How to Design Insanely Great Products
Inspiration from Steve Jobs for Associations on the Move
Summary
Associations are purpose-driven organizations. We exist to serve, and create value for, members. At our most basic, we provide benefits in exchange for a fee; at our best, we are communities of innovation where members engage fully as agents of impact.
The value we create is much more than our standard offerings of events, content, and learning. It is powerfully linked to community (who we hang with, learn from, and mutually challenge) and long-term connection (how we make each other better, gain new perspective, and make collective impact).
Everyone cites Apple and Steve Jobs as the best examples of innovation. The magic is not just designing great products, but how this value creates momentum, connection, and a thriving community of practice.
I lead the product community, a product development learning community designed specifically for associations. Let’s compare ideas and build something great.
We Exist To Create Value
“People are easily distracted. We're wired to focus our attention on tangible things that we can see and touch to the point that we overlook the importance of intangible experiences and feelings: But when you're creating a new product, regardless of whether it's made of atoms or electrons, for businesses or consumers, the actual thing you're building is only one tiny part of a vast, intangible, overlooked user journey that starts long before a customer ever gets their hands on your product and ends long after.”
Tony Fadell
Associations are member communities. This means our sole focus is to create great value to keep members connected, engaged, and focused enough to make progress on important problems. Innovation is more incremental than most people think; it’s the nudges and mindset shifts that help us see the world together in new ways. It, therefore, serves as the bridge that connects healthy communities with a steady stream of great value.
Instead of thinking of our offerings as vertical silos, I favor designing member-centric experiences that push them to engage, collaborate, and help shape the future. In this way, I believe that everything we create, deliver, or facilitate should be driven by the same criteria. In this way, the member comes first and we shift from offering benefits to creating and sustaining value journeys.
Here are some highlights from the book Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson related to building a product:
Question everything. Challenge assumptions and well-worn conventions when building a product. Don't just accept the status quo or what the competition is doing. What fresh perspective can you take?
Aim for simplicity. Make this true in both product design and user experience. We tend to overthink things which in turn leads to over-engineering or over-complicating things.
Build on failure. Build on top of the existing by identifying customer pain points that competitors fail to adequately solve. Create an amazingly better experience with your product.
Emphasize quality. Be obsessed with making the absolute best product possible, don't settle for good enough. This applies to your MVP too. In as much as it is the minimum viable product, make it the best that it can be.
Borrow + enhance. Shamelessly take inspiration from other product ideas, both revolutionary and otherwise. Curate them and improve on them.
Push boundaries. Build a product that you would be proud of as your legacy that pushes boundaries in new and creative ways.
Deliver the right value. Focus on nailing your product's core value proposition, don't get distracted by the next shiny thing. This is especially true in this era of AI hype where everything is slapped as AI, don't let this distract you from what you are building. Users do not care about your internal processes; they care about getting their itch scratched.
Here is the original document recreated and posted on X by Felix Lee.
These are not the only criteria to design insanely great products, but by listing them we pay allegiance to the importance of an anchor to tie together our vision, actions, values, and behaviors. Our overall mindset is to obsess about creating an insanely great product experience through bold thinking, intense focus, simplicity and by dismissing constraints.
Start Now
“And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.”
Franciscan Prayer
Future-centric associations both embrace, and invest in, innovation. This means that while we create healthy, engaged communities, we also choose to challenge the status quo. In challenging the status quo, we take enough risk (often enough) to fail. This is the advice I give my kids (and other young people). Some of our greatest sources of learning come from failure. It’s how we gain perspective, feel empathy, learn new skills, and become open collaborators. It’s how we get better.
If the above criteria don’t work for you, please create your own. The most critical thing is that we continually try something new. Yes, we need tried-and-true stable operations, a strong vision, and healthy culture, but these things don’t mean much if we’re not sufficiently prepared to tackle what’s coming.
I lead the product community; we are a learning community because we believe great relationships help us create the value our members want. Remember, product-led growth fuels connection. Join the product community and flip your destiny.
About the Author
James Young is founder and chief learning officer of the product community®. Jim is an engaging trainer and leading thinker in the worlds of associations, learning communities, and product development. Prior to starting the product community®, Jim served as Chief Learning Officer at both the American College of Chest Physicians and the Society of College and University Planning. Please contact me for a conversation: james@productcommunity.us