Brian Bell (00:01:21.523):
Hey everyone welcome back to the Ignite Podcast today we’re delighted to have Jeff Gothelf on the mic he’s one of the people who taught a generation of teams how to build software he co-created the Lean UX movement wrote the book on it literally uh Lean UX and now is now in its third edition and followed it with the Harvard Business Review Press book Sense and Respond and most recently Who Does What By How Much I love that name a customer-centric take on OKR thanks for coming on jeff it’s my pleasure thanks for having me well we’ve heard about the books but I’d love to hear from the man what’s your background what’s your origin story I was.
Jeff Gothelf (00:01:53.944):
A failed musician he tried to be a rock star and uh gave it a real shot for a couple of years toured with a couple of bands on the east coast of the U.S. those guys are still my best friends to this day in fact, we all just got together again recently about a month ago and it was so. So, nice but uh didn’t work out ended up the web was becoming a thing at that time and so the World Wide Web or just the web not the World Wide Web but the the interactive internet the Information Superhighway yeah exactly. So, I taught myself HTML and basic, you know, website design and began to build websites for myself my band my friends bands and that type of thing and then, you know, back in 1999 if you could get if you could spell HTML you could get a job and so I I started. Building websites and doing web design and that led to interaction design and UX and then ultimately leadership roles in design and then product management and then finally in 2012 I went out on my own and started a consulting but it was a services business building building apps and services in a way that seemed to make a lot of sense at the time that was kind of in contrast to the way that most software was being built at the time and we built that business it was called neo over four years and then when that sold. Uh in 2015 I’ve been I was out of my own for a long time and then really collaborating very closely with my with co-author Josh Seiden working together independently on the content and then in the last few years we have among other things solidified that into Sense and Respond Learning these days which is our product management training wow yeah.
Brian Bell (00:03:26.056):
So, much so much to unpack there what a journey I love I love the started as a rock star what instrument were you playing I played piano. Wow, okay yeah everybody needs a keyboardist in.
Jeff Gothelf (00:03:36.131):
The band right it is it’s it’s it’s one of those things that like if you need one it’s hard to find one not not all the rock bands in the world are looking for one but if you’re looking for one it’s good to be one.
Brian Bell (00:03:45.250):
Yeah, it’s good yeah it’s a that’s like the hardest to fill sometimes after the drummer the drummer’s kind of core too right like well.
Jeff Gothelf (00:03:52.738):
The drummers are hard yeah for sure and, you know, what’s interesting is I recently got I got conscripted into a Grateful Dead cover band and which not not a hundred percent my bag it’s not zero percent my bag it’s like 57 my bag I guess but I really enjoyed the gig it was it’s a really cool band with a bunch of guys kind of from a variety of different places and we did did some shows and the shows did really well and and then all of a sudden, to your point people are like I have a band that does Grateful Dead songs over here and we need a keyboard player yeah, you know, everybody wants to be Jerry. But nobody wanted to be Pigpen, you know, because that’s everything so it’s good to be a keyboard player sometimes it’s amazing yeah still.
Brian Bell (00:04:31.654):
On my bucket list of playing a band I play guitar but not very well so you help name and popular popularize Lean UX maybe you could just define what that means for versus just what is UX and what is, you know, what is Lean UX as.
Jeff Gothelf (00:04:44.753):
UX is user experience design right it’s it’s it’s been it’s been a practice for decades, you know, and it’s it’s it’s a combination of the the visual design the interaction design the copywriting the content strategy the whole sort of presentation layer of an interaction. Lean UX came out of years of really a decade of doing that kind of design work and working with teams doing that kind of design work and ending up in a place where on a good day 50 of my work got implemented which meant that on a good day 50 of my work got thrown away and I wasn’t going to put in another decade of having half my work being thrown out and part of the reason for that is because of it was sort of sort of the the nature of software development even even on online there I was just not just sort of, you know, I started America Online and, you know, we made software that went on CDs. But but even, you know, building websites and and web apps and digital products and services there’s still this belief even to this day which is mind-boggling to me that you can predict exactly what the software is going to look like and how it’s going to work and what it’s going to do and how long it’s going to take to build and what people are going to do with it right and and we were living in that world whatever that was 15 years ago and for me waterfall world as it were exactly exactly right so so this very very linear approach to developing products digital products and services and so we would make all these assumptions about the design up front right because design came early in the waterfall cycle and then at least half that work if not more would get thrown out and I just wasn’t gonna was this kind of.
Brian Bell (00:06:16.129):
An artifact I mean, if you think historically just because of the way software was manufactured, you know, packaged distributed and sold and so you kind of had to do it like that because you literally had to ship it. Exactly, right and it was hard to update it over the air like we’re used to getting a, you know, an iPhone update every, you know, every few days now right but back then it’s like okay I had to like package up the the CD as it, you know, or the the floppy disk and actually send it to you to get Windows 3.0 to 3.1.
