Creating a great product is as much about psychology and understanding people, as it is about entrepreneurship and great design. In this talk I explore the relationship between value and great design; how you can go about finding problems worth solving, and how to create experiences that resonate with people. Talk first delivered at BOI Gears, Dublin, 27/5/16.

1. Morgan McKeagney
Co-founder & CEO FRAMLABS
Creating a killer product
Presented @ BOI Gears 48, Dublin, 27/05/16

2.
Meet Eoghan & Des

3.
Intercom | Problem & Value
Problem
Solution Value Proposition

4.
Top Startup Tip | Des’s Advice
“Maintain a relentless focus on solving a
clear problem that …
you understand very well,
and you know exists for a lot of
people who you can reach,
and who are actively attempting to
solve it today.”
Des Traynor, Co-founder Intercom
http://bit.ly/1ORuwn3
“Ask Me Anything: Interview with Des Traynor”, Inside Intercom

5.
Entrepreneur = Value Creator
VALUE?Pain Gain

6.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Enduring
business
models serve
an enduring
human need.

7.
Finding a bigger, better mountain
Current Best Solution
Your New Solution

8.
4 Steps to Product Nirvana
Find A Problem Worth Solving
Be Relentlessly Customer-Focused
Create Brilliant Experiences
1
2
3
Execute Brilliantly: Rinse & Repeat4

9.
Find a problem worth solving?
?
?
?

10.
Reframing an existing human need

11.
The Holy Trinity | Primacy of User
Experience
“Focus on the user
and all else will follow”
“I am congenitally
customer focused”
“Design is how it works”

12.
Be Relentlessly Customer-Focused
“Make my life easier & better.
Understand me. Surprise me.”

13.
Create Experiences, Not Products
Lovable
Usable
Functional
Experiences
Product
Inspired by: Stephen P. Anderson
“Hooked on a Feeling”, Presented @ ISA 15
http://bit.ly/1P3vTV1

14.
Creating Lovable: A simple framework
Design
2
Insight
1
Execution
3

15.
Look familiar? Lean Startup
Build
Measure
Learn

16.
Execute Brilliantly: Elegant,
delightful experiences.
“The aim of marketing is to know and
understand the customer so well the
product or service fits him and sells
itself.”
user experience
Peter Drucker, Business Guru

17.
It all starts with insight…
“There's no magic
secret...focus on people
and their problems.”
Scott Berkun
http://bit.ly/1WpCsUp
“Debunking the Myths of Innovation”, UIE

18.
Building Insight | Toolbox

19.
Asking the right questions,
listening
Source: “The Mom Test”, by Rob Fitzpatrick, referenced in “Seven Lessons I learned from the failure of my first start-up”
https://medium.com/@michalbohanes/seven-lessons-i-learned-from-the-failure-of-my-first-startup-dinnr-c166d1cfb8b8

20.
Personas | Building a picture

21.
Design | Sketching & Wireframing
LogoutPrivacy | Terms | Help
Available balance
€356.26
as of 12:32 31st July 2011
Make a Payment
26/5/2011 Payment of €35 to John Smith
Welcome Oliver A.Baker (Initech)
Scan & PayPay
Receipts/
Cards & Accounts
refresh:
Transaction History
Connections
Add / Withdraw Funds
Settings
LogoutPrivacy | Terms | Help
Welcome Oliver A.Baker (Initech)
Home
Pay Arnotts Dublin the sum of
€35.00
Line Item One €10
Line Item Two € 25
Teller: Mary McDermott
Transaction ID: 1234567890
Date: 21st Feb 2001
Funding Source: My Wallet
Pay
Cancel
LogoutPrivacy | Terms | Help
Welcome Oliver A.Baker (Initech)
Home
Visa
Mastercard
Solo Card
Delta Air Miles Card
Brown Thomas Gift Card
Fuel Card
Wallet

22.
Design: Leverage existing patterns
Source: Zurb University: Library
http://zurb.com/university/library

23.
Sweating the little details

24.
Great content is great design

25.
Start with a Cupcake
“The quicker you
can get feedback
on what you’re
thinking the
better your idea
will be. Usage is
oxygen for ideas.”
Des Traynor
Source: “Start with a Cupcake”, Inside Intercom
http://bit.ly/1P3ySgh

26.
Prototyping | Building to Think

27.
PRÖVA | Two weeks to testable demo
Web
Tablet
Phone

28.
Prototype to sell: MoneySquared
TBan

29.
Beyond design & user experience
“Usability is not everything.
If usability engineers designed
a nightclub, it would be clean,
quiet, brightly lit, with lots
of places to sit down, plenty
of bartenders, menus written in
18-point sans-serif, and easy-
to-find bathrooms. But nobody
would be there. They would all
be down the street at Coyote
Ugly pouring beer on each
other.”
Joel Spolsky, CEO Fogcreek
Software & Inventor of Trello

30.
Secret Sauce: Team & Passion
“Every good product I've
ever seen is because a
group of people cared
deeply about making
something wonderful that
they and their friends
wanted. They wanted to
use it themselves.”
Obligatory Steve Jobs Quote
TM

31.
Be Brave | Dare to Delight
Source: “The First Ever Email, the First Tweet, and 10 Other Famous Internet Firsts”,
Business Insider, April 2013
http://yhoo.it/1htdgoC

32.
Final revolutionary thought
“Nothing can have value
without being an object
of utility. If the thing
is useless, so is the
labour contained in it.”
Das Kapital, Vol. I, end of Section 1, Chapter 1
Karl Marx, Philosopher & Revolutionary

33.
THANKS FOR LISTENING!
Morgan McKeagney
FRAMLABS
CEO, co-founder
email•morgan@framlabs.com
phone•+353 87 135 5197
twitter•morganmck
skype•morganmckeagney