Inspired

Decoding the Alchemy of Exceptional Products

The Secret Sauce

What really catapults a product from the realm of the 'meh' to the illustrious heights of 'WOW'? Is there a secret recipe? A Da Vinci Code of product design?

Well, you can stop wondering because Marty Cagan, has brewed up answers in his much-acclaimed book "Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love". First hitting the shelves in 2008 and subsequently beefed up with a second edition in 2018, this book has become something of a Product Management 101, the Google Maps for those on the journey to consumer's hearts and wallets.

So, what, pray tell, is the secret sauce?

According to Cagan, the core ingredient, the sriracha in your pho, is an exceptional product manager.And a successful product manager brings the following four critical contributions you need to bring to your team:

Deep knowledge:

1. of your customer

2. of the data

3. of your business and its stakeholders, and

4. of your market and industry.

Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution

"Products should start with a product vision in which the product team falls in love with the problem, not the solution".

To me, one of the most influential messages conveyed in the book is the concept of "falling in love with the problem, not the solution." The idea behind this phrase is simple yet profound: a product manager should become deeply engaged with understanding the user’s problems rather than becoming fixated on specific solutions.

The book showcases the example of eBay's "Buy It Now" feature. The story goes that "Buy It Now" was initially seen as a potentially disastrous feature. Many at eBay thought it would undercut the thrilling, core experience of auction bidding. However, the real problem that needed to be addressed was the user's desire for immediacy — not everyone enjoyed the anticipation and delay of the auction process. "Buy It Now" ultimately became an enormously popular feature.

Before Uber replaced traditional taxi services, users faced numerous problems - such as the difficulty in hailing a cab during peak hours, fare negotiation, and lack of transparency in the pricing process. Uber didn’t just replicate the taxi model in a digital format; instead, they delved deep into these problems and provided solutions for each one – a mobile app to hail a ride from anywhere, a transparent pricing mechanism, and a cashless transaction system. By focusing on these user problems, Uber was able to disrupt an entire industry with their solution.

Product over Project

Cagan encourages teams to think beyond the traditional constraints of projects, which are often bounded by fixed timelines, resources, and scope. Project management focuses on delivering a set of features or changes within a fixed time frame, often focusing on meeting deadlines and ticking boxes, rather than creating value.

This mentality often leads to a focus on delivering output (the features, changes) rather than outcome (the impact or value derived from those features).

In contrast, a product mindset focuses on delivering outcomes, where the success metric is not whether a set of features were delivered on time, but whether these features positively impacted customer behavior and achieved the desired objectives.

The "product over project" mantra, therefore, is a call to shift from output-based thinking to outcome-based thinking. It's a reminder that while timelines, budgets, and feature lists are important, the ultimate focus should always be on the product and its ability to deliver value to the customers over time.

The Mini CEO

"What it really means for a PM to be the CEO of Product is testing business viability: listening to Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, Finance, Legal, BD, Security, etc. before building the product".

Another area where the book draws criticism is in its oversimplification of the role of a product manager. His vision of the product manager as a mini-CEO is probably what made the book popular - I am sure the PMs who saw themselves as CEOs increasingly liked and recommended the book. However, this perspective can create unrealistic expectations and misunderstanding about the role. A product manager should ideally be a facilitator who brings the team together and helps everyone focus on the customer, rather than acting as the sole decision-maker.

A Thousand Words for a Picture

For a book speaking so much about the power of UX, this book is 100% words. No charts, no diagrams, no illustrations. There is no one-view process diagram / map to illustrate their process.

No UX.

100% words.

It does not help that there are tons of chapters, all very short, and written like LinkedIn posts. Even worse, the author has a tendency to go off on a tangent. and ramble. As a result the ideas feel shattered, leaving much room for further exploration and development. There aren’t any full-length case studies to learn from, just some single page stories from successful PMs.

This makes it hard to follow along and know where you are in the process, and also absurdly counter to much of what the book preaches - in terms of communicating ideas efficiently!

The Sum of It's Parts

Overall, "Inspired" still manages to serve as a valuable guide, especially for those new to the world of product management. I enjoyed reading the book, it's easy conversational style, the wit and the anecdotes. However, it was also easily observable that the relevance of the book is somewhat fading to the changing realities of the startup world.

Despite showing signs of its age, the book will remain a seminal piece of literature that continues to spark relevant conversations, and hopefully motivate you to create products that customers truly love.

I wholeheartedly recommend it. 

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