Why Products Suck

I found the following article on TechCrunch. It was written by David Barrett, CEO and founder of Expensify, whose tagline is “Expense reports that don’t suck.” As I read it, I couldn’t help but see the obvious relevance to the church world, and so I’m posting a portion of the article. See if you agree…

Now, you might think that making a product that isn’t terrible should be so obvious to every company on the planet as to almost be nonsensical. Indeed, who would ever advocate building a product that sucks? But the fact is: many products do suck. How can something so obviously important and universally recognized by so infrequently accomplished?

It’s a surprisingly complex question. But I think it all boils down to variations on a single, simple answer: it is much, much easier to build a product that sucks than one that doesn’t. Here are some reasons why that is true (and what you can do about it):

It only takes one person to make your product suck.

Anybody can make your product suck, often without anybody else noticing until it’s too late to change, and very expensive to undo. The fastest racecar can’t move if the gas-cap gets stuck; your product is only as good as its worst component. Not sucking requires continuous, unanimous consent—not on the details, but consent that not sucking is worth the effort. And you need to do it without security guards lurking outside the door.

Suggestion: Convey to your team and the world that not sucking is your primary goal. More important than new features, more important than new customers—even more important than being awesome—is the simple act of not sucking, consistently, across the board. Each awesome feature might attract a new user, but each sucky feature will lose you two.

Nobody ever got fired for sucking.

You can always be fired for something going horribly wrong, or for trying something crazy that doesn’t pan out, or for doing something that upsets a key customer or loses a major deal. But nobody gets fired for merely doing something sub-optimal, especially when that’s what everybody else does.

Suggestion – Be slow to hire, and quick to fire. I know everyone always talks about the importance of exceptional people. But like the importance of not sucking, that standard is very rarely maintained in reality. Maintain it. There’s that saying “A people hire A people, B people hire C people.” Be an A person, even if it means doing without for far longer than you’d like.

Customers demand sucky products.

Not intentionally. But they request features that make your product suck, with depressing regularity. This is doubly true if your product allows some users to manage other users. There are features that they think they need but don’t, and features they actually do need but nobody else does. There are billions of people out there and you will never, ever satisfy even a tiny fraction of them. So be very selective as to which ones you let dictate your roadmap, and make sure they’re taking it to the promised land and not into a tar pit. They’ll threaten to never use you, or to quit, or to say bad things about you. Some will actually follow through. But most will eventually realize you were right all along. That is, if you actually were right in the first place.

Suggestion: Trust your instincts and the tiny set of users who use you, and resist advice from the billions of people who don’t. Either you’re right or you’re wrong. If you’re right, sticking to your guns will lead to success. And if you’re wrong, better to fail fast on your own merits and learn something along the way than to take bad advice from people who never intended to use you in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong: people complaining about your product isn’t all bad. People only complain about things that matter to them; better to have complaints than disinterest. And not all complaints are equal: complaints that you don’t support feature X are far better than complaints about how feature Y sucks.

Entire article here.

See any relevance to the “business” of doing church?

It’s All About Releasing People

Dave Ferguson is the lead pastor of Community Christian Church in Naperville, Illinois — and led the conversation in our final session day one of the AND Conference.

• Although the church is in decline, there is a missional impulse alive and well throughout the world. There is much to be hopeful about.
• I often hear people in my church say, “I want to do more.” I recently got an email where someone said, “Can we do something for people who won’t go to church?” That is a missional impulse. It is alive in our people.
• Missional people PLUS multiplying churches EQUALS a missional movement.
• How do you get to missional people? You ordain every follower of Christ.
• As leaders, if we want missional people, we have to say “yes” as often as we can.
• There’s a business strategy that we’ve used too long in the church — it is to identify your target market, do only what will reach your target market, and say “no” to everything else. That is a brilliant business strategy. But it is not what the church is about. We need to release people.

Is it Possible to Attract & Send?

The conference continued with a tremendous session led by Matt Carter who pastors The Austin Stone Community Church. Some things he said…

• I think the attractional model of church is still very effective–and will reach some people that smaller forms of church will never reach.
• The attractional model alone won’t curb the decline of Christianity in America.
• The primary model of church has been “come to us.” And that’s where it has ended.
• Lay people (especially those who are 18-30 years old) are starting to get restless. They want to get in the fight.
• I realized even if we build a bigger building and grow another 4,000 people–nothing really changes for the city of Austin.
• What if people got the vision not to “come and see” — but to “go and do.”
• Jesus wouldn’t make a very good American megachurch pastor. Why? It wasn’t his church-growth philosophy. His church growth philosophy was 12 men.
• The difference between a small group and missional community: A small group is primary about community–a missional community is primarily about mission.
• We had to change the definition for our small groups–now they must have moved beyond gathering, have found a group of people, and are engaging that group of people to introduce them to God.
• There is nothing on the planet that can foster deep, biblical community than getting a shared mission for God.
• If we aimed for community alone, we hardly ever got community or mission. But if we aimed for mission–we almost always got mission AND community.
• We teach our leaders how not to be consumers–but to be self-feeders.

A Missional Problem

Some quotes from Alan Hirsch’s opening session at the AND Conference…

• I’ve always had a respect for the megachurch. The modern church growth movement reintroduced evangelism into the equation of church–and I highly respect that.
• Our world is becoming increasingly more complex. There are hundreds of sub-cultures that have the potential to divide us.
• Churches tend to reach people like them. That’s fine, but as culture becomes more divided–the reach of the church is diminished.
• I introduced the word “attractional.” I wish I could change that–now I would call it “extractional.” Because within 3-5 years of becoming a Christian, that individual will no longer have any significant relationships outside the church. And that becomes a problem for the spread of the gospel!
• Recent report said 95% of Americans believe in God.
• The vast majority of Americans think highly of God, Jesus and spirituality–but very poorly of the church.
• I love Apple, but hate AT&T. But can’t use my iPhone without AT&T. I think a lot of people think that way about God and the church. They give God a thumbs up, but really dislike the church.
• The problems of the world can’t be solved by doing the same thing that got us here.
• If you keep digging in the same hole, you become very invested in the hole. And so you dig deeper, and become more invested.
• The demise of Christendom is not such a bad thing. We didn’t do so well when we were in control. Christianity tends to thrive when it isn’t culturally acceptable.
• House church isn’t doing missional very well. They tend to have bad music, bad teaching and all the kids are running around the house. Who wants that?
• Church comes out of mission. Not the other way around.
• Don’t be captive by your own success. Churches in decline are sometimes more open to hearing God and trying something new.
• Is a can opener a can opener if it no longer opens cans? Is a church still a church if it no longer does what a church is meant to do?
• The Bible knows no distinction between clergy and laity.

Why I’m Voting Today

5 Reasons why it would be tempting to not vote today…

1. It’s inconvenient.
2. What does it really matter anyway?
3. They are all liars.
4. Incumbents might all be bums, but a new politician is just an incumbent waiting to happen.
5. It’s cold.

5 Reasons I Decided to Vote Today…

1. It honors our heritage and my ancestors who died to give me this privilege.
2. Elections really do matter (can anyone deny that our country is different now because of the 2008 election?)
3. Our country is on a slippery slope economically. I don’t trust (or want) government to legislate morality–but I do believe their choices can get us back to a strong fiscal position.
4. There are a few politicians who really need to be thrown out.
5. If I don’t vote, I have no right to complain about anything that happens in the next 2 years. And who wants to give up their right to complain?

What about you? Why did you decide to vote (or not) today?