Jeff Gothelf (00:06:42.714):
And then so on look I worked I worked at America Online and it was exactly like that we’d work for six to nine months building software and then we would stop building software and we would print 15 million CDs and then put them in the mail and hope that we built the right thing that works yeah. Yeah, you know, and that that but that that style of working it fits leadership teams really well because leadership teams can just say like well just build this and build that and when will you get it done and then ship it and what will be done right and there’s no question because at least up until things got. Got highly interactive it was difficult to determine whether or not we were actually building something valuable right and now that now that’s a lot much much much easier to figure out if we’re building something of value much sooner in the process we’re seeing a lot more of that sensing and responding that that, you know, building build measure learn type of learning loop in price but still but still to this day I work with tons of companies where there’s a lot of leadership direction and moving away from that leadership direction is occasionally a career-limiting move.
Brian Bell (00:07:41.983):
In these organizations.
Jeff Gothelf (00:07:43.465):
And so Lean UX was the reaction to that, right? Lean UX was an attempt to say, look, I am not gonna deploy everything that I have in the design arsenal on every single thing that we’re doing, right? What I’m gonna do is use the tools just at the right level, just enough to move the conversation forward one step to get feedback on that step? And then determine if I should still move forward or if I should change direction or if I should kill the idea and try something else so that that’s that was the approach in that book and it was highly, you know, based on the Lean Startup movement which was gaining traction right around the same time. So, you know, we in fact, Lean UX is a series of books that Eric Ries put his name on right the the the Lean Series actually a couple times exactly and so and so, you know, heavily influenced by that but really applied directly to the design practice and as a reaction to to making design work in agile software engineering which was sort of like the next wave of software engineering supposed to counteract a lot of the negative aspects of waterfall software development and so that and design was never really considered as part of Lean Startup it was never really considered as part of agile and so this was our attempt to really have that conversation. Using that foundation that a lot of the world was shifting over.
Brian Bell (00:08:57.126):
To do you recall kind of when you could sense that’s something, you know, to use a pun on your book here but you could sense something was wrong with with the process do you do you recall like a meeting or a aha moment. Where you’re sitting there it’s like there’s got to be?
Jeff Gothelf (00:09:10.728):
A better way this this sucks, you know, yeah I I remember this I I used to work for this EVP at America Online he was he was a difficult person to work with leave it at that um and I was a relatively young designer he micromanaged a 2500 person organization I get to give you a sense of of the the he knew everything he knew every pixel every detail every workflow every single. Thing and I remember one time I was working on some workflow and I printed out my design work we printed it out right because that’s how software is made on paper and uh and I remember walking into his office he had this big office and I walked in the front door and he was on the other side of of the of the room in in his chair and I’m walking over holding shaking with my piece of paper in hand and he goes from a distance I didn’t even get a chance to present. He says to me he goes there’s nothing remotely close to anything I want to see on that sheet of paper and I was I just, you know, spent a week of my life on this.
Brian Bell (00:10:04.265):
And I was like this can’t I cannot this this is not going to be my career if this is.
Jeff Gothelf (00:10:08.506):
The way that we’re moving forward and that was the beginning of the tipping point for me was this like like executive direction above all without any customer input it just didn’t make sense to me yeah but you.
Brian Bell (00:10:19.828):
But you couldn’t change it because of the top-down leadership in the way software was manufactured and delivered at the time when was it possible, you know, I think you can make a case that the whole lean movement was sort of enabled by first the internet which took, you know, five or ten years to kind of change how software was like built and delivered but also, you know, cloud right now all of a sudden, you could. Sort of like for free a couple guys with a laptop a couple kids with a laptop could iterate right do you recall sort of that how that technological shift felt at.
Jeff Gothelf (00:10:50.445):
The time I mean, it was it was incredible right I mean, the the interesting thing is that, you know, we at America Online I mean, this was a thousand years ago right we did use extensive user research but it was all based on a series of assumptions and then we just had to build and ship and then all of a sudden, right you could put up a website in no time you could show somebody a landing page in in a day or two days or however long it took to get it going you could you could prototype and Dreamweaver wow that was a tool right back then where you you had a WYSIWYG editor for websites it was it was revolutionary at the time and and ultimately super empowering because it allowed us to get from idea to feedback in a much much much shorter learning loop all of a sudden, so the cost of learning came down significantly so, you know, before it was like well we’re going to go spend two days in this research facility behind the one-way mirrors and, you know,. Eat a bunch of candy and watch 20 people tell us exactly the same thing and drop 20 grand on that that’s unscalable and unsustainable and now all of a sudden, to your point right myself and one other person could put something together show it to five customers get some feedback iterate on it and move that forward again in a much more condensed time frame and that that was.
Brian Bell (00:12:08.945):
That was revolutionary yeah and how does, you know, as someone who lived through that moment how does this moment feel different or the same with AI how is that kind of changing what Lean UX is and how you do you how UX gets done right you have things like cloud design and, you know, like that’s only going to get better like how does it kind of feel now on the ground as you sort of go out and work with with people on this it’s it.
Jeff Gothelf (00:12:31.957):
Number one’s incredible incredibly powerful and incredibly exciting and I think to some extent it’s also incredibly frightening because all of a sudden, you don’t need the designer or a person with a specific job title to bring your ideas to to life.
Brian Bell (00:12:47.910):
Yeah, that’s that’s seeming to be kind of the case everywhere, you know, the I I hear it all the time the designer’s going away the PM’s going away the engineer’s going away like all you have left is like I don’t know somebody with an idea who can talk to AI I don’t think so I don’t think.
