2021’s Shift To Opportunity-Focused Innovation

Episode Transcription

Christian:
When you're thinking of problems, it's a little bit more scientific. There's like this measurable problem that everybody can agree on. You're going to solve it. And then, while it might not be scientific to design or build a brand, you can sort of test like, "Hey, is this problem still a problem?" No, we solved it.

Christian:
In opportunity, I feel like it's a little bit challenging because you can't do that. You're not really looking necessarily just for problems. You're looking for, "Hey, let's throw something out there and see what sticks." So I think that's what we're going to see a lot more of in 2022. We're going to see this next wave of sort of experiments.

Christian:
Okay, Meghan, I am so excited for this conversation because it's one of the rare times you and I are in the same room nowadays, so.

Meghan:
Yeah, we were actually going to be in the same room earlier. And then, you canceled our one meeting together [inaudible 00:00:14], but that's fine.

Christian:
I had really important things to do. And we won't tell anybody, this is our second attempt at doing this because you and I really messed up the first time when we were remote. So we flew Meghan all the way out here to record this in-person, because we wanted to make something better for you all.

Meghan:
Better product.

Christian:
Yes, exactly.

Meghan:
Hopefully, it's good this time.

Christian:
So we're actually getting ready during the recording today to get ready for our company holiday party. So everybody is flown into the Indianapolis office. It's very festive. But this episode will be focused on recapping the year. So I'm really excited to get to talking to you about that.

Meghan:
Yeah, I am too. Because the faster we get out of here, the faster we get to the holiday party.

Christian:
Drinking eggnog.

Meghan:
So, yeah.

Christian:
Yes, the holiday party.

Meghan:
Eggnog is nasty, but yeah. So we're really, like Christian said, excited to talk to you in this episode because it seems like every year, product gets more interesting. So 2021 gave us a lot to reflect on. And we're going to spend some time today exploring what we think were the most important trends in product this year. And we're going to unpack some predictions we have for 2022. Hopefully without being boring.

Christian:
We might be wrong too about the predictions.

Meghan:
That's true. But that's the fun part because it's not like anybody is going to go back and listen to this in a year and call us out on it.

Christian:
Exactly, exactly.

Meghan:
Well, yeah. I mean, we hope this can be an ongoing conversation with you all. So now, we're actually encouraging you to call us out if you disagree or if you think we made a prediction that didn't come true. I mean...

Christian:
We love to argue.

Meghan:
We do.

Christian:
That's something you should know about me and Meghan.

Meghan:
Yeah.

Christian:
But usually I think people don't, and then we just let it go. And then, next year when we do our recap, we only pick the predictions that we were right on. We ignore all the ones we were wrong, and then everybody's like, "Oh my gosh, you guys are like oracles." I saw the oracle. I saw it. I went to Delphi one time, in Greece, where the Oracle of Delphi is. Yeah.

Meghan:
Yeah.

Christian:
Anyway, most of the time what they believe when people thought the Oracle of Delphi was telling their future, they were actually high on something around there. Some gases. Anyway.

Meghan:
[crosstalk 00:02:51].

Christian:
And when you get high, you will believe anybody. We're definitely keeping this in. Okay. So let's get on with what we're going to talk about today. If you remember being in school, you'll know that any good paper has a central argument. And if you went to my particular middle school, you wrote five-paragraph essays. And then, you used double space type, and then that's how you [inaudible 00:03:13] your paper. And I don't want to bore you in this episode, but I do want to let you know that Meghan and I actually structured it, which is rare for us. Usually we just kind of ramble about stuff and hope it all works out. And then, Erica, our fabulous producer, cuts out all the random rants that we went on.

Meghan:
Yeah. I was going to say our producer, Erica, structured it. We're just...

