April 2017 Summaries

The text discusses the importance of good bug reporting in software development, highlighting its impact on quality control and investigation efficiency. It emphasizes the need for a concise, precise description of the issue, including steps to reproduce it, as well as labeling with relevant tags such as severity, team, customer frequency, and cause. The article also provides guidance on console investigations, using tools like FullStory's Dev Tools, and the use of screenshots and gifs to communicate UI bugs. Additionally, it stresses the importance of reporting issues thoroughly, even if it seems minor, and encourages a culture of bug reporting within companies.

When a cupcake becomes a wedding cake`, Intercom's approach to building product emphasizes "think big, start small" and the "cupcake approach". This involves breaking down ambitious projects into smaller, iterative steps, delivering value early to customers, and gathering feedback to inform future development. While this approach can be challenging to implement, it allows for faster iteration and better understanding of customer needs. However, it's easy to fall into the trap of adding too many features to a project, which can lead to complexity and difficulty in validating the approach. To avoid this, Intercom advises keeping scope tight and releasing "cupcakes" that are small but meaningful, rather than trying to build a complete product at once. This approach requires discipline and careful planning, but can lead to more successful and customer-focused products.

Design has evolved from being the last step of the product creation process to a more fundamental role in bringing a product to life, requiring designers to be involved early and often. To embrace this evolution, designers need to get comfortable with thinking about things other than design, such as business impact, communication, code, and being challenged by others. This includes asking fundamental questions about how their work plays a role in the mission and objectives of the business, understanding the language and thought process of cross-functional peers, having some understanding of code, being open to feedback and criticism, and embracing uncertainty and new ways of working. By doing so, designers can influence key metrics, improve business results, and grow as professionals.

Designing digital products is an ongoing process, as they are never truly finished. Changing them can be challenging, especially when dealing with complex systems used by large audiences. There are two common approaches: the exciting, idealistic redesign or the pragmatic incremental approach. However, both come with risks of failure. A third way to approach change is inspired by evolution, where a new system is added on top of an existing one, allowing for significant changes while keeping the core intact. This approach can be seen in Google Inbox and Facebook Paper, which coexist with their original versions. It also applies to product development at smaller scales, such as adding new features to an existing product without completely redesigning it. By considering evolution as a design principle, companies can make huge product changes while minimizing the risk of failure and preserving the essence of their core products.

We've released a new book titled "Intercom on Starting Up", which offers an honest and opinionated take on what we've learned building the company over the past six years. The book covers topics such as choosing product features, attracting first customers, measuring business success, and building company culture, providing readers with practical insights from the creators of Intercom. With a focus on authenticity and avoiding startup clichés, the book is designed to be informative but not prescriptive, offering a unique perspective for entrepreneurs and startups in need of guidance. The book features original illustrations and personal stories from the early days of building Intercom, making it a polished and engaging read.

The article analyzes the best time to send messages based on data collected from millions of messages sent through Intercom. The peak open rate for all types of messages is between 10-11am, with Tuesdays and Thursdays being the most active days of the week. Emails have a higher spike in open rates between 10-11am, while in-apps remain more consistent throughout the day. The data suggests that emails sent between 10-2pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays have the greatest chance of being opened, but in-apps have a more consistent open rate throughout the week.

The main idea is that when it comes to marketing and product development, creating a compelling narrative is crucial. This involves understanding the context and audience, as well as being able to tell a story or create a category that resonates with them. A good product story should be concise, yet informative, and not require too much explanation. It's also important to avoid relying on easy laughs or quick wins, and instead strive for creating something truly innovative and memorable. This requires mastering product storytelling and being able to connect with the target audience in a meaningful way.

Choosing a pricing strategy for your product can be daunting, but understanding the three key sales models - transactional, enterprise, and self-service - is crucial. A complex sales process for low-value customers is not viable, as it's like selling high-end products to low-income individuals. The goal is to attract target customers and decide how much revenue you want to earn from them. By plotting these decisions, you can determine the right pricing strategy for your product. The three models cater to different customer segments and business needs, with transactional pricing allowing startups to go upmarket without changing their product or business model. However, it's essential to be aware of the tradeoffs, such as limiting support and acquiring customers, and make conscious decisions based on your industry, customer type, and addressable market. Some industries may require a different pricing strategy due to factors like annual contracts, NDAs, and SLAs. Companies often have multiple pricing models to cater to both low- and high-end markets, and it's crucial to avoid common pitfalls like unlimited plans that can be detrimental to your business. Ultimately, there is no one perfect pricing strategy, but being aware of the wrong turns and dead ends will help you make informed decisions.