Jeff Gothelf (00:13:00.929):
That I don’t think those roles are going away I mean, I mean, I know we’ve got these examples of the one-person startup these days or the two-person startup who does everything. I still think that’s a pretty rare case. I think the reality is, right, is that if everybody keeps prompting these things into existence, we’re heading towards sort of a kind of a trough of mediocrity where everything looks and functions and sounds exactly the same and we got a taste of this back in the Twitter days with Twitter Bootstrap Twitter Bootstrap I don’t know if you recall was a design system that Twitter put out and it was yeah it was a one design library yeah yeah exactly it’s a wonderful design system right and it came with with everything you needed it came with all the visual assets all the code everything you need in a beautiful website to kind of you can choose the pieces that you need put your website together and ship it and what happened every website in the world looked like Twitter Bootstrap right right there was no creativity there. Was no innovation there was no originality and and so we’re going to end up in the same place right like I can’t tell you how many times I read something. Or see something or get sent something I’m like this is Claude 100 Claude yeah it’s not you it’s. Yeah, right exactly and so what’s going to happen now is we are going to start to crave authenticity and humanity and originality and innovation in the work and that is where the humans are going to so cool let’s all bring our ideas to the next meeting terrific I prompted this you prompted that she prompted that thing great now let’s get all the feedback and then let somebody with actual experience and expertise put together the next version of this that not only. Is an improvement on what came into that meeting but solves a real customer problem. In a meaningful way and provides a unique opinion on the product or the service so.
Brian Bell (00:14:47.205):
That you stand out in the marketplace yeah I love this this I want to tug on this idea that you which is really interesting and and maybe this is a recurring pattern and in the history of, you know, technology society capitalism where we we sort of innovate and we come up with a mass-produced something like a Model T right like an automobile right and it’s like everybody now. Can have an automobile, you know, and it’s great everybody’s happy but then after? The mass production of something comes the customization of something right and sort of the proliferation of all of our, you know, endless like little iterations of desire right and and maybe that’s happening now with with sort of software right we’re getting the the really really the the Model T right which is like Claude or ChatGPT that can produce almost anything but it’s it’s really generic right it is like the Twitter, you know, design library that you just described of software and and and now we’ll get like a proliferation of even more design and taste and human ingenuity I wonder what you think about that.
Jeff Gothelf (00:15:47.460):
Yeah, I mean, look I I think ultimately the companies that are going to stand out are going have a strong opinion about how they provide value are relatively identical I’ll give you an example here’s a named example right, you know, I’ve had a Bank of America account for 30 years 30 years right their online software is still garbage for 30 years. But I’ve got some momentum there now by comparison, the layer like the actual usage layer I barely use their website it’s just sort of like the foundational accounts below it but the the the the UI layer for me for banking is Wise the company that used to be TransferWise why because I’ve got a daughter in university in London and I need pounds and I’ve got. Stuff to do in euros and I’ve got things to do in dollars and Wise creates a UI layer that’s digitally native that’s super easy to use that doesn’t mess around with all the all the kind of like the legacy intricacies uh that Bank of America and the Wells Fargos of the world have to deal with right and so I’m so loyal to that as the day-to-day tool because they have a strong opinion about what banking and transacting. Yeah, living in a multi-currency world should look like right as opposed to Bank of America that’s coming from 50 years or whatever of of historical inertia that that doesn’t allow them to move that forward and it’s it’s the people who have that opinion and then manifested that are going to win over this kind of like like ultimately look I have the 30 years of history with Bank of America but it doesn’t really matter to me that it’s Bank of America or Wells Fargo or Citibank or J.P. Morgan or Chase or whatever underneath it right because I use Wise every day that’s what matters.
Brian Bell (00:17:47.300):
To me it’s funny you mention that it’s it’s what you’re describing is the phenomenon of like UX as the differentiator right and we kind of saw that I think in the 2010s especially with Airbnb right, you know, because there were other Airbnbs like VRBO and and others before that that did vacation rentals yeah it just didn’t do it as good like in a in a very friendly way that Airbnb was able to, you know, differentiate by design.
Jeff Gothelf (00:18:12.580):
Differentiate by design right those guys were designers yeah.
Brian Bell (00:18:16.582):
That was their background right yeah from the Rhode Island one of the best design schools in the world right, you know, the banking example is prescient I I I bank, you know, for for Team Ignite Ventures our our early stage venture firm we bank with Mercury which is just a UI wrapper around another financial firm.
Jeff Gothelf (00:18:35.840):
But it just makes everything so easy and just it’s just delightful to bank.
Brian Bell (00:18:40.162):
With them I can upload, you know, when I invest in a company I can upload a safe and the wire instructions and just magically just takes care of everything and just with a few clicks versus I was with another bank I won’t name them because I don’t want to throw them under the bus but it was terrible just just just to send a wire was just ridiculous yeah there’s lots of steps.
