How important is data for improving your product on a scale of 1 to 5?
Ozan Arslanoğlu
16 replies
How much do you follow data such as user behavior and retention rates? I wonder how important they are for you in shaping your product.
Replies
Nicolò Marchesi@pethron
I'd go with 3.
Data is extremely important, but in my humble opinion, your domain knowledge makes the difference. And it's that knowledge that lets you actually solve the problem; data can be searched to understand what people need, but they rarely tell you the solution to the problem you're trying to solve. Always remember the Ford quote, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses".
Share
Depends how far along you are and the type of product (plus what you see as data, I assume in my answer that you're referring to quant tracking of user behavior on SaaS/platforms).
If you're working with your first 50 users, then trends and metric gathering will not really give you comprehensive insights and configuring the systems will take more time than sending out surveys/having 1:1 calls with users.
Your product might also go through some big changes and you might pivot some parts, rendering some of the configuration to be outdated quite quickly.
@nicolaas_spijker that's an interesting angle – considering the product's stage and type. Valuable insight, thanks!
for our product, we find this essential! By looking at how users use our product and feedback, we can make improvements that otherwise we might not have realised
It is hard to argue with data, Ozan. One should also consider qualitative research as well, especially in earlier days. Just by talking to your first few customers one can learn a ton more than by looking at low volume data. With the time data becomes even more important. Basic stats theory, right?
@alex_shilin you're hitting a crucial point about balancing different types of data. Especially crucial for early stages. Thanks for this!
5 100%. Understanding how customers use your product, sticking points, user journeys etc is a massive consideration in what defines your roadmap. We noticed with our product that there were some features we thought were straightforward but the customer feedback proved otherwise 😅.
@ozan_arslanoglu I guess it depends on how big the change is. For us we had several come through the product hunt who all mentioned that they thought our onboarding flow was a bit long which is an easy fix. But if it was changing a major function of the problem, I would make a note and keep an eye over the coming weeks whether this issue comes up again.
@niamh_mcglade Out of curiosity, after how much customer feedback you are convinced to change those features 😁 This is a big question for me. As I don't have a big customer base at the moment, I try to interview potential customers and get some feedback.