Christian:
Yes. So this time, we said, "Erica, how about you help us structure this first and we'll make it easier on you." So that's what you're about to here today. So getting to what we're going to talk about. We actually did a lot of planning for this episode to try to figure out what was a theme in the year 2021. And we kind of felt there was this theme that it was the year of product opportunity. And when we look ahead to 2022, we think that it's going that sort of opportunity that was set this year is going to lead to a lot of product innovation. And that may, at this point, sound like duh, innovation. We're actually using the word product innovation very specifically, which will get to in a minute. I think innovation gets used to describe a lot of things, but we don't often see it apply to product itself. And we'll get to what that means in a little bit.

Meghan:
So if we're telling people we're getting to it later in episode, let's just... Let's get to it.

Christian:
Okay, okay. All right. All right, Meghan. Okay. I'm on it. We need to talk about 2020 for a second to sort of lead up to 2021. When we were talking about this episode and trying to figure out what the themes were, we had to go back to 2020 because I think it was the only way we could figure out what 2021 was all about. And I've heard people talk about sort of first order and second order effects of systems and things like that. And I was thinking about the pandemic, in that 2020 was like first order innovation. So we all went home. And so, anything that helped facilitated working remotely immediately was like this first order innovation. I think the obvious one was Zoom. And I have not been really complimentary of Zoom as a product, which I think is fair in the way I've talked about it. But we can't deny that... I don't think the world could have kept going without Zoom in 2020.

Meghan:
Right. Because the products that were being built needed to prioritize flexibility and responsiveness in 2020. There wasn't a ton of room for any more innovation beyond that, because we had to find solutions to real problems really fast.

Christian:
Yeah, I think that's well put. And so, I think that first order sort of helped us move out of that. And when we think about that, we are thinking about there was a huge problem, and it was problem-oriented innovation. It was like there was a really obvious problem. Is one of the... Maybe the only time in human history where the entire globe, at least the sort of like modernized cities, really faced the exact same problem. Like everybody was effectively dealt with the same pandemic that everyone else did. And so, Zoom was there at the right time and helped solve all this. But the way that I think about problem-oriented innovation is it only gets you so far. It's like if you solve something really, really well. We, as humans, are quick to get to instantly increase the bar. It's like, "All right, cool. Thanks, remote meetings." And it's like, the next wave was like, "Okay, I don't like that anymore. We need to do something more."

Christian:
Another thing to think about problem-oriented innovation, I think, maybe to be fair to Zoom is like, you solve the core problem and you do it so well, that's why we start to expect more. And a lot of, I think, what Zoom's challenges were wasn't necessarily Zoom's fault. Like for me, I had to help lead a company through 2020 and try to get my team to operate remotely. And I'd never had to do that before. And I had to sell remotely, so I'm on Zoom calls all the time. And I had like four migraines last year, and that was more migraines than I had in the 15 years combined, because I was staring at the screen and the camera every single day. And it was like... I associate that with Zoom. That's not Zoom's fault. It was the only thing that allowed us to function. But I think it was almost a victim of its own success. Because it did that so well, I'm like, "Is there something else out there that can sort of innovate on top of that?" And I think that's what starts to lead us towards 2021.

Meghan:
Yeah. And I think we can all agree, 2020 wasn't anyone's best. Everybody's kind of ready to move on from it. Now, at this point, the market reflects that. That's why in 2021, we saw what we're now going to call the second order innovations. So this innovation remains problem-oriented. But then, the question is about how these products can solve 2020s problems better. So I guess this is where we see like an Around popping up instead of a Zoom. They're innovating on those first order innovations. That's how obviously we came up with second order innovation.

Christian:
Yeah. We saw that, I think, a lot in the future of work series with Around and Remotion, which we're sort of leveraging the sort of remote work and building on top of that to make it a little bit better experience.

Meghan:
So, okay, problem-oriented first order innovations in 2020 leading to those second order innovations in 2021, we are predicting now that the progress we made in 2021 is going to welcome in this new kind of product innovation in 2022, which we're going to refer to from here on out as opportunity-focused innovation.

Christian:
Okay. So, opportunity-focused innovation. Let's make sure that that's sort of clear because we're using words that seem really simple, but when we talked about this before the episode, I think we really meant something by [inaudible 00:08:36]. So, when we're thinking about opportunity innovation, we're almost thinking of... In my mind, it's a bit like speculative. There's almost like let's experiment and see what's out there.