Jeff Gothelf (00:18:56.447):
But you just said it it’s delightful to bank right delightful to bank is an opinion right it’s an opinion like if you’re saying look our our strong opinion about how we will differentiate in the market our strategy right is we’re going to be delightful to bank with okay then everything follows from that and you you can’t mire yourself in the sameness of the output of these LLMs right it’s just going to be insufficient to do that right there’s a sea of android phones out there and the difference. Between them I couldn’t tell you right but there’s only one iPhone right because they took a very opinionated approach jeff gothelf (00:19:33): to building a these decisions is evolving but I think we need them if we if we want to stand out.
Brian Bell (00:19:52.136):
In the market yeah so, you know, this show has a lot of founders who listen in, you know, we’ve backed a lot of founders so how does all this we’re talking about, you know, OKRs and design and UX like how should. How is that changing how is the advice changing now as we record this in 2026 versus what you might have said to a founder, you know, back in 2006 or 2016, you know, what is changing now on the ground where if you’re talking?
Jeff Gothelf (00:20:16.931):
To any founders look I think foundationally not much not not a whole like I think that understanding your customer solving a real problem for a real customer in a meaningful way meaningful way to them to be clear, not for you but for them and is still the recipe for success for building a successful business making evidence-based decision making I don’t think those. Things change I don’t they certainly were true in 2006 in 16 and certainly today in in 2026 the capabilities that we have what are our strong opinions should be and how to successfully meet their needs in a way that nobody else is doing is exponentially more powerful today right there’s. Literally no excuse honestly there is no excuse not to do this today you could argue you could argue that 20 years ago maybe even 10 years ago there was there was well there’s cost and there’s time that was always the excuse it’s you’re slowing us down with all this customer conversation stuff today there’s absolutely no excuse. Collecting the data finding people to talk to getting in front of them showing them it’s absolutely ridiculous to say that this is not something that you can do and and equally as importantly that’s actually only half the work right the other half is then taking all of that insight that you’ve collected and synthesized and actually changing. Marketing course based on what you’ve learned along the way right I get it founders have strong opinions they have visions they have a sense for where they’re going they want to get on that way terrific but but we’ve all seen those diagrams right a path is not a straight line that path is going to be a variety of twists and turns and those twists and turns should be driven by market insight customer feedback customer evidence what you’re hearing from.
Brian Bell (00:22:10.378):
The people that you’re trying to serve yeah and this is the perennial problem right when you’re going zero to one is, you know, problem what you’re describing is a process of like okay problem identification do people actually have this problem yeah right. Yeah, at scale and that’s like market validation are there lots of people that have this problem and then like will they pay for it and then and then solution validation, you know, hey here is this thing would you pay for it how do you kind of advise, you know, companies to go through these kind of phases it’s still kind of the same kind of Lean UX phases as it was, you know, 10 or 20 years ago it sounds like.
Jeff Gothelf (00:22:45.521):
It is it is right the the the the take like the the process of building that knowledge it can’t be faked right you can like I said you can get there faster and there’s a lot of there’s a lot so for example, right it’s a lot of talk right now about well I’ll just. Synthesize some users in ChatGPT and I’ll talk to them yeah there’s.
Brian Bell (00:23:04.466):
A couple startups actually that do that, you know, artificial societies I think came out of YC there’s a few others like that where they they simulate your users right they’ll just don’t buy it I don’t buy it.
Jeff Gothelf (00:23:14.712):
Like as a way as a way to practice your interviewing skills as a way to test your scripts right sure. Yeah, absolutely work with synthetic users but like truly like sitting with some ad copy maybe, you know, yeah exactly but like sitting with someone and watching them try to get through a workflow watching them having them show you how they currently do something and then asking them why they do that certain thing and then looking for those patterns across people it’s incredible I have a story years ago I used to work at a company in New York City called The Ladders The Ladders was a job board for people who made a hundred thousand dollars or more right that was the that was the deal and, you know, we we talked to customers every week that was a big part of the way that I worked and I kind of demanded that for my team and uh. We would talk to these executives on a regular basis and they would talk about text texting was just becoming a thing texting wasn’t huge yet right and they’re like we use SMS for communicating with with recruiters and I said why do you use SMS right and they said well I I don’t believe my boss can can read that can see that like an email I think my boss can read my email but text I can’t they can’t see.
Brian Bell (00:24:21.071):
That more secretive yeah.
Jeff Gothelf (00:24:22.630):
Yeah, there’s no way you’re going to get that out of a synthetic user right that that’s a pattern that comes out of actually having those conversations and there’s there’s so much nuance too right yeah there’s that’s.
Brian Bell (00:24:33.253):
The implicit reason like the expert like oh it’s easier that would be what people like some synthetic human would probably say oh it’s easier to just text yeah but really the implicit like core reason is like if you ask the five why’s and you get to the root cause right yeah like no actually I kept my hiding this for my boss.
Jeff Gothelf (00:24:50.319):
Yeah, the synthetic user doesn’t fear for their job right and so yeah it’s it’s that’s interesting but so that’s the key is again I don’t think you can shortcut that part of it I think you have to and look it’s not and it’s not that big of a deal like again I’m not saying go sit in a room for two days and talk to 20 customers that are, you know, after the fourth one they all say the same thing just talk to three yeah every week make that part of we do have a we have.
