
The Next Feature Fallacy - andrew_null
http://andrewchen.co/the-next-feature-fallacy-the-fallacy-that-the-next-new-feature-will-suddenly-make-people-use-your-product/
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billyhoffman
I've seen this fallacy used in startups by technical (co)founders to justify
procrastinating various other, "less interesting" parts of the business that
are vitally important. I've done it myself more times than I'd like to admit.

It is very easy to say "I need to add/improve feature X, fix bug Y, or
refactor Z" when what you really need to do is outbound sales activity,
balance your books, or write blog content. You may already not enjoy those
activities because they are some combination of hard, not fun, and something
you don't really understand. Couple that with some engineering task of
perceived equal importance, that you do know how to make progress on, and you
can almost convince yourself its really not procrastination.

The best solution I have seen is to track progress on a macro level, so that
product advancement is put on par with the other critical activities of the
business. Having someone kick your ass when other areas slip is very helpful.

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yeldarb
While I thoroughly enjoyed this blog post, this seems to not be in the spirit
of Hacker News:
[https://twitter.com/andrewchen/status/605422107028131840](https://twitter.com/andrewchen/status/605422107028131840)

"Can I ask people to upvote my submission?

No. Users should vote for a story because it's intellectually interesting, not
because someone is promoting it." via
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

~~~
minimaxir
Upvote begging (and knowingly using the /newest trick) is pretty unethical,
although fortunately uncommon in HN.

I'm working on a blog post about the problem of upvote begging. Usually, it's
in the minority of users, although some websites don't explicitly enforce it
well. (Case in point, Product Hunt makes upvote begging part of the _status
quo_ , which compromises the integrity of the site as a whole.)

~~~
cat9
It's common because the likelihood of escaping /newest on the basis of
"intellectually interesting" alone is miniscule. The traffic just doesn't work
that way.

Solve that, and you have much more traction to complain about what people
should or shouldn't be doing.

~~~
minimaxir
What? No it isn't. (See my submission history for URLs to minimaxir.com, and I
have negligible influence in the tech world)

Even then, two wrongs don't make a right. It comes down to luck, and sometimes
it doesn't pan out. "Growth hacking" to correct bad luck is not necessarily
ethical.

~~~
pyre
On the other hand, we can't act like the front page is a meritocracy either
when there is a significant element of luck involved. Would be be "growth
hacking" if I analyzed upvoting patterns to determine the "correct" time to
make a submission to maximize the chance of hitting the front page? Don't I
gain an advantage over someone that sees an interesting link and just
immediately submits it to HN?

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lqdc13
The other side of the coin is that there are many products that lack that one
feature that makes me not use them or makes me less interested in using them.

Example is sorting products by some variable or filtering products by some
property. If I can't do that, that means I have to write a greasemonkey script
and it is much easier to go to a competitor.

~~~
ChuckMcM
The challenging sales cycle (if there is one) is this, "If this feature were
added, would you commit to using this product?" that question is hard to ask
and answer in a web based freemium world. In the enterprise sales cycle I've
seen customers decline to buy 'for lack of a feature' and having that be a way
to say "no" without explicitly saying no. When I worked closely with the
enterprise account teams at NetApp that was always something to consider.

~~~
ryandrake
That's a good way to qualify features, too, so you don't end up building a
Franken-product full of half-baked ideas from people who aren't even paying
customers.

Bad salesperson: "Here's a laundry list of features that people say that
they'd want in our product. Go off and implement them to make my job easier."

Good salesperson: "I have a firm commitment from Company Abc that they'll buy
a 5,000 seat license if we implement this one feature. Is this a worthwhile
investment?"

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simonswords82
We've been guilty of this over at
[http://www.staffsquared.com](http://www.staffsquared.com). It's far too easy,
and sometimes fun, to build better/more features than the competition. It's
equally difficult for the sales department (and me at times!) to say "no" to
new feature requests from potential customers.

Conversely, the work to deep dive in to customer usage metrics that tell the
story of how users use the app and reach their "Aha!" moment is comparatively
dry and time consuming but nonetheless essential. We've set up a number of KPI
reports which tell a detailed story of where our triallists and paying
customers spend their time in the app and extract value.