Christian:
When you're thinking of problems, it's a little bit more scientific. There's like this measurable problem that everybody can agree on. You're going to solve it. And then, while it might not be scientific to design or build a brand, you can sort of test like, "Hey, is this problem still a problem?" No, we solved it.

Christian:
In opportunity, I feel like it's a little bit challenging because you can't do that. You can't... You're not really looking necessarily just for problems, you're looking for, "Hey, let's throw something out there and see what sticks." So I think that's what we're going to see a lot more of in 2022. We're going to see this next wave of sort of experiments.

Meghan:
Yep, because the problems are solved.

Meghan:
So now, if we're going to be coming up with more products, where do those come from?

Christian:
Okay. So point number one that we should hit on for this is that products in 2022... Drum roll. Insert drum roll here. They will be more imaginative. And when we say more imaginative, you have to think about like untapped opportunities that exist right now. Like for me, I think about microchip shortage in cars. You might buy from the chip manufacturers, but not think about the cars sitting in lots right now. The second the chips get made, the dormant cars are going to be available again. I have friends who don't have a car right now because their car broke down during the pandemic and they can't go buy a new one.

Christian:
I've also heard in Indiana, there's a lot of areas where there's just like cars sitting there like 99% complete, except for the chip. What's going to happen with that? We haven't even sort of thought about products that might emerge from this. Are the people that haven't bought cars going to just end up buying them? Or have this time period where they haven't been able to have a car, they started to build new habits? And so, that creates new products. I have no idea, but I think this is where there's like this opportunity that we can't even see yet, that we have to look deeply at some other confluence of factors that are going to create new products.

Meghan:
That's a great point, Christian. And actually, this doesn't sound related, but it makes me think a lot about Parkday. So this is an example of a product that's already leveraging imagination and this opportunity-oriented innovation that we're talking about. So a little bit about Parkday, they are bringing great healthy, nourishing, incredible food, you tried it, into the office. So for companies that offer food programs for their employees, and it's an incentive that you have lunch if you work here, you have breakfast if you work here. Parkday makes that possible with really healthy local ingredients and kitchens. So while most products around remote work responded to the immediate problem, which is creating this better virtual experience, Parkday is betting on that return to office because they recognize this key missed opportunity. They saw how employers could actually use food and meal planning and this to incentivize workers to come back. And so, they built a product based on that.

Christian:
Yeah, I think it's almost like when we, again, hit on opportunity versus problem, nobody would say probably that, "Oh, it's a problem that we don't have food at work." It's an opportunity though. So people is like [inaudible 00:11:47], there's actually a huge opportunity there. So I think that's what we mean by that and why you brought up Parkday. It's a good example.

Meghan:
And even pre-COVID, it was an opportunity to offer employees a benefit that they might not get elsewhere. It was an opportunity to attract better talent by offering them this. Now, it's an opportunity to get people back in the office if that's something that companies want to do.

Meghan:
So in a similar vein then to what Parkday is doing to make work more inclusive and fun for people returning to this new office of the future, as it's being called, we also think products in 2022 are going to become a vehicle for cultural change or even countercultural movements. Again, this seems like a little bit of a departure, but bear with us and you'll understand where we're coming from.

Meghan:
I think a lot about mymind, which is this new note taking tinkering space. We've seen this before. If you think a little bit about Tumblr, maybe it was kind of like whatever you wanted to do or say, or show the world in that moment, you just post on your Tumblr. You could create your own aesthetic. You could write notes to other people and to yourself. And it was more of like a creative tinkering space. So it was kind of the original creative tinkering space.

Meghan:
But it calls... This new one, mymind, calls users with a more countercultural purpose because they're totally private. So the company includes a manifesto on its website that promises no vanity, no pressure, no tracking and no ads. Anything you post on your own... I don't know if it's called a board. Anything you post in your own space in mymind, is the name suggests, supposed to stay in your own mind. It's only for you. It doesn't have that social aspect that Tumblr used to.

