There’s always room for one more; thoughts on competition

In many spheres of life, we often spend a lot of time analyzing and focusing on who/what we perceive as “our competition”. This can be in business, in social circles, and almost anywhere. I believe there’s always room for one more, and competition can actually be very healthy for everyone involved.

As I write this, I’m sitting at a Bootlegger Coffee Company in Cape Town. Bootlegger opened up almost out of nowhere, with a few stores across Cape Town, in a style reminiscent of a Starbucks (dark leather, good coffee, free WiFi, and a food menu). This is not too dissimilar to other coffee companies in Cape Town; Seattle Coffee Company (I wonder how they came up with that name), Mugg ‘n Bean, and Vida e Caffe. When Bootlegger first opened, I heard two main schools of thought; “how are they going to survive as a business” and “this looks really exciting, yet it’s nothing new”.

Continue reading →

Why transparency wins customers

You know, I so often experience small moments of gratitude, in which I then attempt to remind myself to blog about those moments “at some point in the future”. Today, I’m rectifying that by blogging about two such moments right away.

I worked this morning at The Hatch, a small local coffee shop by the beach nearby to me. The staff there are friendly and attentive, and always go above and beyond to assist, despite the establishment not being very busy, which could easily result in a dip in motivation. They’re open and honest, and always friendly. Continue reading →

Allowing yourself to switch gears

You’ve found a customer segment who really needs your product, developed a minimum viable version of your product and have launched to your market. Your customers are purchasing your product with roars of cheer and glee. What you do next is what you’ll be doing for the foreseeable future of your business; maintaining your product. While extremely important, maintenance of a single product can sometimes become repetitive. It can be great to switch gears from time to time.

Today, I’ll run through a few ideas on how to avoid the repetition as much as possible. Continue reading →

Knowing what you like

Many folks, when asked what they like, proclaim to know. Using movies as an example, many would say “I like action movies” or “I like a good comedy”. I don’t believe this is the most accurate response. Today, I’d like to unpack why I believe this. Continue reading →

Removing limitations to achieve success

All too often we are faced with roadblocks, hurdles and limitations within everything we do. Whether it’s in our personal, work or digital lives, there are often items which stand in the way of us achieving our goals. Success, however, comes flooding through when we remove or refactor these limiting beliefs.

Today, I’d like to share the story of how I removed a limitation, and submitted my first patch to WordPress core in the process. Continue reading →

Being flexible with your own schedule

For my regular readers out there, you’ll notice I’ve been blogging consistently each Monday afternoon for several months… until last week. I missed my deadline for posting and was quite displeased with myself for doing so.

That being said, missing my streak gave me time to consider the concept of the streak, how I felt when I missed it and how to get back up on the horse from then on. This post is a result of these thoughts. Continue reading →

On confidence and perception

I’ve recently been thinking a lot about the role perception plays in how we respond to life and how we receive the various inputs the world has to offer. One particular thought has been around the role confidence plays in shaping our perception. Continue reading →

Structure as fuel

In many perceptions, structure is synonymous with “boundaries”, “limitations”, and “restrictions”. This is often the perception of the creative thinker. “Don’t box me in” is an often used phrase. As a product person, I feel the role of a product person within a software team is to bridge the gap between how creatives and how analytical thinkers perceive structure. I see structure as fuel. Continue reading →

Having a “No Meetings” zone

This week, I’ve begun doing a rotation with our support team at Automattic. Every Automattician does this as part of their on-boarding, as this helps to learn the systems, tools and users we’re interacting with every day. For me, this additionally helps to learn more about the users we’re building products for, which is a huge added bonus towards our user-centric approach to product development. Through this week, my work time demands 100% of my focus to be on the support rotation. I take this very seriously and am 110% focussed on learning as much as I can. This means, of course, postponing or moving any meetings I have on my calendar. This brought about some interesting and exciting results, which I’ll be exploring further here. Continue reading →

The lean startup loop

When building your product, it’s important to get off the ground correctly by finding your first customers, gathering customer feedback and shipping your first minimum viable product. Once your product has launched and your market is enjoying what you have to offer, there is an important approach to take to ensure you’re staying relevant, satisfying your customers and enhancing your product to continue adding value. Today, I’ll run through the approach of what I refer to as the Lean Startup Loop. Continue reading →