This post is adapted from the May 1 episode (& my prep notes) of the Product Management Daily podcast. Subscribe here: iTunes | Pocket Cast | Overcast | Anchor

I'm a HUGE fan of connecting different worlds. It helps me — and maybe you?—see things from a new perspective which often provides a new line through a problem. Look around you: how does the traffic light serve as a product? Who does it serve, you or the ones who purchased & installed it? Look around and grow you & your world!

This episode/post was inspired by a great interview by Brian Koppelman on his podcast The Moment. If you haven't subscribed to this podcast, you'll want to do that. He talks with Dan Richer who has a great story and I won't recap the entire interview, so go listen to it.

A tiny bit of context for his origin story:

• Dan Richer is an incredible pizza chef in New Jersey
• He's not your typical celebrity chef
• He was going about his life somewhat listlessly until a trip to Italy in his last year of college. It was there that he had the simple, flavorful food that changed his life.

Focus

He came back to NJ & started working in Arturo's, a struggling Italian restaurant that he eventually bought from the owner.

Arturo's made a handful of different dishes. Over time, through his many iterations & refinements, he got the food to a really good — as in, James Beard award-winning — spot. One day, though, another top-tier pizza chef, Anthony Mangieri, came into his restaurant. Dan wasn't even there (!) to meet him, but at that moment, he knew that the pizza that was served wasn't his absolute best.

So he opened Razza to focus solely on perfecting this kind of wood-fired pizza. This place has 11 tables, 44 seats, and nothing is over $18/plate. That's impressive focus.

He has a list of 50+ characteristics that he evaluates a pizza against, and he's always tweaking various aspects to raise the scores.

He's not trying to build a brand, a nationwide chain of restaurants, or anything bigger than what he's got now.

From a product perspective, focus is just important as clarity. It's not enough to be dedicated to something; you have to clearly understand what you're dedicating yourself to so that distractions don't slip in, dilute your vision, and tear you away from what matters.

Iterate

When he purchased Arturo's, there was a lot that needed changing, but he didn't do it all overnight. It was one little thing at a time, a little bit here & there, a few ingredients, the furniture, etc. Most importantly, he paid attention to everything as he tried new things out so that he could see the impact each new element had on the experience.

Initially, he went to the local farmer's markets because that's where the best food was, and it was consistent with his Italian food experience. He was iterating within his vision.

Buying small a allowed him to not overcommit himself in order to save money. He had control over every aspect of the product. He still does some (what we would call) A/B/n testing with ingredients from farmers & suppliers, even testing from season to season.

Stop the comparison

Dan is widely regarded as one of the best pizza chefs in the country. But he is deliberately playing a different game, a game that he himself has invented.

He doesn't try to recreate the thing that initial Neapolitan pizza experience, he trying to recreate the entire experience, but in his own way. He used that initial experience as a reference point, but it was only that, not an end goal. He knows enough about himself, the vision he wants to move towards, and how to deliver that to his customers, that nobody else matters.

Furthermore, he's decided that he doesn't even like Neapolitan pizza unless Anthony Mangieri is making it. That was a huge release of pressure for him and allows him to fully pursue his own vision.

You competitors are reference points. Your product's previous versions are reference points. But that is all. The more you seek to replicate what they're doing, the more you build layers of abstraction & interpretation between you & the primary thing that actually matters in product: your customers

Watch

Brian asks, "were you nervous when you would change things, would you watch them eat it?" and Dan responds, "I still watch people eat it, that's the best part!"

If you're not watching your customers use your product and hearing what they have to say about it, you're leaving all kinds of opportunity on the table. Analytics are good and necessary, but not enough: they're an insufficient proxy for your reality and theirs that will only take your improvements so far, if not lead you astray entirely.

Bonus takeaways!

Principles

Dan has a philosophy of pizza (don't we all?); this says that pizza is strictly democratic & communal. He even made his own grandmother wait in line to eat!

Principles help us make decisions, but they also help our customers understand our product: what it is and isn't, what they can use it for and why, etc. See Facebook & Cambridge Analytica for an easy recent example.

Prototypes, testing, & beta programs

Dan didn't start all this in a restaurant. When he started cooking, he made food for his friends & family. It was a low-risk chance for him to get feedback that he could trust.

Interviewing skills

Brian is a great interviewer, one worth studying & learning from, for (at least) a few reasons:

• He asks really good questions that move the conversation along. He's not asking just to ask & get something from the other person. He's asking to dig something out of them. » Sometimes in interviews we can just try to get through our list of questions, but we need to see that there's always something richer below the surface.
• As he asks questions & they go around with the answers, he'll make an observation that takes the conversation to a deeper level. As "The Other" in the conversation, he's often able to see connections in the interviewee's experience that they haven't been able to see because they're too close to it.
• He builds strong trust & rapport along the way. He might start with common friends or places and sprinkle others throughout. He might throw out his opinion on something related and see if it sticks; whether it does or doesn't isn't important, but the topic enriches the discussion & rapport.

Again: look around you for insights, inspiration, and opportunities to grow your self and your world.

Thanks for reading! This post is adapted from the May 1 episode (& my prep notes) of the Product Management Daily podcast. Subscribe here: iTunes | Pocket Cast | Overcast | Anchor