Hi friends! This is our first ever Centroly Weekly Digest, thank you for being part of this moment in our story :) We're very excited to welcome our new users, let's build something amazing together!
We'll be sharing a few links our Centroly users added that caught our attention. We hope these will spark joy (and curiosity) for you too!
Weekly Highlights
How to Listen to Customers
So how do you hone in on what users really need? You talk to people who represent a heterogeneous cross-section of your target population, consider their built-in biases and perspectives and triangulate from there. In my experience, I’ve found it helpful to talk to users who represent the leading, middle and trailing adoption populations in my market as well as influential observers.
12 Things about Product-Market Fit - Andreessen Horowitz
Again, the process is discovery-based and experimentation is required. There is no value in hardening something that customers don’t want to buy. Andreessen argues that “The product doesn’t need to be great; it just has to basically work. And, the market doesn’t care how good the team is, as long as the team can produce that viable product.” If nearly everyone at the business is focused on trying to fulfill product demand instead of “siting around” trying to dream up new feature to create demand, there is almost certainly PMF — but the reverse is not the case.
Productive Uncertainty
I argued that the only moat that can create excess value for a new startup is uncertainty. Uncertainty, generally, is something to be avoided. But uncertainty can also shield against competition, allowing you to create excess value. Founders have to choose the subset of innovations where the uncertainty is productive to have the best chance of succeeding.
The precipitous rise of Figma and fall of InVision
How Figma overtakes Invision to become the market leader within the last 4 years. In 2017, InVision was the top prototyping tool, with 60% of UXTool survey respondents indicating they used it. In 2020, their user share fell to 23%. In contrast, Figma has been rising from about 8% of respondents using the tool in 2017 to about 57% in 2020.
Meet Me in the Metaverse - Andreessen Horowitz
In an AI-powered Metaverse filled with a near-infinite supply of rich content, the way we socialize will also evolve. With worlds at our fingertips, socializing will shift from the purposeful what to the people-centric who. Instead of making plans around specific entertainment activities, as is frequently the case today, we'll be free to explore the virtual realm as a shared experience with friends—and trust the AI to fill in the rest.
Bad Software Architecture is a People Problem
"Most software systems consist of parts and pieces that come together to perform a larger function. Those parts and pieces can be thought out and planned, and work together in a beautiful orchestra. Or they can be designed by individuals, each one as unique as the person who created it. The challenge is that if you want your software to last, uniformity and predictability are good things—unique snowflakes are not."
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