Expecting messiness and chaos as a natural part of product development is crucial when aiming to build something truly great. This mindset allows for adaptability, iteration, and learning from real-world usage. A strong company mission and vision serve as a foundation to steer amidst the chaos, while having principles for how you work helps contain the mess. It's essential to strike a balance between certainty and uncertainty, questioning everything and constantly reassessing. Failing to do so may lead to mediocrity and irrelevance. By embracing messiness and chaos, teams can create something truly remarkable.

When a startup grows beyond its initial small team, internal communication becomes increasingly challenging. To overcome this, companies like Intercom have implemented various mechanisms to ensure information flows clearly and smoothly across teams. These include bi-weekly "All Hands" meetings where the CEO answers questions and shares updates on company goals, strategic projects, and business performance; weekly "Show and Tell" sessions where employees share their work with the whole company; and a weekly newsletter that informs and reminds employees of important dates, product releases, or media coverage. To make internal communications effective, it's essential to be inclusive, practice patience and persistence, lean on subject-matter experts, be organized but flexible, find a tone of voice, value transparency, schedule for everyone, and continue adapting as the organization grows. By implementing these techniques, companies can maintain alignment, build camaraderie, and stay connected as they scale.

The most successful companies are those that are aligned - on strategy, purpose and objectives. Many assume this is the job of senior leadership, but good managers can go a long way to ensuring their team is on the same page about their purpose, tools and output. To achieve alignment, managers need to create a shared understanding of what they're building, make sure everyone knows what quality looks like, and give everyone a say in the direction the team is headed. This requires a culture where individual team members are given direct input into the product roadmap and encouraged to ask good questions. By doing so, managers can prevent their team from drifting off course and avoid any icebergs looming on the horizon.

When it comes to customer support, building a solid product with a loyal customer base requires focusing on the fundamentals rather than trying to delight customers in an over-the-top manner. This approach, exemplified by companies like Zappos, prioritizes providing concise, natural, and personal responses that empower customers to succeed efficiently. The key is to lower the objective effort required for customers while also reducing the subjective, perceived effort. Anticipation, clear documentation, and a focus on efficiency are crucial in achieving this goal. By eliminating "dumb contacts" and tuning your team to provide efficient support, you can improve the signal-to-noise ratio of your customer communications and ultimately boost customer loyalty without having to go above and beyond for every customer.

The article highlights the importance of metrics in measuring the success of online advertising campaigns. It emphasizes that advertising is about acquiring customers, not just generating leads. The author introduces three key metrics: Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), Cost Per Customer (CPC), and Profit Ratio. CLV represents the average value of a customer over their lifetime, while CPC measures the cost of acquiring each new customer. By analyzing these metrics, businesses can determine whether an advertising campaign is profitable or not, and make data-driven decisions to optimize their campaigns. The article uses a fictional example of a project management startup to illustrate how to calculate these metrics and apply them to real-world scenarios.

If you're not talking to your customers and listening to their feedback, your product is destined to struggle. However, sending highly targeted, open-ended questions can be far more valuable than surveys in gathering insights from customers. It's essential to plan ahead before sending a research message to ensure you're targeting the right audience with the right question at the right time. This involves defining who you want to ask, what type of answer you're looking for, and how you'll ask it. The questions should be clear, concise, and polite, and the responses should be documented and shared with the team to facilitate discussion and decision-making. Ultimately, the research findings should be actionable and visible to everyone in the organization to prevent customer insights from becoming siloed. By following these steps, you can gather reliable and valuable insights from your customers that will help you improve your product and build a closer relationship with them.

The text discusses the concept of a "Full Stack Design System" and its benefits for product development. It explains how traditional pattern libraries can lead to inconsistent design, but a well-designed system that incorporates shared conceptual models, language, resources, code components, and unifying threads can create coherence across all levels of the product. The author shares their experience with Intercom's Full Stack Design System, which has enabled them to build multiple products that are simple, elegant, and powerful despite growing complexity. They argue that a well-designed system is essential for maintaining control over the balance between individual parts and the overall environment, and provide examples of successful design systems in various industries. The text concludes by emphasizing the importance of applying a Design Systems approach to every level of the product and invites readers to join their team if they are interested in solving these problems.