Validate or Fail Fast

Direct user feedback is your best friend. Learn how to improve your feedback loops.

Podcast

Have a Slide for That

Alec Stern, startup founder, entrepreneur, mentor, investor, and advisor, discusses founding Constant Contact, the early days of SaaS, the importance and utilization of 'channels', and pursuing customer feedback.

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Podcast

Building Hundreds of Products with Chad Pytel

Chad, developer and CEO of thoughtbot, shares his thoughts on the advantages and disadvantages of consulting vs building scalable SaaS products, how he grew thoughtbot, and the lessons he's learned from 15 years as a first-time founder.

Indie Hackers Podcast

Video

The Value of Honesty

Managing Director Josh Clayton explains the value of honesty when working with clients

Josh Clayton, Managing Director at thoughtbot

Founder Leon Johnson discusses his app, Lightswap

Video

Building a New Crypto App to Pitch Investors

Founder Leon Johnson discusses feature prioritization of his MVP.

Case Study

Transforming a vision and algorithms into a customer-ready product.

Co-founders validate their consumer-focused energy app, while learning the ins and outs of product design and development

Blog

How to Build an AI Startup, and Do You Really Need To?

An introduction to AI that helps you validate your idea and feel empowered to move forward with your decision.

Laurie Young, Managing Director, thoughtbot

Blog

How to Define and Prioritize Features for your MVP

You have the idea and a long list of features. It's time to learn from feedback and iterate your way to success.

Adrian Rogowski, Product Manager, thoughtbot

Case Study

Thoughtful testing drives growth

Usability tests and A/B tests result in improved customer conversion for Lola

People researching and planning for their MVP

Blog

Before you MVP

There's basic yet invaluable research needed to reduce the risk of failure before building your first MVP.

Emily Bahna, Managing Director, thoughtbot

Video

Product Design Sprint - 5 Phase Breakdown

Boston Design Director Jaclyn Perrone walks through all 5 days of the product design sprint process so you can quickly validate your MVP

Jaclyn Perrone, Design Director at thoughtbot

Podcast

186: Learning Through Experimentation (Ryan Buckley)

The co-founder of content startup, Scripted, talks about shifting their product model to a marketplace through direct and indirect user feedback.

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Blog

When to Approach a Digital Consultancy

Examples of three unique startups and when they opted to use a digital product consultancy to validate and/or build their product.

Laurie Young and Sandra Donskyte

Podcast

254: Product and Vision (Chris Savage & Brendan Schwartz)

The founders of video hosting and analytics startup, Wistia, discuss the challenges of building and launching new products

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Podcast

250: The Internet of Payments (Anders Brownworth)

Chief Evangelist from payments app startup, Circle, talks about how they've ventured into building a blockchain product.

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Podcast

186: Learning Through Experimentation (Ryan Buckley)

The co-founder of content startup, Scripted, talks about shifting their product model to a marketplace through direct and indirect user feedback.

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Podcast

170: Make Things People Want (C. Todd Lombardo & Trace Wax)

The co-authors discuss their guidebook for building great digital products and share some real-life stories of invalidating product ideas.

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Blog

User Testing Gone Wild: A Guide to Course Correction

How to expect the unexpected and plan accordingly when conducting usability testing for your product.

Jaclyn Perrone, Design Director at thoughtbot

Blog

Ethnographic Research Exercise

Tips for achieving a deeper understanding of the people your product will touch, in order to build something meaningful.

Jeff Smith, Designer

Podcast

Human to human connection

CEO and co-founder of Drift and former Chief Product Officer at Hubspot, David Cancel, talks about how they approached the earliest iterations of Drift during the testing and validation days.

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Topics

De-risk Your Business

Increase your likelihood of success by addressing big risks quickly and thoroughly.

Learn more about De-risking →

Accelerate time to market

Take advantage of opportunities to get your product into new users’ hands quickly.

Learn more about time to market →

Ensure Product Quality

Build for quality and you build for customer (and employee) loyalty.

Learn more about ensuring product quality →