ask Rémi Guyot, Chief Product Officer at Blablacar, some quickfire questions about product management :
What piece of advice would you give for someone just commencing their career in PM?
Know your customers better than anyone else in the company !
What are the most common pitfalls for product managers trying to develop in their career?
Using their lack of experience or fancy title as an excuse for not doing amazing work.
Not becoming excellent at communication (writing, speaking, visualizing).
What is your favourite tech product and why ? (besided Blablacar)
Whatsapp, for the level of simplicity they have managed to preserve for such a long time.
What books would you recommend to a PM ?
Insanely Simple : the obsession that drives Apple’s success by Ken Segall
Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard P. Rumelt
Getting Real : the smartest, faster, easier way to build a successful web application by Basecamp
What aspects of product management do you find the most exciting? And most difficult ?
It’s exciting and difficult because it’s all about humans.
Read Rémi’s excellent newsletter, Mindfooled
Also, on product decision - making, this Productboard’s illustration is really fun and helpful :
🧠 Food for thought
Bridging the business-technology chasm is critical to outperformance
Common Causes of Very Bad Decisions
How the Passion Economy will disrupt media, education, and countless other industries
📚 The molecule of more
Digital tech giants are often accused of building products and services that get us hooked by exploiting our brains’ rewarding systems. There has been a lot of hype around dopamine fasting retreats, but my favorite ressource about what really dopamine is (and it’s not “the pleasure molecule”) is the book “The molecule of more”, by Daniel Z. Lieberman.
Some highlights :
Dopamine is the molecule of anticipation. Contrary to the Here and Now neurotransmitters (oxytocin, endorphins, serotonin), dopamine is future-oriented.
Winning it’s not enough for dopamine. A continuous pursuit is all that matters. There is no finish line.
The nature of dopamine is to acquire more of everything.
From the perspective of dopamine, having things is not important, getting them is.
Dopamine is activated by the presence of something attractive from an evolutionary point of view. Then it sends a message about that valuable ressource by creating a feeling of desire and excitement.
Dopamine can oppose dopamine. This is called the dopamine control circuit and it’s the reason why addicts can get clean, procrastinators can get to action and sedentary people can become active.
That’s all for today. Thank you for reading this issue.
Sharing is caring, so if you found something interesting in this newsletter, don’t be shy and share it with a friend, foe, boss or colleague. That would mean a lot to me.
If you have questions and suggestions, you can write me at shetalksdigital@gmail.com or simply reply to this mail. I’d love to hear your thoughts !