Enterprises need to ditch the power of the mob for power of the crowd

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Enterprises need to ditch the power of the mob for power of the crowd

Over and over as community becomes vital to a (number of) organization’s success in building a quality product, we’re seeing big tech take bigger falls for not listening to its users. Facebook is head of the pack in putting profits before people,?preferring angry users?in its algorithms, but its reputation is now?nearly irreparable, which tells us that the status quo is finally nearing its expiry date. The corporate culture of leveraging users for the benefit of the company no longer works. Businesses must now grow hand in hand with their users, or crumble under their own weight.

This is especially keen in the world of enterprise software, where companies have traditionally marketed themselves to “businesses,” rather than all the people within those businesses. Which means today’s programs are not actually designed for the individual users who work with them every day. And the lack of quality is evident. Three in four users think enterprise apps are?too inflexible?for their business process.

The reality is: for software, if it doesn’t feel like something customer’s really want or love to use, they won’t use it. The individual people in teams are becoming the decision makers. So we need to deliver enterprise ready solutions but absolutely focus on delivering a delightful experience for the individual user.?

We have to shelve outdated software and tailor it to how individual users interact with it day in, day out. The most impactful (and the most loved) tools emerging now are those that are created for the benefit of individuals: made for communities,?with?communities.

Enterprise tools must collaborate directly with the communities they serve in building their product, finding product-market fit, and achieving their mission. Those people genuinely need your product to?work, so will act as your chief barometer, advisor, and ambassador. Such is the power of the crowd.?

This is how enterprises can harness that power, and not be left behind as users turn to the ever-growing competition.

Surround yourself with a community through founder-market fit

Building with and for the community has to be a conscious decision to work with people from a range of backgrounds, with a range of abilities, and listen to an array of voices—from the start. At Stark, from day one we decided to build our crowd by:

1. Leveraging our networks - both those of the company and of individual team members
2. Talking to pioneers in our market; working with the people who tackle accessibility and experience disability on a daily basis.

There’s no cookie-cutter approach to building a community; by definition, it will be shaped organically in response to the needs of the audience and the type of industry. But to equip yourself and your team, you should be working towards founder-market fit. As you grow your initial core team, you need individuals who understand the space, the people within it, and the solutions they’re seeking. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to hire a high profile veteran at the very start, but you should be singling out those people who are actively contributing to the community, whose voices are respected and echoed, and whose advice is sought out by others. At Stark, so many of our team members have been hired directly from our community.

These people are already embedded figures within the community, or market, and they will help it grow naturally around your business too.

Let your community help you dominate the market

When you build a product that is community-driven, it's a major retention driver because it facilitates constant reaffirmation of self for members of that community. It's essentially saying "you matter, your voice matters, we’re better because you contribute" and translating their input into a product that?actually provides solutions for them. That means they will stick with you throughout your journey.

On top of that, the process helps your company address critical factors continually, as you’ve established an open line of communication with the crowd. These individuals will keep telling you how your product should be refined as you evolve. Not a lot of companies have been able to scale while still maintaining that dynamic with their communities.?

What's the difference between being community-driven and simply collecting customer feedback, then? A community gives you a more accurate cross-section of society, as the individuals are brought together by your product and what it can do for their lives, rather than a particular demographic. This enables you to build a product?across?groups while still being a far closer accompaniment to them. It also allows for more trial and error because of the scope, and because stronger ties make shortcomings more forgivable.

After all, what we know about love and trust holds true in product. The same way we pick our partners is the same way we choose our products. Food for thought. ??

And when it comes to dominating the market, the crowd of community can seal off your corner for you. Individuals from the community become your extended customer success team, they wall off your section of the field and report back on internal and external conditions without being prompted.?

Build your product out in the open

Enterprises are notorious for building products behind closed doors, but working with a community demands transparency. You need to invite more people into the creation phases if?you want your product to be the best possible.

Building your product in the open means sharing designs and ideas—given you want concepts that people can digest and riff on top of. Share what's in the works with your community, what you're conceptualizing, iterating, and doubtful about. The community will often take those mock-ups and concerns, redesign or conceptualize them, and kick them back to you with suggestions.

The platform for this type of feedback should be where you see your community the most engaged and active. Depending on the goal, you could be using Twitter, whose viral quality generates mass engagement quickly.?