Brian Bell (00:25:16.948):
A portfolio company conveyor I don’t know if you’ve run across these guys but they basically do the qualitative interviews AI to human so that’s interesting. So, they’ll actually the AI will go interview all the humans and it’s growing super fast and so yeah and then you could go back and watch the videos and stuff but maybe that’s only a half solution in your mind right yeah no again like there’s.
Jeff Gothelf (00:25:36.359):
So, much again there’s so much nuance yeah the human nuance body language expression tone of voice hesitation, you know, like like reluctance to share something there’s no way there’s a human will pick that up and it’s so valuable or a human will pick up that pattern, you know, every time I talk to somebody and I and I bring up the job search aspect of it there’s this reluctance to even go there we’ve got to figure out what that is because that’s core to our value proposition. Whatever that is I just I don’t believe that a non-human entity can can decipher.
Brian Bell (00:26:10.246):
That at least not yet right maybe maybe in 10 years when we, you know, we get 10x better AI every year and it’s super intelligent and it can it can be more human than than we can right it’s overfitted to humanity maybe maybe how do, you know, when you have um if you’re a founder how do, you know, when you have a good problem to work on I I think look I think again I think there’s.
Jeff Gothelf (00:26:30.918):
The answer here is is, you know, the behavior change that you see in the folks that you’re talking to particularly when you’re not only asking them about how they’re currently solving a particular problem and where the challenges are so you see the patterns in that but then ultimately as you’re putting. Potential solutions in front of them you can see them light up you can see their behavior change you can see how they act with your prototypes how they act with the material that you’ve decided to share with them I think to me that’s the key right and those behavior patterns right we call we call those outcomes right so outcomes again sort of being the the push here right measurable changes in human behavior that drive business results and and we we know these things right we’ve had pirate metrics for.
Brian Bell (00:27:11.347):
A long time, you know, oh yeah mcclears pirate metrics that’s great reference I love those yeah.
Jeff Gothelf (00:27:17.030):
Yes it’s throwback but look again it’s one of those things that still makes sense because like that it was it was awareness acquisition revenue referral.
Brian Bell (00:27:26.224):
And retention revenue or something like.
Jeff Gothelf (00:27:27.586):
That that’s it it’s yeah exactly retention revenue and referral right but but those are measures of human behavior right and if if if you’re finding that people are looking for your thing and they’re landing on your page and they’re asking for more info or they’re engaging with with whatever it is you want them to engage with that signal. You’re solving something real right that’s to me that’s the thing that matters the thing that’s always mattered is the change in the behavior of the people that we want to serve to indicate that we’re doing something valuable.
Brian Bell (00:27:57.698):
For them how do you guard against cognitive biases in the in the measurement especially when you’re doing it more one-on-one with real humans there could be this tendency I think to I don’t know lead.
Jeff Gothelf (00:28:08.221):
The witness yeah look I mean, to me to me this this is and again coming back to this like which disciplines will survive the AI revolution and which will go away we have people who are good at this they’re called researchers and the nice thing about having experts who know how to do this is they can teach the rest of us. How to do this and they can look they can help train the bots I guess as well? About how to do this but ultimately there are lots of there’s lots of tips and tricks and techniques that come from practicing having conversations with people. So, that you don’t leave the witness and so that you don’t, you know, tons of stuff like you don’t show excitement you don’t agree you don’t indicate that you like an answer versus dislike an answer you ask open-ended questions, you know, when someone says oh I wish it did this you say things like oh. You don’t say wow me too I’ve been wishing for that forever you say if you had that what would it let you do and again what does that come back to behavior change what’s somebody actually trying to do again it’s kind of like there’s lots of examples you can use. But somebody says oh I wish it had calendar integration and you’re like okay if it had calendar integration what would it let you do well I wouldn’t ever miss. Any more meetings with my boss and I would know exactly when to leave to get home on time to see my kids soccer game okay so the real need is not to miss meetings with the boss and to make it home for your kids soccer game okay great calendar integration is a solution to that there’s an infinite number of ways to solve for that right and that’s again coming back to creativity and innovation that’s where the human aspect really shines through yeah I love that that’s really interesting.
Brian Bell (00:29:45.916):
So, I I guess in the end it all comes down to taste right and and sort of, you know, designers make maybe designers inherit the earth a little bit here right because in a world of AI slop and AI can generate everything it really just comes down to do I really understand humans and their needs and their pain points and and how we’re crafting this solution in a way do you think AI ever kind of gets there where it can it can do that better than we can.
Jeff Gothelf (00:30:09.634):
Look, at them at the moment I think there’s a lot of generalizable patterns that I can put forward that are good enough but again I I just kind of coming back to I think we end up in a sea of mediocrity right it’s kind of a race it’s a race to mediocrity I also don’t want to trivialize. Good product management good product managers good designers as to simply, you know, you know, complimenting them and saying oh you have good taste right because that gets that gets built that gets developed that gets trained that comes from doing the work it comes from trying something and understanding that it that it didn’t work this time yeah.
Brian Bell (00:30:43.252):
And that’s what people misunderstand about Steve Jobs, you know, they they imagine him as the armchair genius but he actually was out there talking to customers all the time all the time and doing focus groups and he was just talking to people and he was testing the ideas with people and he didn’t just sit there and just come up with that stuff from his office exactly he actually got out.