Christian:
And to be clear, Meghan is talking about an app called mymind. She's not actually talking about her mind. Just to be clear.

Meghan:
Yeah, we're never doing an episode on that. Nobody wants to...

Christian:
No, we're not. Yeah, no. That's actually wouldn't be allowed by the FCC. So I think that's a great example. I love the term countercultural. I feel like I learned that in sociology in high school to describe the '60s and '70s, and don't really get to use that very often. And the fact that we get to now to describe products is pretty cool.

Christian:
It also reminds me... You talk about almost like positioning against something else too. And I think that DuckDuckGo emerging as this search engine as the alternative to Google is another example. So some of it is just like not even just countercultural, but against other larger sort of products that already exist.

Christian:
So I guess the question that I think is important to ask here is, how widespread and long term will countercultural products be in '22? And is it actually going to carry weight or is this just sort of a flash in the pan?

Meghan:
So yeah, we've seen big tech make countercultural promises before. It hasn't always panned out. And actually some products even became sort of like self-fulfilling prophecies in a way. So they set out to become countercultural and they ended up becoming what they said they wouldn't. So some attempts that countercultural products become so old actually that they're now even a part of big tech. And I know that's probably frustrating for the people who were promised something countercultural.

Meghan:
But take dating apps for example. I know these keep coming up, even though neither of us use them anymore. But Tinder was the first to bring the dating app to phones. They focused on younger people. I think they may have even introduced the swipe functionality. That was like their thing. But then, the founders actually broke up. And one of them took off and founded Bumble, which she inherently believed would solve the problems embedded in Tinder. But then, that didn't really happen because every time a new dating app comes out, it becomes like one of the more tired ones. And Bumble now is... I mean, Tinder is now like the hookup app. And Bumble is probably like the oldest and most tired of the legit dating apps.

Meghan:
So yeah, it wasn't truly countercultural like, let's say, apps were seeing that are emerging to help with trans dating, for example. Some of the biggest areas where I think we're going to see an actual change emerge is through social media products. We're seeing an uptick in what we're calling these anti-social media apps like a [Diem 00:15:44] or [Glasp 00:15:45]. We're betting that people don't want the metaverse. And I know Christian...

Christian:
I don't.

Meghan:
Yeah. You have your own opinions about Facebook. I don't really want it either. It reminds me of all those... Like what's Ready Player One? Nobody wants that.

Christian:
Pretty much.

Meghan:
Nobody wants to live like that.

Christian:
Fun book.

Meghan:
Yeah.

Christian:
But not the world I want.

Meghan:
Right. So people we're also betting that people don't want to be data points. We're betting that people want to be seen and respected for what they can uniquely contribute to a public conversation.

Christian:
I think this is a great segue to what I think will be maybe the continuation of another trend, which is more community-oriented. Because you're sort of talking about like there's countercultural, there's counter movement. Then I feel like you're starting to talk about with social media, there's going to be splintering off into highly specific areas that are more about the people they're trying to represent. That's I think the ultimate goal. Like we're starting to see what tech always could, which is actually allow for almost like a long tail of products.

Christian:
But to get there, I think we have to have products be community-oriented. And I'm guessing nobody will... I think anybody hearing of like, "Yeah, community's been huge," and we've covered community on this podcast for a couple years. But to cover predictions, I mean, sometimes it's just the continuation of something. And I think... But community continues not only to evolve, but to actually get smarter about how it's being utilized. And what I think is [inaudible 00:17:07] the truest sign of it coming into its own is that we're starting to see products that start that are just building communities for the sake of communities.

Christian:
I think historically, and even when we covered community on this podcast a couple years ago, we were talking about community almost as a strategic piece of product growth. So, are you going to build a product? Well, build a community around it. And that helps drive leads to your product. And that's definitely still true. But I think that we're going to start seeing something that's even deeper, which is actually just saying, "You know what? I want to just find out what opportunity there is out there. I want to do something that's different than the main. Let me just start by building a community and see who's out there that shares similar views as me."

