Two Questions To Ask Before Writing Any Code

Which customer am I doing this work for?

How will this work help my business?

So often we do work without having definitive answers to these questions, and many times it’s because we have people working for us full time and, well, they need something to do!

My challenge to you is, for every feature you introduce in your application, to complete the following sentence:

We are building <feature name> for <a specific customer profile> because it will help us  do one or more of the following: <acquire, activate, retain, generate revenue, get referrals>.

If you can’t, with a straight face, convince yourself and the rest of the team that the sentence is true, you shouldn’t build it.

If you’re not familiar with Dave McClure’s AARRR Metrics framework (referenced above), go read about them now.