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Core Values
Before going in..
It's too easy to talk about the good things that need to be done. What's really hard is choosing priorities between the good and the great.
So we've put together a list of examples of what pitfalls to avoid and what level of execution you need to have to really stick to each core value.
It's too easy to talk about the good things that need to be done. What's really hard is choosing priorities between the good and the great.
So we've put together a list of examples of what pitfalls to avoid and what level of execution you need to have to really stick to each core value.
Core values for rapid growth
How do fast-growing startups work? Even companies founded by inexperienced college students or companies with dissatisfied employees due to a vertical organizational structure can succeed. We found two variables that explain the most cases (fast execution and good job selection), and we named them the 'Startup Blackbox Model'. Let's explain them one by one.
1️⃣ Super Fast Release
It drastically shortens the cycle of receiving feedback from users through your product.
Why is it important?
The world is so complex that it's very difficult to find the right answer, but the faster you run, the more hints you can get.
Early products are bound to have many unsatisfactory aspects. If you show that you are improving quickly, users will wait, trust you when improvements are made, and voluntarily spread word of mouth.
Having a rapid product release cycle also has the advantage of allowing for increasingly sophisticated execution as lessons learned from previous releases become more vivid.
You should avoid these traps.
Putting in personal effort doesn't have much of an impact on speed. What's more important is 'choosing what to do and what not to do.'
There is a difference between working fast and working sloppily. The core user journey needs to be smooth, and to achieve this, you need to do your best to fix the little details right up until the very last moment of release.
A rough working example
If multiple people are involved, the development speed actually slows down. (Man-month myth) It is better for a small number of teams with high talent density to work with a sense of ownership.
'Design system' and 'excessive pursuit of code quality' are typical pitfalls. The point in time when Toss created the design system was when it achieved 5 million MAU. At the stage where PMF has not been found, it is likely to become a piece of waste paper, and both concepts are just tools to maintain Super Fast Release even when the team grows to a certain size.
This is how our team does it.
Even if it is an AI company and has research personnel, they do not develop models without a special reason and instead use APIs.
Before creating the actual product, we quickly verified within 3 days whether there were actual user needs by receiving pre-orders through pre-typing and conducting interviews.
We released our first product in one month with just one developer, and then released 14 products in the following months.
I cold-mailed 30 companies and had 6 sales meetings even before my corporate product was built.
Even at a time when the paid plan had not been developed and implemented, we conducted a paid experiment using chat consultation + bank transfer.
We don't block all users who might abuse our platform, but we respond quickly when problems arise.
If there is a way for developers to implement it faster, we suggest a design change.
2️⃣ Maximum User Value
Choose what adds the most value to your users.
The purpose of rapid execution is ultimately to find the 'right answer (a good choice of work)', and there may be various ways to find the right answer. You can benchmark overseas business models, or a very smart and powerful founder can make a unilateral decision.
Our team believes that among various methods, the best way to make good choices for the long term is for all members to pursue 'Maximum User Value' and accumulate know-how.
Steps of Maximum User Value
The level of Maximum User Value can be divided into three stages, and we require all makers to advance to stage 3.
Step 1. Listen directly to your users' voices and address their needs.
Step 2. Take sole responsibility for the creation of a feature, directly deciding and executing every detail to achieve the user value you want to deliver.
Step 3. We envision and implement the features that are absolutely necessary and most important to achieve our product vision.
You should avoid these traps.
Don't do cool stuff that you want to do without knowing your users and the market. Then, even if you build features, no one will use them.
You can't do everything that users ask for. Our users like it, but because there are only small improvements, new layers don't pile up, and the product doesn't grow. Dark mode, mobile apps, etc. can be typical traps. ( Reference: Interview with the founder of Twitch - Round 16 )
AB testing is also a typical pitfall. This is because AB testing can only make very small changes. Brian Chesky of Airbnb, who popularized AB testing, and Linear, a project management tool supported by Silicon Valley product teams, also talk about the pitfalls of AB testing.
That doesn't mean we have to address usability issues along the core journey.
This is how our team does it.
When you first join a team, you spend a week without writing a single line of code and focusing on getting input from your users.
Through our weekly Input Sharing sessions, all makers share what they learned about their users during the week.
We collect inputs from 'daily' and 'multi-faceted' sources. We consider and cross-validate all data, including our users, users of similar product groups, market changes, numbers, and qualitative reviews.
We continue to refine the criteria for combining the collected inputs and judging the importance of tasks.
Our 3 criteria
Before creating a feature, think about where the target users of that feature will be gathered. This will help you guard against imaginary users and enable more accurate GTM right after the release.
Core values for becoming a good colleague
3️⃣ Kind and Direct
Be honest in your feedback, but try to give your colleagues a sense of psychological safety.
We believe that people originally like to work and are happy. We are looking for team members who are self-motivated, but can also provide psychological stability to their colleagues and help them to be engaged.
1.
We strive to be honest in our feedback and improve. We have a monthly retrospective where we share feedback.
2.
I think logic is a castle built on emotions. I value the emotions of my colleagues and try to give them psychological stability.
4️⃣ Superman
I am willing to learn and do anything across job responsibilities to provide value to my users.
I want to work with someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to provide value to users and grow the product. It doesn't matter if it's your first time. I think you just have to think that you can take on the challenge with a happy mind.
Every maker can think and realize what they want to do rather than just implementing predefined requirements.
Every maker is responsible for the entire lifecycle of their project to deliver user value.
To achieve this, all engineers work full-stack.
Designers can try anything, not just design, but also market research, sales, etc.