Christian:
So, I'll share a really close personal story to Innovatemap, which is we talked to somebody who we know. So one of our employees, their husband, [Connor Kelly 00:18:00], is building a new music platform, which is really kind of positioning against the Spotify [inaudible 00:18:08], which by the way, pretty funny, because Spotify was the [inaudible 00:18:11] app that was counter to a lot of the other streaming services a few years ago. But now, we're starting to see that people are having problems with that because it's really challenging to build really community followings around DJs or around similar music. And so, he's really just building a community around that problem. Like betting that there are other people like me who really want to follow DJs or sort of people that are taste makers in music, rather than just looking at a sea of music.

Christian:
And that's interesting because every streaming service effectively has access to the exact same music library. So we've solved the problem of access to music. Now, what we're going to start seeing is, is there something else there? Now, we're moving into opportunity space. I had a chance to talk to Connor about his idea a couple weeks ago, and he was asking about like, "How do I think about this? What's the problem I'm solving?" I was like, "You know what? Maybe you don't need to think about a problem. Why don't you just start building an audience, start energizing that audience, and start just seeing what emerges out of that."

Christian:
We see that happening a lot in blockchain or Web 3.0 and NFT, whatever you want to call that right now. There's this new technology and a lot of it is emerging by people just building communities. There was a huge NFT conference in New York City a couple months ago. And all it was was just a bunch of people talking about what's going on. It was really community-oriented. So we'll see products emerge from that. But you'll see that, I think, apply here and what Connor's doing with his app is really just building community of like-minded people and figuring out there's something there. Now, I think it's a bet because it's possible there isn't something there. But like any product I think when you put something out there, product market fit isn't always guaranteed. I just think the way people are going to do that in 2022 will be less put a product out there and test, and more build a community and test.

Meghan:
And to Connor's credit, I mean, he is doing this and something did start to emerge, which is that Spotify's social features definitely needs some work. And so, that's where he's seeing an opportunity to come in.

Meghan:
I think what's especially inspiring to me here is the range we're seeing in community-based products. So some are going to be more about recreation, socializing, connection. Others are going to have deeper motivations too. I know I just had a great conversation with Tiffany Whitlow from Acclinate, and now included and our health tech series. And she is a great example of how community can be a product with weight.

Meghan:
So a little bit on that. She's very passionate about not calling what she's doing with NOWINCLUDED a community. She's calling it a product. But we're saying it is like fed by a community. It's came out of a community. So on NOWINCLUDED, participants aren't just sharing their stories with each other. They're sharing stories with the goal of giving clear and diverse data to the healthcare industry. And that's what really turns that community into a product.

Meghan:
That said where there's a growing place for the NOWINCLUDED [inaudible 00:21:02] product. We also believe we're going to see products go in a different direction. So we're betting that things might get a little weird because not all products will try to save the world or enact change. We don't think they should. Some are just trying to have fun.

Christian:
Yeah. And I mentioned a second ago the crypto and NFTs. And I think that that's happened a lot there, and I think it creates a lot of criticism around it. But I think what we have to keep in mind is that, that's the state that they're in right now. Let's have fun. We don't have to always look at technology as like solving these huge problems. Let's throw some speculation out there.

Christian:
I think, and I'm aware that I'm getting older, but I still try to stay connected to some of these weirder things. And I laugh every time I think about how memes themselves have become a valid go-to-market strategy. And I mean, memes have been around for a while. Like even Steak-umm. I just have to mention this Twitter account. If nobody has looked, so Steak-umm is like frozen slices of steaks that have been around forever. But [crosstalk 00:22:05].

Meghan:
They've literally been around forever. That's why they're frozen. Probably don't eat them.

Christian:
They're from the Paleolithic era, whenever we were last in the Ice Age. But...

Meghan:
It's woolly mammoth meat actually.

