Building Global product with first principles

To summarize my experience of working with global companies in the last year and the various books I read on this topic, building a great product is a matter of thinking from the first principles.There were many times I found myself understanding Indian users, first when I built my website and then while conceptualizing the startup program.

In the last year, I have learned a wide range of challenges one faces when going from India to a different country and when one comes from a different country to India.

Startups usually build products for one geography, next when they plan to scale to other geographies they face a tough time making changes to the product design to accommodate the new user taste and preferences. I never really understood how companies like Facebook, Whatsapp, and Netflix just like that takes over millions of customers in foreign markets until I read a few books like — Hooked, Platform scale, The origin Story and Emergent mind.

A good product designer do user research, a great one does human subject research

User traits/behavior differ geographically and culturally, but the core human values remain the same. While many startups do user research and build a user persona before they make a product, great startups, on the other hand, do human research, understand the core and fundamental human nature which is universal. How did humans evolve biologically and culturally, asking the most fundamental question about human nature?

First principles “is a physics way of looking at the world…what that really means is that you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there…that takes a lot more mental energy” — Elon Musk

The Hook Model —

In his book “Hooked,” Nir Eyal explains how to build habit-forming products. To codify and engineer a cycle of events to keep the user coming back to your product. According to him, growth hacking is all great, but if you cant retain the users and keep them coming back, there is no point in getting more users.

Every great startup has embedded within its products what is called a Hook.

A hook is a four-step process, built into the User experience of the product —

1. Triggers — there are two types of triggers i)External trigger ii) Internal trigger. External Trigger leads a user to your product(Email, Ad, worth of mouth, etc) Once they are on your platform you store a memory of your product in the users minds which will lead them to come back to your product using internal trigger (these triggers are mostly negative emotions like I am bored, lonesome, dissatisfied or uncertain)

External trigger leads to one-time action while internal triggers make your user coming back to your product more often.

2. Action — This is the simplest thing a user can do on your platform to get relief from that negative emotion. The action has to be as simple as possible Ex- when people are uncertain about something, they google, with just one click they get their answers. Google doesn’t take the user to various pages or ask more questions to confuse them.

Behaviour = Motivation + Ability + Trigger

3. Reward — This is the scratch for their itch. He argues that many startups get this one concept wrong by giving what the users want instantaneously. Instead, he suggests giving a variable reward to your audience as this is what keeps the surprise element on. Ex- you keep searching/scrolling to unlock new information or different levels. A user is kept anticipating what they win next.

Three types of rewards —

i)Rewards of the Tribe: A feel good which comes from other people like co-operation, competition, romance, feeling good because someone else feels good.

ii) Rewards of the Hunt: Human primal needs of possession, hunting or gathering. Find a piece of great news/tweet to share or to collect badges

iii) Rewards of the self: Human need for mastery, consistency, competency, and control. Finishing the unread emails, and notifications, itch to finish to complete something.

4. Investment — Investments from the users into your product increases the likelihood of the user coming back to your product. A user may post/record/upload/create something on your platform; they come back to check the reactions/reuse/share with others. More the investment, more the commitment of the user.

Investment loads the next trigger

According to Shalom H. Schwartz a social psychologist, cross-cultural researcher, and creator of the Theory of Basic Human Values, below is the most comprehensive and universal human Values:

• Power: Social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources
• Achievement: Personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards
• Hedonism: Pleasure or sensuous gratification for oneself
• Stimulation: Excitement, novelty, and challenge in life
• Self-direction: Independent thought and action — choosing, creating, exploring
• Universalism: Understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and nature
• Benevolence: Preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact
• Tradition: Respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that traditional culture or religion provide
• Conformity: Restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms
• Security: Safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and self

I liked this blog — https://bit.ly/2TSH2MI where a more in-depth summary of the book and real workable model to use the hook model is explained.

Let me know in comments how you tackle the scaling your users to new geographies.

(Sangeeta Devni is currently helping global companies looking to enter the Indian market by bringing her expertise in conceptualizing and building an initiative from the ground up.

She was invited by the United States Government as an emerging foreign leader on an International Visitor leadership Program to meet the world’s best accelerators, Incubators & startups in San Francisco, Austin, Boston, & Texas.

Sangeeta is one of the active startup’s ecosystem collaborators in India and has been invited on live TV shows like News9 and BBC News London, delivered keynotes & lectures at the various events, programs, and IITs.)