Elliott Poppel’s Post

Are you giving your customers what they want or what they actually need? This will trip up even the most experienced product teams. David Fano talked with us about using the 'Jobs-to-be-Done' framework. He’s implemented his own version that works for him and his team. It’s an intersection of Bob Moesta and Clayton Christensen’s idea that: — “People buy products to make their lives better in some way.” But when we ask customers what they want, their answers tend to only scratch the surface. "I want better control of the margins." Is that really what they need? Or is it just a means to an end? Dave compared it to giving your kid french fries instead of broccoli. Sure, they WANT the fries, but they NEED the broccoli to grow up big and strong. Product teams need to find ways to sneak the broccoli into the fries. How can we give users what they want while still helping them make real progress? The secret is to dig deeper and figure out what they're really trying to achieve. When we do this, we can come up with solutions that give them what they want AND what they need. — How do you balance giving users what they want vs. what they need? Check out the full episode at the link in my profile, and follow me (Elliott Poppel) for more daily posts like this.

At 14, I learned a game-changing lesson: when everyone’s looking one way, turn around and look the other. Recently, I was listening to Alistair Croll on Lenny Rachitsky's podcast introducing a concept that goes beyond just “thinking differently.” He called it subversive thinking. And it’s not about brainstorming wild ideas on a whiteboard. It’s about really understanding the systems you’re already in and then finding your way through them. Here's how it works 👇 Before you try to blow up the norm, study it. Take a hard look at the assumptions everyone else accepts, understand the constraints, and then ask, “Where’s the blind spot?” Croll’s idea isn’t just about rejecting norms. It’s about respecting them enough to figure out exactly where they’re weakest. It took me back to my own first stab at subversive thinking at school. I wonder if Pritika Harduar remembers this particular one ahahaha. We had something called “Market Day”—essentially, kids hawking cookies and lemonade during lunch. Food stalls were the status quo, and everyone leaned into it. So did we—at first. Then we noticed something: while every kid was competing for hungry customers, no one was serving the vendors themselves. They needed things like napkins, packaging, and extra hands for peak times. So we flipped our approach and went B2B, selling them supplies. The result? We made 7x what the food stalls did. And we won an award for “innovation,” even though all we’d done was look where no one else was looking. The takeaway? When everyone’s trying to solve the same problem, ask yourself if there’s a different one worth solving. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to see the opportunity everyone else missed.

“The thing that we really focus a lot on is designing with the end user in mind.” - Laura Adint Focus on deeply understanding your end users. Spend time directly with them to grasp their daily challenges and frustrations. This hands-on approach helps you design solutions that genuinely address their pain points, reducing friction and enhancing their overall experiences. Putting yourself into their shoes allows you to create more effective strategies that truly support their needs and boost your sales performance. To help us with this today, we have Laura Adint and Sean Lane, who recently collaborated to release The Revenue Operations Manual. They joined Carlos Nouche and Lisa Schnare to share their insights. 🎙️Tune into the full episode: https://bit.ly/3zkIxgk #b2brevenueexperience #revopsinsights #revenueoperationsmanual

The power of letting go: prioritizing consumer truth over personal pride /fear of failure In the realm of innovation, it's essential to leave our ego at the door. We start with a white canvas, ready to explore possibilities and ideas, we adapt to the findings and the only North Star is the consumer preference & validation Humility & courage allow us to accept that some hypothesis were not working & perhaps the entire concept is rubbish. AND. IT. IS. FINE. Something terrible on paper is a million times better than something terrible in real life. Where we mobilize people, investment and ask for the trust of sales teams & retailers. Because when trust is lost - what remains is the bitter taste of collective disappointment & the alarm of jeopardized bonus. And next time around, with a great idea and concept in hand, selling it to the teams would be so much harder & would cost so much more. Be that silent hero who’s not at afraid to kill a bad concept.  What qualifies as a bad concept? Well - in the next episode 😀 #CommercialInnovation #ConsumerFocus #Adaptability #TruthInBusiness #InnovationJourney

Did you wake up to find all of your Google review missing? 😱 Oh no! What to do! Well, first thing, don’t buy “guided” reviews from Fiverrrr. 🚫5️⃣ Next, listen to this episode to learn how to get reviews that stick! ⭐ Listen & Subscribe here: https://bit.ly/3FELnvB

🧑💻 [Build in Public] - Episode 2 - 🌊 Red Ocean vs. Blue Ocean Strategy The famous book on this topic introduces us to a key concept, that there are two types of markets. Highly competitive markets: Red Ocean ⇒ Existing market Less competitive markets: Blue Ocean ⇒ New market to exploit Examples : Red Ocean: Folk is a CRM. We start from a well-established market and focus on one or more differentiators. Pareto: 80% focusing on the fundamentals and 20% on innovation. We seek to address a specific unmet need already present in the market. Blue Ocean: Apple Vision Pro We are in a new market, with a massive share of innovation. Pareto: The opposite, 80% innovation and 20% on the fundamentals. We seek to address a need that doesn't really have a market today. Personally, I prefer to go into a Red Ocean, differentiate, execute the fundamentals well, and build a simple and effective product with a few unique features. We aim to solve a specific pain point that hasn't been addressed for a niche in an already established market. I find the risk/reward ratio more interesting. PS: I have already wasted a lot of time in the past in a Blue Ocean and do not want to go through that again anytime soon.

The episode started out with sourdough bread and its unusual tendency to stay fresh longer than other breads. Daoud and I decided having a tech and data stack more like sourdough and less like sprouted grain bread was probably best. That said, nothing stays fresh forever. With the rapid and accelerating pace of change in digital, designing solutions that are adaptable, future-facing (notice we didn't say future proof), and not locked into technology, platforms, and functionality with a too-limited lifespan is crucial. The composability mindset has gained some serious traction and not merely as a buzzword. We consider why in this episode.

John Li from PickFu breaks down why customer feedback is so important and how you can leverage it to make informed decisions and grow your brand. In this clip he shares a very important strategy. To check out the full episode, go here: https://lnkd.in/gu4VhbMF... #feedback #customerfeedback #ecommercemarketingpodcast #pickfu #johnli #osiaffiliatesoftware #osiaffiliate

In today's episode of Grow, Scale, Master, Kon Stathopoulos and Josh Phegan explore striving to be a role model. 🥇 They define the role model versus common enemy approach, and talk about the $7M agent who has no social media presence, being quietly successful, image is not reality, and deciding to be a "learn-it-all" agent. They discuss living the role model life of serving customers with a little bit of ego and a tonne of great work. Josh shares how data can change you if you know what you're looking at, while Kon illustrates the understated skill of great customer service, and they reflect on hitting refresh by spending time offline. 🧘♂️ 🎧 Listen now - https://brnw.ch/21wO2Ny

Jason Swenk shared some rock-solid awesome insights on how agencies can carve out their own unique space instead of chasing every client possible. A lot of agencies make the mistake of trying to go after anybody and everybody because they see the big companies doing it — and they think that’s their ticket to success.  Candidly —  chasing every client possible won't get you there. Instead, Jason says that we shouldn’t model what these big companies are doing now — we need to model what they did to get where they are today. That’s a rock-solid awesome tip for building our ideal client base! Think — which audience can you deliver the most results to? You don’t have to burn it all down and start from scratch, but when you get clear on who your ideal client is, that’s where the magic begins. Now’s the time to double down on defining your ideal client base. For the full episode, check out the link in the first comment. Onward with gusto!