Christian:
Oh yeah, you might be right. Is it still steak if it's woolly mammoth? I don't know. But you have to look at their Twitter account. Because Steak-umm is like a meme unto itself. I have no idea what their sales are, but I have never seen an account quite like that. So you need to check it out. But I think in general, I feel like memes, just as an example of irreverent and fun, is starting to become a go-to-market strategy. It's like the old thing, like any press is good press or whatever. But I think it's sort of in that vein where if you can just drive attention, there's something there. I think there differences between healthy and toxic attention that you can bring. But I think when you think about like memes, there's something really fun there because you're creating this viral adoption.

Christian:
A more sort of serious, semi-serious example of this is the ConstitutionDAO, a project where they tried to raise money to go buy the constitution. They failed because the proposal sort of ended up being ineffective. They didn't buy the constitution, but in the process they built this and they refunded everybody's money who gave. But in that process, they found a community who cared about something like this, and it might inspire more experiments. And maybe that become something we haven't seen yet, or maybe we call that a failed experiment in community. But either way, I think there's something there.

Meghan:
And this reminds me so much of... I'm going to go here again, Christian. What we talked about with Postdates earlier this year. So we often frame product ideas as pain killers versus vitamins. We went into that a little bit. In that episode where painkillers obviously are these problem-focused products. They're solving a problem for you. You have a problem, a painkiller kills it. Versus vitamins, which are just kind of enhancements or nice-to-haves in your every day.

Meghan:
So increasingly, like we've said before, I think it's fair to say, we might start to see this new variety of not painkillers, not vitamins, but psychedelic products. And for anybody who didn't hear that episode or who just forgets, Postdates is an app that's very much based on Postmates, the food delivery app. But it's the app where you actually send a courier to go pick up all of your stuff from an ex's house.

Christian:
Meghan's totally used it too. Just FYI.

Meghan:
No, I always fight my own battles.

Christian:
You don't need an app for that.

Meghan:
Yeah.

Meghan:
So obviously, everything we've talked about today is up for a debate or definition, I guess, when 2022 arrives. We hope this sets a solid framework. For some observations, we hope people actually email us and call us out if they disagree. But we think we have made some pretty good guesses based on working in the product industry.

Christian:
So let's recap those guesses for everybody. So as they're getting their... They're sharpening their pencils to write their rebuttal, that they're going to deliver very respectfully and not flame us on social, right?

Christian:
Okay. Number one, we said 2022 products will become more imaginative. Number two, we think that they're going to allow for more representation of people's full selves and make people comfortable with that. Number three, more community orientation. And we've covered that before. But here we mean, maybe building communities for the sake of communities and seeing what products, if any, emerge from it. And then, number four, I'll give to you Meghan.

Meghan:
More irreverent and fun.

Christian:
Just like you.

Meghan:
Exactly. Put it on my tombstone.

Meghan:
So at this time we have a question for you all, our listeners, what do you think are the most notable product trends of the year? Are there any that we may have missed? We'll take answers from any discipline, product design, product brand, product marketing, product management. So I guess really not any discipline, but all the product disciplines.

Christian:
Just those ones she said.

Meghan:
Yeah.

Christian:
All of those four.

Meghan:
Yeah, just those four. But what's going on right now that's making you think. And what are some of your predictions for the year ahead?

Christian:
And if you really want to go all in with this answer, record your thoughts in a voice memo. You have it on your phone. Everybody's got it. Even probably you people using Android phones, you can probably record a voice memo too. Send them to our producer, Erica Irish. That's erica.irish@innovatemap.com.

Christian:
So again, record a voice memo or send a very thoughtfully respectful rebuttal to Erica, and we'd be happy to talk about it on the show. But that wraps up this year. We have really loved having you all along for the journey. It's been awesome having Meghan on the show. And we have a lot of fun, new irreverent community-oriented themes to talk about next year.

Christian:
Thanks for joining us. And if you haven't yet, be sure to join the Better Product community. We've got all sorts of content and resources for you. And if you want more audio, don't forget, the business of product is our latest show to join the Better Product network. And you can find that and more at betterproduct.community.