We track Product so you don't have to. Top Podcasts summarised, the latest AI tools, plus research and news in a 5 min digest.

Hey Product fans!

Welcome to this week’s 🌮 Product Tapas. If you’ve been forwarded this you can sign up and check previous editions here.

What’s cooking? 🧑‍🍳 

📰 Not Boring - Another week os stacked product and tech news! TikTok is experimenting with AI-generated avatars in ads, while also launching a new photo-sharing app called Whee. YouTube is trying out Notes, a feature for adding context to videos through crowdsourcing. Meanwhile, the US Surgeon General is advocating for tobacco-like warning labels on social media. On the AI front, Anthropic introduces Claude 3.5 Sonnet, praised as a top writing assistant. In the corporate world, Dell faces a significant remote work rebellion, and SpaceX reveals its new portable ‘Starlink Mini’. Hot off the back of WWDC Apple has had another busy week, making waves with several product updates and decisions. Plus, Snapchat, Meta, and Spotify have all rolled out new features. Read on to find out what!

⌚ Time-Saving Tools & GPTs - This week’s selection includes DomoAI for transforming static images into dynamic videos, Olvy for centralized customer feedback analysis, and Site Forge for rapid website generation. Also, check out Doly for quick 3D product video creation, Tinybird for real-time data analytics, Flowriver for competitor app screen mapping, and teamcreate for AI-driven task management across various departments.

🍔 Blog Bites - Our essential reads this week start with a Ben Evans essay on building AI products, tackling the complexities of creating products using tech that sometimes gets things wrong. Once again we’ve got some UX Bites from Peter Ramsay, this time featuring tips on enhancing user engagement and conversion. Elena Vera breaks down the multifaceted role of Growth Teams, providing valuable perspectives from industry leaders. Finally, Andrew Chen’s contrarian take on routines challenges the conventional productivity hacks.

🎙️ Pod Shots - This week’s highlight is a brilliant episode from Lenny’s Podcast featuring Tanguy Crusson of Atlassian. He shares his journey and lessons from building products from zero to one within a large organisation. Amongst other things he covers creating a startup-like environment to foster innovation, strategically breaking rules to innovate without losing trust, and the importance of working closely with a dedicated group of users for iterative development. Plus, practical advice on managing competitive pressure and balancing innovation with stability.

Plenty to get stuck into - off we go! 🚀👇

📰 Not boring

• YouTube is experimenting with Notes, a crowdsourced feature that lets users add context to videos

• The US surgeon general wants tobacco-like warning labels on social media

• All things AI

  • Anthropic launched it’s newest model Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Previous versions are generally seen as the best writing assistant so well worth a try if that’s your thing

  • Target leans in on AI with new tool for store employees to help answer questions about processes and procedures

  • Snapchat Adds AI-Powered Tools to Build AR Effects such as switching clothing, changing your background, or turn text prompts into filters

  • Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s former chief scientist, launches new AI company

  • Notion launches Notion AI connectors “integrating information across your work apps and GPT-4’s general knowledge. Teams can get answers and gain context, no matter where the information lives”

  • TikTok ads may soon contain AI-generated avatars of your favourite creators

    • They also announced a new standalone photo sharing app (whee) that looks a lot like Instagram (I’m sure this will have AI too)

• Earlier this year, Dell said return to the office or else—nearly half of workers chose “or else”

• SpaceX unveils backpack-sized ‘Starlink Mini’ satellite internet antenna for $599

• Apple reportedly gives up on Vision Pro 2, focusing on cheaper model instead

  • Whilst we’re on Apple, the new iOS 18 API (AccessorySetupKit) brings AirPods setup experience to third-party accessories. Nice.

  • They’re also scrapping its ‘buy now, pay later’ service in US just months after rollout, but will offer the option to do so using Affirm’s offer instead

  • To finish up a broad set of Apple news, for the pro camera fins out there, they’ve released a new Final Cut Camera app on iOS

• Meta forms new Wearables group to build on the success of its RayBan smart glasses

• Spotify quietly lets all podcasters upload videos, and surpasses 250K shows

• Amazon’s new Alexa is behind schedule it seems

• Twitter/X H1 2023 was down c40% YoY losing nearly half a billion dollars in the first quarter. OOF

• China’s food delivery giant Meituan is attracting lower-income consumers by offering discounted meals if multiple people in the neighbourhood order from the same restaurant. Interesting to see if that is copied elsewhere.

