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validateYourIdeasEarlyAndOften.md

#Book club Notes What I learnt from the book

6. Validate your ideas early and often

Find Low-Effort Ways to Validate Your Work

Importance of iteration process with an example of leading a robot toward a ball.

What's the scariest part of this project? That's the part with the most unknowns and the most risk. Do that part first.

What is our fear?

Can I expend a small fraction of the total effort to collect some data and validate that what I'm doing will work?

MVP: Minimum viable product - That version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.

What is our MVP? What allows us to collect the maximum amount of learning about customers? How can we know about customers? e.g., Dropbox, 5k -> 75k users with the demo video

Outcomes of the hack day? -> Prototype, not huge impact, save you a pain

  • Example of 42floors
    • Implemented fake static pages -> Inaccurate, but look real to first-time visitors
    • Measured and validated 8 potential redesigns
  • Asana
    • Had a google sign-up button to measure clicking

Continuously Validate Product Changes with A/B Testing

  • Obama
    • A/B test
    • Not only a one-off test. It validates that the testing itself is valid

What can we test with A/B testing?

Beware the one-Person Team

  • Ask questions before I go in the wrong direction, I have mentors

Channels to increase the chances of project succeeding

  • Be open and receptive to feedback
    • Receiving feedback is a great opportunity for improvement
  • Commit code early and often
    • Focus on making iterative progress
    • Don't be a person who sends out the ginormous code review
  • Request code reviews from through critics
    • It's better to get harsh feedback from someone who gives thoughtful criticism
  • Ask to bounce ideas off your teammates
    • Involve others
  • Design the interface or API of a new system first
  • Send out a design document before devoting your energy to your code
    • Communicate before code
  • If possible, structure ongoing projects so that there is some shared context with your teammates
  • Solicit buy-in for controversial features before investing too much time

Build Feedback Loops for Your Decisions

Any decision you make ... should have a feedback loop for it. Otherwise, you're just ... guessing.

Key Takeaways

  • Approach a problem iteratively to reduce wasted effort
  • Reduce the risk of large implementations by using small validations
  • Use A/B testing to Continuously validate your product hypotheses
  • When working on a solo project, find ways of soliciting regular feedback
  • Adopt a willingness to validate your decisions
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