We use a combination of Google Analytics and custom KPI reporting to watch
customers use the app. We've tried 3rd party apps, like Intercom and Mixpanel
but keep returning to google analytics.

So the good news is that we've identified key KPIs that tell us how likely a
trial is to convert. For example, we know that a triallist that has logged in
more than x times is > 90% likely to upgrade to paying. This is powerful, as
we don't invest time attempting to sell to these. Likewise, we now
automatically filter out customers that are not at all engaged with the app,
and aim to sell to just those that sit between the two extremes. We've also
taken the time to customise life cycle e-mails to triallists according to
their levels of engagement. Again, very time consuming work but essential and
very rewarding when the results are positive (more no/low touch upgrades =
more £'s).

Obviously all traillists regardless of engagement level get top notch support.
However I'm sure more sales intelligence could be shared with the support team
as they're also key to the selling cycle, albeit in a more reactive manner.
Support also need to feedback to the onboarding team, as support are front
line for people who get stuck and frustrated as a result during a trial.

I could talk at length on this subject, conversion rate optimisation is
something enjoy and definitely don't spend as much time as I would like
actively working on...

~~~
rokhayakebe
If people who have logged more than x times are 90% likely to upgrade, why
spend any time on them?

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grok2
Interesting insight with the "engagement wall" concept, but I wonder if
following this idea means you spend more time in "viral" features without
adding meat to your product basics. In the long run, you really want engaged
customers rather than casual customers (unless perhaps you can monetize the
casual users somehow).

~~~
DenisM
I think the point is to add features to the part of the lifecycle where you're
bleeding the most users.

The desired outcome is a certain number of engaged customers, but which part
of the lifecycle to target deserves serious consideration, certainly beyond
the all-too-popular default choice of "let's build a feature for a fully
engaged customer".

------
mildbow
I recommend a few tablespoons of salt with regards to this advice if you are a
B2B Saas/have a sales team. First experience is definitely important, but
features will always be something businesses will consider when deciding which
product to go with.

For B2B, the only way I've seen features move any curve positively is A) if
you have lost sales consistently due to a specific requirement[0], B) a
customer pays you to build a feature[1].

Note also that sometimes features are a great way to introduce sticky-
ness/price inelasticity in a B2B product: you just need a few people who
really love a specific feature and that 15k/m customer wont think about
switching.

Also, the 20% signup is pretty big based on my experience but maybe it's
standard for freemium+ B2C startups? For B2B Saas, I've been happy with 5%
with 8% being a cause for celebration after a bunch of copy/messaging
tweaking. Am I way off here? Would love some pointers if so.

[0] Note that this has to be a overwhelming consensus amoungst your sales
guys. It can't just be excuse du jour that's used when someone loses a sale. I
would also suggest listening to some lost sales calls: it might help you
ascertain whether the lost sales was due to the missing feature or if the
feature was just cited as being the cause.

[1] Only build it if you see it being a useful feature for the market and not
only that customer (so maybe integrating with twitter rather than the
customer's specific DB or something) then it's always a good idea to build the
feature. This is especially powerful if you are an underpriced new-comer
trying to lure customer away from the big names.

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Silhouette
Does an average web app really get 20% of visitors signing up, or are we
talking about a subset here, such as web apps running a freemium model? If any
of the (commercial) web apps I've worked on could get 20% of visitors to
actively start a sign-up process and 80% of those to complete it, everyone
involved would have been celebrating for weeks.

I'd guess most of the apps I'm familiar with are around an order of magnitude
lower, but none of them currently uses a freemium model. Some are considering
shifting to one, and if it really does get this dramatic a bump in initial
sign-ups in a typical case then that would be a good argument for doing it.

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matchagaucho
A 2% conversion rate is actually pretty good.

The attrition identified in the article may have less to do with having a
killer feature, and more to do with how an existing feature is marketed to the
correct audience.

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golemotron
It's drop dead hilarious that he ends with a solicitation for contacts for his
newsletter. I'd venture that his visit/signup/onboard curve is more severe
than the one he shows.

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moron4hire
So I get the takeaway to be: abandon all hope if you don't hit and capture
that big, first-day spike. Just move on to the next thing.

~~~
talmand
Yep, unless you are planning on catering to the long tail from the beginning.