  Want even more news?? View more here → 

⌚️ Time-Saving Tools & GPTs

• DomoAI: Turn static images into dynamic videos and change videos into completely different styles

• Olvy: Stay close to your customers; bring surveys, interviews, reviews support tickets and sales calls together in one workspace to analyse with AI

• Site Forge: generate sitemaps, wireframes and content for websites in minutes

• Doly: “Generate outstanding 3D product videos with speed and ease.” (iphone only)

• Tinybird: Real-time data analytics - “Ingest batch and streaming data. Query using SQL. Publish as APIs.”

• Flowriver: Map out competitors app screens in no time

• teamcreate: “AI workers for finance, sales, marketing, product and more - AI coworkers that go beyond assistants. Assign them tasks, connect to 200+ apps and tools and communicate via slack and email”. This sounds wild (and frankly too good to be true), would love to hear experiences of those that try this one IRL…

🍔 Blog Bites - Essential Reads for Product Teams

Opinion: Building AI Products

I’m a huge fan of Benedict Evans’ newsletter as he has some of the best takes which often come at things from a point of view I hadn’t previously considered. Here’s a longer-form essay on Building AI Products that again does just that. Well worth a few minutes of your time.

Case Study: UX Bites - Babbel, Soundcloud and More

Another week another link to builtformars.com it’s got 100% hit rate in my eyes so as long as that continues I’ll keep linking up Peter Ramsay’s work.

This week’s UX Bites brings examples of “reducing time-to-value”, “creating curiosity”, “dynamic notification prompts”, “leveraging early progress” and a short a neat trick to encourage users to experience the paid for version of an app.

Learn: So what does a Growth Team do anyway?

Another great piece from Elena Vera (the go-to on growth). As she starts her piece “Growth. We all know what it is, right? But how do you actually define it? Is it marketing, product, mindset, or a… hacker!?”

Here she pulls 5 of her favourite definitions of Growth Teams:

Productivity: The case against morning yoga, daily routines, and endless meetings

Here’s an interesting contrarian take from Andrew espousing the benefits of the ”anti-routine” as a way to increase serendipity and randomness. Lots of this resonates (although not all for me) so worth checking out.

🎙️ Pod Shots

I’ve mentioned previously that I try to avoid just including a write up of Lenny’s Podcast every week, but here we are doing a second in just a couple of weeks. As I don’t always get to cover much about the bigger businesses I had to capitulate and include last week’s episode with Tanguy Crusson. He’s head of Jira Product Discovery at Atlassian and covered his journey and lessons of building products from zero to one in a large organisation. I thought he was great, really humble and absolutely jam packed with practical advice (a running theme of podcasts I like it seems….).

⚒️ Hard-won Lessons Building 0 to 1 Inside Atlassian

🎥 Watch the full episode here 

📆 Published: June 16th, 2024

🕒 Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes. Time saved: 112 minutes🔥 

🚀 Creating Scarcity in a Resource-Rich Environment

Key Advice: Mimic startup conditions by creating a sense of scarcity.

In a large company like Atlassian, resources are abundant, but this can lead to overinvestment and slowed progress. Creating a sense of scarcity helps drive focus and urgency, essential components of a startup environment. Tanguy emphasises the importance of reminding everyone that failure is likely, which helps to keep efforts lean and focused on the most critical tasks.

Takeaways:

• Foster Urgency: Emulate the starvation conditions of startups to drive focus and pace.

• Lean Team Structure: Keep the team small and autonomous to avoid over investment and maintain agility.

• Prepare for Failure: Constantly remind the team that failure is a possible outcome to keep efforts lean and focused.

🏴‍☠️ Breaking Rules Without Breaking Trust

Key Advice: Innovate by breaking established rules carefully to avoid damaging trust.

Starting new projects often requires bending or breaking existing rules. Tanguy highlights the importance of doing this without breaking the trust of the organisation. By leveraging social capital and focusing on essential outcomes, it’s possible to innovate effectively.

Takeaways:

• Build Social Capital: Accumulate trust within the organisation to support rule-bending initiatives.

• Strategic Rule-Breaking: Break rules that hinder progress, but do so transparently and with the support of leadership.

• Focus on Outcomes: Keep the focus on delivering essential outcomes rather than adhering strictly to existing processes.

🔍 Lighthouse Users Program

Key Advice: Develop and iterate products with a small, dedicated group of users.

