Skip to the page

Plainly Put

One sentence about building things, taken apart

Topic

Product

Sentences about what gets built, and when it is ready to be seen.

59 essays, 2010–2011

The lines in this section are about the thing being made and the people it is made for. The best known is Reid Hoffman’s claim that a first version which does not embarrass its founder went out too late, and several others pull the same way: ship a small core early, show it to the first users, improve it in rounds. Joe Kraus adds that a product in beta should bring its business model along for the test.

Other pages argue that speed is only half the job. Steve Jobs describes design as the way a product works, and Aza Raskin says that to the user the interface is the product. David Karp counts the upkeep every added feature costs.

A last group looks past the product to the market around it. Joel Spolsky wants founders listening to customers over competitors, and Gary Chou points out that a product can change direction while its users cannot be swapped for new ones. Each essay asks when its line is sound advice and when it is only a slogan.

2011 48 essays

  1. Fog Creek's marketing experiments, and the release that beat themJoel Spolsky
  2. Every feature keeps sending a billDavid Karp
  3. When the market sours, the business underneath is what remainsFred Wilson
  4. Built in the downturn, collected in the recoveryJason Calacanis
  5. For the person using it, the screen is all there isAza Raskin
  6. Nothing is viral until other people decide it isPeter Shankman
  7. The job behind the founder label is keeping the company aliveSpencer Fry
  8. Focus on the user, and know who paysAdam Smith
  9. Put the business model in beta along with the productJoe Kraus
  10. Profit follows customers and staff, when it follows at allJack Ma
  11. A name matters less than what the company doesJason Cohen
  12. Build the core idea, test it, and only then add to itLeah Culver
  13. Talk to customers, and the rival Stack Overflow was built againstJoel Spolsky
  14. Research does not make products bland; bad questions doMichael Arrington
  15. Showing a fixed product beats promising one, mostlyMark Zuckerberg
  16. A product can change course; its users may not followGary Chou
  17. What a design education teaches that a business degree does notBiz Stone
  18. Starting got cheaper, the company part did notSarah Lacy
  19. Solve the hard problem and keep the difficulty out of sightJonathan Ive
  20. Each unnecessary question is a small failure of designAza Raskin
  21. What A/B testing can find, and the hill it cannot see pastJeff Atwood
  22. An entrepreneur as someone who wants to make a thingDavid Karp
  23. More features, less weightMarc Benioff
  24. Customers first, competitors a distant secondJoel Spolsky
  25. Is the product a text box or a ribbon of commandsBijan Sabet
  26. A company built to be sold sells for lessJoe Kraus
  27. A chip on the shoulder drives founders, until it steers themMark Suster
  28. Start from a problem you have actually feltAaron Patzer
  29. Simplicity as a way of finding the real problemPaul Graham
  30. Stay committed to the problem, stay loose about the answerDan Greenberg
  31. Without interest in customers, a company shrinks into a jobDan Martell
  32. Luck as a matter of attention and attemptsHiten Shah
  33. Mistakes are part of the job; some of them are still failuresJeff Clavier
  34. User experience measured by usefulnessMarissa Mayer
  35. When design outweighs the technologyDave McClure
  36. Hearing customers through what they doChris Hughes
  37. Days spent away from the product, and the ones that payJoel Spolsky
  38. Luck arrives unannounced; noticing it is the skillJack Dorsey
  39. What being willing to be poor actually costsSean Parker
  40. The problem people have is not always the one they can nameJoshua Schachter
  41. Good work travels when people can pass it onGregg Spiridellis
  42. Customer money buys time without selling any of the companyEsther Dyson
  43. A product that needs its users to define it has not decided what it isMarissa Mayer
  44. User experience decays unless someone keeps working on itRyan Carson
  45. Spend the pitch on the problem, unless the problem is obviousDave McClure
  46. End users first, and the customer who pays secondLarry Page
  47. Data describes the present, design proposes something elseAza Raskin
  48. Easy to explain and still hard to understandBilly Chasen

2010 11 essays

  1. Design is how the thing worksSteve Jobs
  2. Ask customers what they want, then watch what they doLisa Stone
  3. The builder who did not call himself an entrepreneurAndrew Mason
  4. Let the product be famous and keep the founder privateSarah Lacy
  5. Launch small, listen closely, then go againJon Yongfook Cockle
  6. No company is one person's workCaterina Fake
  7. Keeping delight in view when the numbers are loudMark Pincus
  8. Solving problems with ideas before budgetsGreg McAdoo
  9. Half the work is saying what the problem isUnattributed
  10. If the first version doesn't embarrass you, it shipped too lateReid Hoffman
  11. Pirates, the navy, and who pays for the shipSteve Jobs