Jeff Gothelf (00:31:01.098):
Of his office and talked to people yeah amazing got got out of the building got out.
Brian Bell (00:31:05.740):
Of the building right yeah yeah whose whose phrase is that Steve Blank Steve Blank yeah yeah Steve Blank shout out to steve I love his books too so what are you telling your kids to work on now like as, you know, like I have three kids and, you know, should I tell them just be designers what is the career like what should people work on now it’s a great question.
Jeff Gothelf (00:31:23.454):
So, look I I have two daughters one is 23 and she has a I was doing when I started my career but the tools that she’s using the speed at which she’s working and the issues that she has to deal with are actually very very different right obviously she so she’s she works in in she works in Claude Claude Code she works in Claude Design she works in Lovable primarily in those tools to build to prototype to build and then to actually create code for for some of these things and so the speed with which she can work is incredible the output that she puts together from day one looks good which isn’t. Necessarily the best approach but the thing that makes it really really difficult is that the expectation that it sets for her stakeholders right stakeholders are like well, you know, when I was doing the work they were like okay here’s feedback on your wireframes or your prototype or whatever when can you have revisions done I mean, like well it might take me about a week or so maybe a couple weeks we’ll see you guys then for her they know how to prompt all her stakeholders prompt all day long right they’re like okay. So, we’ll see you tomorrow with iterations and she she’s like look I can certainly and what comes back out of these non-deterministic systems actually looks like a thing that we want to put in front of customers right and so that’s to me that’s that’s the fascinating she’s still solving the exact same problems that I was solving during my career but the the tension and the pressure that she’s under to deliver iterations and improvements are compressing her the time that she needs to actually do.
Brian Bell (00:33:16.885):
The thinking part right yeah a week or two has compressed to a day or two if if your uh counterparties will allow that right you’re the people you’re working.
Jeff Gothelf (00:33:26.412):
With yeah.
Brian Bell (00:33:27.892):
That’s really fascinating.
Jeff Gothelf (00:33:43.374):
Jobs that require opinions I keep coming back to this because I think again you I’m sure you’ve seen this right. But like people are just prompting things into existence and whatever comes out they’re there and they’re handing it off hey I did I did my job here it is right and they aren’t found in the work at all right so to me I think it’s the and I don’t I don’t mean to discount software engineers from this as well yes the job will change right but but having an opinion about how to build something what to build what it should look like and how it should behave is is the key to standing out in a world where people are just prompting things and then shipping it and assuming that it’s good enough and hoping.
Brian Bell (00:34:23.943):
That it’ll yeah I love that so of all the books you’ve written which one aged the worst and why.
Jeff Gothelf (00:34:30.842):
Which one aged the worst I think the one that aged the worst I wrote a very short book it was the fourth book lean versus agile versus Design Thinking it was. Really a long essay just a couple of chapters on reconciling the those various processes in a manner because I was working with organizations that were sort of hiring train like hiring training for lean and Lean Startup hiring training for Design Thinking hired training for agile and then trying to get all those people to play nice together when they’ve been trained with different vocabularies and different goals and different different targets and so that book was designed to help reconcile that conversation. I don’t know how prevalent that conversation is today anymore I feel like like Lean Startup has become sort of part of the general vocabulary rather than so much a process to be followed agile is losing some momentum these days as a I think the the foundation of of the way of working still stands I haven’t heard anybody say Design Thinking in years even. Though it’s a valuable process you don’t really hear it nearly as much as you did, you know, 10 15 years ago as well so of those four I think it’s that one jeff gothelf (00:35:39): simply because it leaned heavily into named processes like or brand name sort of frameworks that are are people have either moved on from or moving on.
Brian Bell (00:35:49.686):
From yeah this is funny back to the, you know, question how do you advise the the youth, you know, because I have three kids a couple teenagers I think I think the answer I’m honing in on is just, you know, study what’s interesting study humanity come up with opinions. Yeah, have a, you know, go for the general liberal arts education unless something really really speaks to you and you really want to study, you know, x y and z just a general human, you know, humanities human centered education I think so.
Jeff Gothelf (00:36:17.013):
And I think they’re headed that way look, you know, my younger daughter is 19 she’s in school and she gives me endless crap every single time I open up an AI tool. Endless and it’s all her friends are the same they’re kind of anti-AI yes they’re interesting they’re rebelling against this her sister her older sister too like they they roll their eyes. So, hard every time like let me just drop it in the Claude and see what it says. So, hard they they crave real world almost retro authenticity to your point of humanity I think you’re right I think the advice is is focus on the humanity side of things because I think. There’s going to be such an appetite for it moving forward that that’s I think there’s going to be a ton of value right yeah go go to.
Brian Bell (00:37:02.007):
The live show watch the musicians put the record on the record player hear the the, you know, the the warm analog sound right exactly crave crave that cup of coffee that you handcrafted and did a pour over in your kitchen.
Jeff Gothelf (00:37:16.197):
Embrace the flaws right like I think that’s part of it as well right like everything that everything that comes out of at the moment out of all these LLMs is. So, it it looks flawless and it complements you right great great job you’re so smart jeff that was such a great idea wow I didn’t even think about it that way jeff and here’s here’s here’s a polished out output of whatever it is that you asked for and I think I think that people miss the flaws the rawness of of of the human side.
