I recently heard from Dharmesh Shah (Hubspot CTO) on a podcast, reflecting back on the success of the business he co-founded. At the time of writing this, it's valued in the realm of 17+ Billion- Nothing to sneeze at.
He had a way of thinking about getting a great outcome, that resonated with me. I've realised that some of the most successful projects i've been part of had this process very well optimised.
To attain great outcomes, he summarised it as "Dreaming really big, (while) Iterating really small & having tight feedback loops'.
He always had a grand vision for Hubspot. But regular iterations is what helped seperate them from the pack.
A story about a photography class
One of my favourite classes in high school was photography. Dharmesh went on to share a story about this class that I thought was great.
Two classes were run by the same photography teacher. Each run slightly different as an experiment.
The first class required only one set of photographs to be submitted at the conclusion of the semester.
The second class required photographs to be submitted every single week, up to the end of the semester.
For both classes, the majority of the assessment's weighting was the final photographs, with the different between the two being the number of deliverables for each.
Can you guess which class performed better?
When the final assessments were announced, the outcome of class two was significantly better than class one.
Rather than spending weeks preparing for the final deliverables, class two were improving every single week. Learning from their mistakes. What's working, what isn't. Getting feedback. And ultimately being leaps and bounds better than the other class.
Iterating with feedback beat-out spending weeks preparing for a single output.
The same can be said for building a new venture. This is what helped Dharmesh acheive such great success.
A process for iterating
Businesses need to be using feedback loops efficiently iterate on their product.
If an iterative process is not top-of-mind, it's all too easy to fall into the 'build' trap. Planing significant new features and releasing them in the hope the top-line metrics will increase.
Teams become the photography class that spends all the time preparing for one deliverable. They drop big releases infrequently, and miss utilising feedback loops to keep progressing forward.
Has your team optimised their iteration process? How can you implement tight feedback loops?
Here's five steps to get you thinking about it.
- Set a metric to track
Super important- Don't set too many metrics, or you’ll get lost.
Make sure metrics are closely tied to the success of your business. (Signups, completing a key task, Purchase, X number of interactions in Y period, etc).
If you're stuck looking at where to start, refer to the Patero principle- 80% of a products value comes from 20% of the functionality. What is that 20% driving the output in your product?
- Build to learn
You will have some key beliefs you have about your product, and how you can hit these metrics.
Hypotheses test cards are a great way to document the new tests you'll be running. The key is to ensure there is a test that's lean as possible to give you the confidence in your next iteration. Design the right test for the learning you want.
And If you do need to build for a big release, perhaps check in with customers to understand the sentiment before you commit weeks of work.
- Use quantitive & qualitative metrics.
When implementing these tests or new features, seeing that feedback from all angles is critical.
Often though, there are black spots- places within the app where you can't quite understand what or why things are happening.
What can you do to shine a metaphorical light on those areas and get visibility of user behaviour?
Examples include Data funnels, screen recordings, surveys, customer interviews, error reporting, etc.
- Frequently review the metrics.
Perhaps every sprint, weekly, or even more regularly.
Most important is that you need feedback loops to be tight enough to give you the confidence to make that next decision.
Setup dashboards, regular interviews or a cadence that keeps you and the team on-track.
- What’s working and what isn’t?
Keep hypothesising as to why metrics have moved.
Tip- Don’t just do it yourself. Prepare the data to share with the team. Hear their thoughts.
A different Point of View could be just what you need to see the insight from the right angle.
Summary:
Dharmesh has seen great success by iterating small and using feedback loops. So too, did the students of the photography class.
Sure, the 'iterate' word is thrown around by many, but few implement feedback loop systems to design, build and assess new features.
By setting up your process to capture feedback- then staying honest to this commitment- you'll be in the ideal position to see compounding success, sprint after sprint.