The Lighthouse Users Program at Atlassian involves working closely with a select group of users to refine the product before scaling. This approach ensures that the product meets real user needs and can scale effectively.

Takeaways:

• Start Small: Begin with a small group of users to test and iterate on the product.

• Focus on Feedback: Use direct user feedback to drive development and improvements.

• Scale Gradually: Expand the user base slowly, ensuring each phase meets quality and usability standards.

🏗️ Innovate Away from the Core Product

Key Advice: Develop new products outside the main product ecosystem to allow for more experimentation and freedom.

Developing new products within the confines of an existing ecosystem can stifle innovation. Tanguy’s team created a separate environment within Jira to experiment with new ideas without affecting existing users.

Takeaways:

• Separate Environment: Incubate ideas in a distinct area for experimentation that doesn’t interfere with core products.

• Iterate Independently: Allow for independent iteration and testing to refine the product concept.

• Integrate When Ready: Only integrate successful innovations into the main product once they are fully validated.

💡 Communicate Progress Effectively

Key Advice: Maintain transparent and frequent communication to keep stakeholders informed and engaged.

Effective communication is crucial in maintaining support for new initiatives. Regular updates on progress, challenges, and user feedback help build trust and keep the momentum going.

Takeaways:

• Regular Updates: Provide frequent, concise updates to stakeholders to keep them informed and engaged.

• Showcase Progress: Use demos and user testimonials to highlight progress and build support.

• Balance Transparency: Be honest about challenges and setbacks to manage expectations realistically.

🧗‍♂️ Managing Competitive Pressure

Key Advice: Focus on user needs rather than competitor actions.

It’s easy to become fixated on competitors, but this can lead to reactive decision-making. Instead, Tanguy advises focusing on understanding and addressing user needs, which ultimately drives better product development.

Takeaways:

• User-Centric Focus: Prioritise user needs and feedback over competitor actions.

• Long-Term Vision: Develop a long-term vision based on user insights rather than short-term competitive moves.

• Avoid Myopia: Resist the urge to react to every competitor update; instead, stay true to your product vision.

🧠 Balancing Innovation and Stability

Key Advice: Protect the core business while allowing for innovation.

Innovating within a large organisation requires balancing the need for new products with the stability of existing ones. Tanguy’s approach of creating a separate innovation space within Jira allowed for experimentation without disrupting the core user experience.

Takeaways:

• Protect Core Users: Ensure that new innovations don’t negatively impact existing users.

• Separate Innovation: Create distinct innovation areas to allow for more freedom and creativity.

• Controlled Rollout: Use a phased rollout approach to manage risk and ensure stability.

🌟 Final Thoughts

Building new products within a large organisation like Atlassian is challenging but achievable with the right strategies. By creating a sense of scarcity, breaking rules strategically, working closely with users, and maintaining transparent communication, product managers and founders can successfully navigate the zero-to-one journey.

Key Takeaways:

• Create Scarcity: Drive focus and urgency by mimicking startup conditions.

• Break Rules Strategically: Innovate by carefully breaking rules without losing trust.

• Engage Users: Develop and iterate with a small group of dedicated users.

• Communicate Effectively: Maintain transparent and frequent communication with stakeholders.

• Focus on Users: Prioritise user needs over competitor actions.

• Balance Innovation and Stability: Protect the core business while allowing for innovation.

Want to know more quickly? Just ask the episode below [web only]👇️ 🤯 
or if you prefer, 🎥 Watch the full episode here 

📅 Timestamps:

• [00:00:54] Creating space for innovation.

• [00:03:14] Product Management at Atlassian.

• [00:09:45] Launching new products in big companies.

• [00:13:09] HipChat as Slack killer.

• [00:18:50] Dealing with startup failure.

• [00:24:23] The power of user influence.

• [00:29:10] Learning from competition's mistakes.

• [00:36:02] Atlassian and operations tooling.

• [00:40:23] Culture shock in acquisitions.

• [00:49:08] Pitching new IT operations product.

• [00:55:11] Drive and Passion in Innovation.

• [01:02:08] Emulating a startup environment.

• [01:08:21] Incubating new product ideas.

• [01:22:13] Safety Funnel concept.

• [01:50:54] Freediving and breath-holding techniques.

That’s a wrap.

As always, the journey doesn't end here!

Please share and let us know what you would like to see more or less of so we can continue to improve your Product Tapas. 🚀👋

Alastair 🍽️.