Brian Bell (00:37:44.740):
Of things I really think it’s, you know, I actually I borrowed uh Mark Andreessen’s prompt I don’t know if you saw this he has a prompt for his AI and it’s it’s a really long one and it the gist of it is like accuracy is your most important trait your world expert you are not to agree with me you’re to point out my flaws and my, you know, when I’m wrong and this is this long thing about how to like tell your get your AI to tell you the harsh truth and so like now that when I talk to my AI it’s really harsh to me it’s like you’re like basically you’re an idiot what are you doing.
Jeff Gothelf (00:38:17.191):
This is the stupidest thing I’ve heard not not not not to flip the the interviewer interviewee chair but I’m curious if that makes you actually use the AI more or less because I think it makes me use it more right.
Brian Bell (00:38:27.717):
Because it it becomes this like imperfect harsh mirror to my to my thinking where, you know, like you’re talking to this like critic, you know, like, you know, and we’re using it to evaluate startups and evaluate pitch decks and, you know, should we invest in this company here’s the data room here’s pitch deck here’s our transcript call here’s resumes and it’s just like I can’t believe you’d even consider investing in this company basically is what it’s telling me I love that like wow okay like tell me more, you know, because I was really excited to invest in this company or vice versa right I’ll be like oh this is definitely a hard pass and it’s like no actually this is a strong yes and here you’re wrong and here’s why so okay so it’s you can actually prompt it in a way to yeah because it is a little sycophantic right more than a little yeah yeah well especially like the old ChatGPT I think 4-0 was like really people, you know, remember they protested when they took it away yeah. They lost their sycophantic friend right this thing that just like coddled.
Jeff Gothelf (00:39:22.646):
To them feels good when someone agrees with you all the time yeah.
Brian Bell (00:39:25.787):
So, everybody look up the Mark Andreessen prompt online and put that in the comments I guess that’s a good one well let’s wrap up with some rapid fire questions okay yeah so a popular idea in product management.
Jeff Gothelf (00:39:37.910):
That you think is quietly wrong there was an idea for a long time that product managers were the CEO of the product ooh and this is the Ben Horowitz correct.
Brian Bell (00:39:48.328):
Yeah, correct see the CEOs of nothing they’re the CEOs gathering everybody’s opinion yeah yeah exactly they can’t hire they have no budget like the CEOs of nothing yeah that’s funny they’re yeah they’re more like the uh the advisor to the product in a way yeah the uh well they got they got the backlog keeper of of ideas yeah it’s true it’s kind of true yeah you can tell I’m a little little saucy I was a PM for a long time a belief that you hold now that someone you generally respect disagrees.
Jeff Gothelf (00:40:21.914):
With oh that’s such a good one gosh I have here in my notes Josh Seiden josh Josh Seiden is my business partner and co-author for like the last 15 years I mean, he’s someone that I’ve I’ve greatly respect and we do we do disagree occasionally I think the the the disagreement is that you can. He believes that you can quantify qualitative benefits to customers and it’s something that I yeah and and I I I believe that you can quantify behavior driven by those by by sort of the the lack of those benefits or the the presence of those benefits. But he believes you can actually quantify the the benefits themselves the qualitative benefits and eyes still to the right yeah because.
Brian Bell (00:41:09.368):
The benefits are are basically like a bucket it’s like a problem it’s the opposite of a problem it’s kind of like a it’s a benefit benefit versus the underlying need, you know, the pain or the pleasure yes it’s a thought it’s.
Jeff Gothelf (00:41:21.715):
A feeling yeah.
Brian Bell (00:41:24.019):
Yeah, how painful is this if we take it away from you or like how pleasurable is it to have this versus like, you know, I can, you know, my phone unlocks with my face, you know, that’s a benefit right yep exactly but why is that like why is that beneficial why is that good yeah one thing you were right about before it was obvious and one thing uh you were confidently embarrassing wrong.
Jeff Gothelf (00:41:43.494):
I’ve been pushing for years and I think still to this day that to get out of the deliverables business in fact, like kind of my breakout article back in 2011 I think it was was called getting out of the deliverables business and I think we’re in in really perilous times to get back into the deliverables business now because producing stuff is so easy with AI right and so we like really just like focusing on the production of stuff is not.
Brian Bell (00:42:08.591):
The production of value necessarily right and so I feel like I’ve been right about that for a long time.
Jeff Gothelf (00:42:13.578):
As far as things that I was wrong about there was there was a thing like one thing that I, you know, particularly when I was formulating a lot of the Lean UX ideas and thinking about Lean Startup ideas there was we were trying to get teams to change the way that they worked and one of the things that teams really wanted for example, we talked a lot about in this conversation about talking speaking with customers right and there were a lot of organizations that were like okay well then we’ll just measure the number of conversations we have with customers and I was adamant that that was a vanity metric to use one of Eric Ries’s terms right because you could talk to a thousand customers or ten thousand customers and learn nothing if you’re talking to the wrong people you’re asking the wrong questions you’re not you’re not getting the data and I was I was totally wrong about that I’ve completely changed my mind about that I do believe that organizations that currently do not do any kind of customer conversations and start to go through the motions of talking to customers and they’re counting that like let’s say I just want you to talk to 50 customers this month right whatever it is inevitably you’re going to get better and more comfortable at that task so even just going through the motion and counting the motions is a great place to start so yeah.
