#108 The request triage

Happy Sunday, everyone.

Across the companies, we have a lot of strategic initiatives in the works or rolling out over the next couple of months.

One of them we recently launched is called Creative Farm. It’s a productized design service spun out of Honestly aimed at providing small businesses, solopreneurs, and startups with creative services.

These two segments of commerce often need creative work but usually aren’t a great fit to engage an agency or consultancy (like Honestly).

One of the things we’ve been working on is how to handle feedback from customers and prospects. On one hand, we want to learn from it. On the other, when it comes in the form of feature requests, it can be a distraction.

Here’s an approach we’ve borrowed from Basecamp on how to categorize requests from customers:

  1. We’re not going to do it
  2. We’d like to do it
  3. We don’t know yet

Requests that fall into #1 are pretty easy.

Those that fall into #2 and #3 are more nuanced. What if it’s a fantastic idea? What do we do when the feature aligns directly with the mission and key problems we’re solving?

The answer — we need more information.

Next, we’ll investigate to gather facts and search for patterns. Then we’ll hand off what we find to the product team. They’ll discuss it to see if the request makes it into the schedule for future production.

On that note, please check out the site and let me know what you think. If you’d like to try out, hit me up and I’ll send you a discount code.


Three Things to Ponder

  1. Success is measured by what you achieve. Significance is measured by what you can offer.
  2. Situation drives strategy.
  3. Your most costly distractions are the ones that pay you money.

Three Things to Enjoy

  1. One of our employees at LOFT is of the age where he’s never heard of The Far Side comics. Sigh. I sent him this to get educated.
  2. I started reading the book until I found out the audio for Greenlights was read by the author. “Alright, alright, alright.”
  3. Simple concepts well-executed > great ideas mediocrely executed: Make movies like the movies

Until next time, friends.

-David

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