In this episode of the Revenue Accelerator Podcast, we have invited Nate Cooper, managing partner of SWARM, a company that specializes in the creation of digital products in the form of an app, a feature of an existing product like a website, or a full-fledged website. They work with the world’s top brands and firms to help them identify, define, design, and grow market-leading digital products. Today, Nate shares some business strategies around digital products and thinking through the human-centered design process to develop authentic experiences.
The end-user experience
[1:35]
When you have a custom platform, a website, or an app, you have a lot more room to think about how your customers connect with your business, and you can engage in a lot more ways. However, when you're on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, you're confined to the options they provide. It's all about figuring out where you are on the scale of considering the user's perspective.
Focusing on the experience aspect
[5:04]
SWARM began as a mobile app development firm that specialized in mobile app development. SWARM, for example, has always placed a strong emphasis on strategy devoting a lot of work in the early stages of gaining traction, such as Product-Market Fit.
[6:40]
People will sometimes do as they are instructed. You've probably come across projects where someone went to Fiverr and said, "I just want this done." After then, the person did as they were told. It didn't, however, fit in. They lacked the necessary metrics, and it didn't make any sense to me. That doesn't truly help your business in any way.
Where's that place where people start seeing that return?
[8:00]
Depending on the circumstances and the size of the company, it will be significantly different. People rarely consider the app's return on investment. They race to the finish line, exclaiming, "We need an app that can perform XYZ." But are those specific functionalities going to help when an app might take on many various forms? It's a marketing tool that will increase awareness or engagement, or it's a monetization tool.
[10:06]
People jump to the finish line too quickly when it comes to technology.
Holistic look at the Human Design
[11:28]
Nate is a web developer that has self-taught himself. As the industry has expanded and changed, new roles had emerged, such as UX, which did not exist when Nate began his career. As a result, everyone approaches it from a different perspective.
[13:59]
He went on to learn about a lot of research and eventually began teaching design thinking classes. Design thinking is adapting the hackathon approach that we use in product development to organizational strategies and team collaboration.
[14:21]
Interestingly, those different frameworks all start with the same step, which is sometimes called mindset, sometimes called empathy. And so, all of these approaches, no matter how you slice it is the ideal model.
[15:21]
The key to any solid design practice, no matter how you slice it, is you got to step out of your shoes. You got not to make too many assumptions. You have to be open to letting it come in where it needs to come in.
The value of having technological assets
[19:58]
Even inside a hierarchy, it happens. Someone who is guiding the discussion in a way that is open to change is preferable to someone who is stuck in one way of doing things. Companies that genuinely embrace this will be set up at any scale, whether a two-person operation or a Fortune 500 corporation. We live in a changing world. Companies that welcome change and are willing to stray from their route from time to time will fare better than those who do not.
Coming trends
[21:07]
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about artificial intelligence. That is something that a lot of technologists are interested in. The way people talk about machine learning and blockchains, with no one knowing what they're talking about or why they're talking about it. Sometimes technology gets a bit too far ahead of itself in terms of the promise.
[21:53]
Human-Centered Design has a lot of data involved in terms of being able to look at what people are doing or can you affect a change with it with minor tweaks and that sort of thing, but there's also user interviews and things like that they're a little bit more traditional that aren't necessarily all this data-driven. There needs to be a balance.
Considerations before making a decision where to put your investment
[23:18]
There aren't enough people who consider what a project would look like after a year. So many individuals begin by calculating how long something will take. It's insane how many individuals don't have a product strategy or the resources to support something like that.
Achieve a result
[25:27]
What we're getting at is the concept of technical debt. People, on the other hand, are unaware of the idea of debt creation. It's not as if releasing it into the wild is the end of the process. That is merely the beginning. And the longer you put it off, the more money you'll have to pay to keep it running. Then you must consider whether or not this will last for the next 5 to 10 years.
[27:25]
It's really about mitigating risk. Everything is a gamble, and you're just giving yourself a better chance if you contextualize it. If you're going in blind and say, how do we get this done in a month for the cheapest amount of money, that's a real tough bet.
You can get in touch with Nate by visiting:
SWARM website: https://www.swarmnyc.com/
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