Product Habits - How remote work impacts trust

How to Understand Things

Pretty much everyone procrastinates, and no one likes that they do it. Much has been written about why we procrastinate, but it wasn't until I read this article that something clicked for me. A lot of the work we put off is thinking work. And of course we put it off— thinking hard takes a lot of effort, bravery, and integrity. It requires a certain amount of mental discomfort. Why wouldn't we avoid that?

But, as is the case with many other rewarding things in life, the results we desire require some level of discomfort. I really appreciated this reminder that to be a great thinker—to truly understand things, and then be able to apply them in meaningful ways—we have to change our relationship with the discomfort of big thinking work. I have a feeling if we do that, we'll start tackling our most challenging (and rewarding) work with enthusiasm instead of putting it on the back burner. 

Why You Make Terrible Decisions—and How to Stop

Us humans are not the best at decision making. In other words, it's all too easy for us to make decisions where the risk is high and the opportunity to gain is little. Mark Manson says we do this for three main reasons: our poor perception of time, the seduction of social status, and the influence of our emotions. I think he's spot on. Here's a deeper explanation about each one—and what we can do to skirt those challenges and make better decisions in the future. 

When Your Co-Worker Does Great Work, Tell Their Manager

This is a prime example of how a small action can have great impact. I love the suggestion of sharing the great work you observe in a co-worker with their manager, but there's a certain etiquette and process to doing this well. In this article, you'll find a breakdown of how and when to share positive feedback—and why it's so important to ask for permission from the person you're giving positive feedback about first. 

Does Your SaaS Product Stack Up?

OpenView Partners put together a SaaS Product Benchmarks Report so operators can see how they are performing relative to their peers across the most important metrics. There are some interesting takeaways in here about freemium vs. free trial, most popular user acquisition channels, and natural growth rates. Does any of this data surprise you?

Science-Backed Tips on Designing App Store Creatives

Did you know there are 4.4 billion apps on the App Store and Google Play Store? That is a crazy amount of noise to compete with if you're launching an app. So what is the best way to design your visual assets to drive attention and conversions? Here are some useful science-backed tips on what works best. These aren't difficult to test, and they are likely to save you a lot of headache with unnecessary experiments down the road. 

Top 15 SaaS Customer Success Metrics to Track in 2020

I'm a big fan of measuring customer success, and I don't think enough companies focus on it. In my opinion, it's the best way to get a feel for how well your customers understand and use the full value of your product, as well as how likely they are to remain active users and recommend what you offer to others. If you want to get better at measuring customer success, here are 15 metrics you should be tracking. 

The New Era of Enterprise Go-to-Market

So much is changing at once. In addition to shifts in macro trends that are changing underlying technology, we're also experiencing a major change in customer buying behavior. The traditional sales cycle is collapsing as, more and more often, the product adoption decision maker is the end user. This is a thoughtful glimpse into how that change is creating a new enterprise go-to-market era.

The Four Factors of Building Trust: Do They Get Affected By Working Remotely?

We talk about trust a lot in romantic partnerships, but not nearly as often in working relationships. Trusting your team is critically important—not just for doing good work, but for being satisfied at work. I really enjoyed this read about the four factors that contribute to building trust, and how each of them is impacted in a remote work environment.