🗞 What's New: Design thinking for building quickly

Have you tried the "design thinking" framework?

• Design thinking can help you come up with ideas, test them quickly, and iterate. Empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test, following the guide below.
• Does your company culture secretly suck? Here's how to determine whether your culture needs work, and how you can turn things around!
• Founder Pradeep Malakar hit $1,000 in total revenue in one week with SEOBox, his AI PR request monitoring tool. Below, he shares how he used lifetime deals to hit this milestone.

Want to share something with over 75,000 indie hackers? Reply to this email. —Channing

💭 Design Thinking for Founders

by Daniela

There is no rulebook for founders, and that can be both empowering and terrifying at the same time! But the design thinking methodology can make it easier to come up with ideas, test them quickly, and iterate until you find the best solutions for your users.

I’m a UX designer and founder, and I used design thinking to release version two for my platform, ctrlalt.cc, in just a couple of weeks!

What is design thinking?

Tim Brown from IDEO gives a great definition for design thinking:

Let's dig into how it works.

Empathize

As you’ve guessed, this step is all about understanding who you are building for, and what their problems are. In a standard model, this is where you would create user personas, conduct user interviews, and collect as much knowledge about your users as possible.

Define your project based on the problems that you are trying to solve. Don’t have any users yet? This still works. Think about who you are building for, find them on social media or IRL, and start talking to them. A percentage will want to help you out and answer a few questions, which is all you need right now! Start asking them about the problem you are trying to solve. See what solutions they currently use, and find out what they don’t like about them.

Define

Use the information that you've gathered to dive a bit deeper into understanding your target audience's problems.

An exercise that I find handy at this point is writing these problems down on Post-it notes (physical or digital ones), using one Post-it per problem. Then, start to group them together by aligning similar issues.

You’ll start to see some clusters forming, and that will help you identify the areas that you should be focusing on.

Ideate

Most exercises focus on team brainstorming. I like to start with an exercise called “How Might We,” where you look at the problems from your focus cluster (from step two), and reframe them into solution-seeking questions.

Follow this structure: How might we (action)...for which user...so that (outcome).

For example: How might we focus more on daily activities for founders so that their products get the spotlight more often?

Other helpful exercises include:

• Looking at how other products answer your questions.
• Sketching out some potential solutions: “The Crazy Eights Exercise” is perfect for this.

Prototype

The prototype can be as minimal as you want it to be, but the important thing here is that your core solution is functional.

Test

Now that you have a functional version of your idea, you have to get it in front of people to gather feedback and iterate.

You might have to go back to step two and redefine the problems after you’ve presented users with a solution that may not be quite right for them. Or, maybe your solution is not as smooth as it could be, which would mean going back to step three. This is all part of the process, and you should do this as many times as needed!

It’s not a linear process, so you will go through this cycle over and over again!

Will you give this framework a try? Share your thoughts below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko

📱 Telegram will add Stories this month.

🤖 Seven serious risks that you face by using AI for marketing.

💲 Here's the inaugural YC top companies list, by revenue.

🔎 New insights into what Gen Z consumers want from brands.

🎭 The fascinating economics of Broadway shows.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

👎 Does Your Company Culture Secretly Suck?

from the Hustle Newsletter by Kristin Egan

Today's companies are positioning "culture" at the forefront of their strategic plans, but what exactly is workplace culture?

*The 2023 four best global cultures. Source: Comparably

The short answer: Culture is everything.

As a founder, how do you know if your culture secretly sucks? And how can you fix it if it does? Luckily, the solutions are simple.

Pay comes first, period

A raise, bonus, or promotion > public recognition of a job well done.

If you're pumping up the latter, while ignoring the former, you've likely got a company culture that secretly sucks.

*Those who quit found jobs that paid more than the jobs they left. Source: Pew Research Center

Here's how you can stay on top of this:

• Take the hints: Some employees will be vocal about wanting higher compensation, while others will just leave. While you might think an employee is just slyly poking around for a raise, they've probably been agonizing over feeling undervalued. Prioritize that.
• Surprise and delight: Keep a discretionary pool handy to reward employees with one-off bonuses when they've taken on extra work or achieved superior results. A little can go a long way.
• Check in regularly: Most companies have compensation and role advancement discussions only once per year. This is an archaic practice, given the pace of today's labor markets.
• Don't hire people you can't afford: They may agree to a pay cut because they're desperate to leave an insufferable boss, or they may have been enticed by your "amazing culture." However, they likely won't stick around long. This could have a hugely negative impact on culture, and cost more in the long run.

Don't drop the accountability ball

As important as it is to pay your stars, it's equally as important to buck up and make tough decisions when folks are underperforming.

If your "positive culture" is inhibiting managers' willingness to confront accountability challenges head-on, then your sunshine and rainbows workplace has a dark underbelly. How can you fix this?

• Nip it in the bud: Don't let a problem fester.
• Kill ambiguity: Introduce clear chains of command and project ownership.
• Zero toxicity tolerance: While a positive culture should include constructive coaching for underperformance, it's unreasonable to expect employees to deal with toxic teammates.

Prioritize the workplace attributes that matter most, and you'll build a great company culture that doesn't secretly suck.

Have you assessed your company culture lately? Let's chat below!

Subscribe to the Hustle Newsletter for more.

🌐 Best Around the Web: Posts Submitted to Indie Hackers This Week

💻 Driving traffic to your landing page. Posted by Tidyrise.

🏋️‍♀️ Nerds becoming jocks is the biggest trend in tech. Posted by Channing Allen.

😫 Can I just code instead of doing marketing? Posted by GeneratedCode.

📆 Share your AI startup if you built it within a week! Posted by Jack.

🤩 Who are the indie hackers to watch in 2023? Posted by Toni.

💸 Getting traffic without paid ads. Posted by Alexander Agleham.

Want a shout-out in next week's Best of Indie Hackers? Submit an article or link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across something you think other indie hackers will enjoy.

💰 Pradeep Malakar Hit $1K in One Week

by Pradeep Malakar

Hi, indie hackers! I'm Pradeep Malakar, and our new SaaS product, SEOBox,hit $1K in revenue within the first week of launching our beta version!

Here's how!

The LTD

One key factor that significantly contributed to our success was the exclusive $29 lifetime deal (LTD) that we offered to our beta users (the offer is still live, by the way!).

This unique proposition provided irresistible value that encouraged users to, not only try our product during the beta phase, but also become long-term, committed customers.

It also created a strong sense of loyalty and advocacy among our beta users. They felt valued and recognized for their support and contributions, which further fueled positive word-of-mouth.

The campaign

The LTD was accompanied by a comprehensive marketing campaign that strategically highlighted the immense value and benefits of our product. We leveraged various channels, including social media, targeted ads, and email marketing. Clear and concise messaging, combined with compelling visuals, made this campaign a success.

Wrapping up

The combination of a compelling offer, effective marketing, and a highly desirable product resulted in the revenue milestone that we achieved within just one week.

As we continue to refine and enhance our product, we remain dedicated to creating additional value for our customers. While the LTD was a limited-time offer, we will continually strive to provide ongoing benefits and rewards for our loyal user base. Keep your loyal users engaged and excited is truly the key.

Together, let's continue to push boundaries, achieve new milestones, and shape the future of our industries!

Discuss this story.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Daniela, Darko, Kristin Egan, and Pradeep Malakar for contributing posts. —Channing