David and Jenna discuss significant shifts in the streaming world, how the team is designing Reelgood’s features to supplement them, as well as the most important lessons he learned at Facebook.
Insights from David
On Building Reelgood for the Future
- “We want to be the interface that when you sit down on your couch at the end of the day we can say: ‘This is what you’re going to watch tonight.’ That’s it. We want you to start watching without having to curate anything. We’re thinking far beyond movies and shows and plan on adding Snapchat stories, YouTube videos, and more to round out your experience.”
On Insightful User Testing
- “Bring someone in, have them use your product, ask you questions, and then let them leave. The real test is whether they ask you the name of your product. You don’t tell them. That’s the best way to see if someone actually likes what you’re building. If they don’t ask, they don’t see ample value that they will realistically use.”
- “We found Usertesting.com to be incredibly insightful. You can watch someone navigate your app for 30 minutes and they’re talking while they are using it. It’s total stream of consciousness. There’s no social pressure like when you bring someone into your office and they know that the three people standing in front of them bet their life on this thing. They give you totally unfiltered feedback.”
On Magical Product Design
- “The one thing to remember is: Nobody cares about your product. It may mean a lot to you, but the person who sees your product doesn’t know or care about you. You have literally one second to make an impression. Your product has to be amazing and people need to understand it right away.”
- “People crave magical experiences. They need an app to do exactly what they want it to do and surprise them by doing it right. A tremendous amount of work is required to make something feel intuitive.“
- “Start with mobile as a forcing function to uncover the core features you should include in your product. There are limited things you can do on an iPhone, as opposed to the web where you have extensive real estate. When you can only do a few things, you have to choose the most important ones.”
- “You have to have ‘No people’ around you, who can tell you when you have a bad idea, challenge you, and disagree. It’s your role as a founder to hire people who have different perspectives and skills. Focus more on hiring great people and trusting them than bringing on people to follow your vision. No matter how good you are, you are limited by your blind spots and knowledge.”
- “Building a product that amasses engaged users is step one and the most important part. Step two is developing the business. You always have to have step two in mind, but without step one, step two doesn’t matter. Focus on step one and don’t get too distracted by step two until the time’s right. Nothing matters if your product isn’t phenomenal.“
On Reelgood’s Culture and Radical Candor
- “You are doing a service to people by giving them feedback, rather than not telling them something and letting the problem grow. Make it clear that you aren’t giving feedback for the sake of the company but because you really care about them and their career.”
- “The way you react to feedback as a founder is equally important as the feedback you’re sharing. You set the example of thoughtfully internalizing and acting on feedback to help improve yourself and the team.”
- “Steve Jobs used to say that your ideas should go through a rock tumbler to be refined. In the beginning, it’s noisy, loud, and violent. The best parts come out as a polished stone and the rest is dust.”