Given our product is a accessibility (compliance) tool in the design and development space, and visuals are crucial for our team and community, we also like using Instagram. And depending on context, decide whether you want to be testing the waters with the wider public, or getting more select feedback from a private group of users. For this we use Slack, where we have a Beta testing group. This is also more advisable for more sensitive, pre-launch software feedback and user testing.

Get a positive loop going though! At Stark, whenever our community says we're on to something, we keep going back to them with more specific questions to really dig deep on what works. Our team is particularly great at getting people to articulate what is valuable or not, and following up with questions—which, as a capability, is the byproduct of deeply understanding the problem.?

The cycle is effective because we invest in the knowledge of the crowd and they reinvest in us. They know that we're the people who are going to action what they say. The mutual benefits are the pillar of any relationship: when you see someone is committed to you, you give back.

Be a leader in the space, with your community by your side

To really serve the?individuals?within a community, you need to reach them on a personal level. For that, your company has to be mission driven and advocate for the solutions beyond the immediate sphere of your product.

When you're surrounded by companies waxing lyrical about DEI but putting quotas before conversations, people can detect the inauthenticity. People love to dichotomize, they’re hungry for a positive mission in the unethical tech space, and the companies that fall short will be eaten alive by the crowds that they ignored.?

You need to practice what you preach, and preach what you practice.

Become a presence in your space beyond what’s making you money. Whenever your company is debating a certain topic, or writing an opinion piece, open it up to the community at large. Host a Twitter Space to have live conversations about an emerging trend or news event. The discussions will enrich your position as a leading figure and advocate in the industry, while your brand will be a living and evolving product of the people it’s serving. Keep your voice in the public forum by also publishing a response to anything consequential happening in your industry, such as a law being passed or a scandal emerging.

Having a vocal, informed opinion forms a brand that people love and are a genuine part of. This makes you stand out, because it's drastically different from what currently exists in the siloed business world, and will see to it that your community members turn into your greatest advocates.

When people are just part of your formula for business success, your product grows with that mindset, and by the time you’ve reached enterprise status the needs of the individual have been lost. But when you make your crowd a pillar of your business journey, you'll not only have a representative sounding board to build a better product for everyone, you'll have a real-life community that wants your product to succeed.

At the end of the day, isn’t that what community is all about?

???What is community to your company? Are you advocating for community in a large corporation??Share those thoughts with me!

My work around the web

My work was published in Harvard Business Review.?I discussed the gaps companies have in understanding accessibility, the four ways they’re excluding over 2B (and growing) people globally—albeit unknowingly, and how to address these fixes org-wide.

Worth learning about

Development of a Novel Methodology for Applied Innovation

“today, and in the future, the contributions of non-expert innovators to a more inclusive innovation ecosystem will make an increasing impact, so contributions from the public are also required. In order to facilitate user input into the process, as well as to increase impact from those more familiar with the innovation space, the concept of an ‘innovation methodology’ has developed.”

Don’t be a mouth breather

Admittedly, Buddhists have known this for years. But alas, the rest of the world is slow to the pickup. A Professor of Neurobiology at Stanford in the Huberman Lab, Dr. Andrew Huberman details the correlation between mouth breathing and infection, deviated septum, etc.?

Further?reading?he recommends, in addition to?Breath by James Nestor—which I’d argue is a read on the topic for the masses as opposed to academic published papers if that’s not your thing. If you’re interested in one man’s journey to learning this, deep dive into the story of?Wim Hof.

You should think about this

I was talking to my executive coach about teams having random moments of seeing how you can move up deadlines and change the speed of things. I walked away with this thought: Speed as a habit is a defining characteristic to the success of a team and the company being built. Startups are fast, big corps are slow. However, one should argue: speed is the byproduct, and it’s?flow?as a habit. With flow comes speed. Flow is where the creativity happens, the breakthroughs, and learnings.

Next time you want to urge your team or yourself to “move fast and break shit”, I’d urge you to, instead, ask what will get them into a flow state the quickest. And what in your process is preventing it?

I never really liked that?move fast?phrase anyway…

As always, thanks for reading! And if you have any questions about the?topics I’ll be covering, go ahead and AMA by replying to this email or?pinging me on Twitter. If I don’t have the answer, we’ll deep dive together.

I appreciate you. And until next time…

Cat.