Brian Bell (00:43:18.105):
Completely changed my well yeah it’s it’s kind of like the old phrase I, you know, 95 of success is just showing up right and doing the work, you know, just show up and do the work if you just show up and do the work I mean, that’s I tell my kids that, you know, I have one kid sort of struggling in school I’m like are you showing up and doing the work like now I’m like okay that’s the problem like if you just shut up and do.
Jeff Gothelf (00:43:36.526):
The work you’ll probably get a’s yeah and and look and you and the the repetition simply makes you better right this is it’s kind of like I used to use this in talks all the time the Karate Kid right the Karate Kid goes to Mr. Miyagi and he’s like hey I want to learn karate Mr. Miyagi is like terrific paint the fence. He’s like but I want to learn karate he’s like right on dude he goes wash the car yeah right and he’s like what like I don’t understand he’s like just do what I’m telling you and then like but he doesn’t know it but through the process of painting the fence and wax on wax off right he’s learning karate it’s the same thing right showing up and and going through the motions is is is actually a good thing initially eventually you’ll have to move forward and actually get value or deliver value out of those motions but at the very first show up and do.
Brian Bell (00:44:17.796):
The work really good advice a mistake you keep making despite knowing better this is, you know, it’s it’s.
Jeff Gothelf (00:44:22.780):
Embarrassing to admit this publicly and on a recording but, you know, there is a fruit for the better part of the last 15 years right, you know, 15 16 years I have been a staunch advocate for assumptions hypotheses experiments evidence-based decision making and then pivoting when the evidence contradicts your hypothesis right strong opinions loosely held right that I’ve been. I’ve been borrowing that phrase and using it forever and man I have such a hard time killing my ideas I love my ideas so much, you know, like really like to this day, you know, josh I talk to josh my business partner every day, you know, and he’s like dude he’s like this the we need to pivot we don’t have product market fit for this thing this isn’t working I was like come on I was like three more months we can make it happen we can make it work so to this day like I still 50 more interviews just get out of the building josh right exactly exactly I still struggle like we’re just. Interviewing the wrong people right exactly they’re, you know, these people don’t these people.
Brian Bell (00:45:21.974):
Don’t know what they’re talking about we obviously have the right solution for the wrong person we just got to go find the right people right.
Jeff Gothelf (00:45:27.567):
Yeah, exactly exactly what’s.
Brian Bell (00:45:30.168):
A question you wish more hosts podcast hosts like me asked you on a podcast what was.
Jeff Gothelf (00:45:35.109):
The most unlikely job you’ve ever had that has has had a kind of a profound influence on how you work today that’s that’s.
Brian Bell (00:45:44.032):
A question no one’s ever asked me I love it and now please we want to know the answer yeah.
Jeff Gothelf (00:45:49.085):
I worked in the circus I spent my first job out of college I joined the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus and I traveled the east coast with a three-ring tented circus I’m not joking for six months doing circus shows. I saw the circus 400 times in a row that summer it was a very humbling experience it was a very difficult experience I learned a ton about a world that exists that very few people have any insight into sub-community of 200 people who live and work and and and, you know, celebrate and and argue with each other they meet out justice like it’s this really crazy crazy world of the circus I did sound and lighting by the way that was my job I was the sound and lighting technician for six months and I spent six months on the road and it just it just taught me so much about not making assumptions about people by truly getting to know the people around you um by to be super scrappy, you know, I had this super crappy PA system that was grossly inadequate for the size of the tent that we had to fill with sound the environment that we were working in was was really bad for the equipment it was we had elephants and horses and there was dust dust and and everything’s bouncing around from place to place and moisture and rain and humidity and so the microphones were breaking and the cables were breaking and it was a lot about like okay like I gotta hit this lighting cue and solder this microphone back together so that the trumpet solo can be heard and like it was a lot of stuff like that, you know, I was 22 and it was the most responsibility I ever had because, you know, this community is relying on everybody to pull this off in front of 4 000 people twice a day and it was it was a fascinating six months to say.
Brian Bell (00:47:32.223):
The least that is a question that’s going in the in the uh the stable when do you think I should ask that you think it’s right it’s good right here in the uh the the rapid fire section or you think I should ask that at the beginning like after the background question. What’s the most unlikely experience that you’ve had that kind.
Jeff Gothelf (00:47:47.078):
Of impacted you yeah that’s I like it at the end because because yeah can I because because at this point I’ve kind of shared a lot of my background right yeah and now you kind of get a little bit of the justification for it yeah.
Brian Bell (00:47:57.045):
A little little metacognition here of podcast making but yeah I really appreciate the conversation jeff really enjoyed it where can folks find you online jeffgothelf.com senseandrespond.co and of course LinkedIn always the easy places to find me all right well thanks uh.
Jeff Gothelf (00:48:11.876):
So, much for coming on my pleasure brian thanks so much for having
