Reddit IPO, Devin AI, Cagan & Flo Health App reviews brewed up this week...

1. So what’s the product goss this week?

Biggest news has been Reddits IPO (can’t wait for it to turn into Facebook 🙄 Iykyk). Paul G wrote a great article on YC about the founders - The Reddits . One interesting thing he mentioned is how Startups take on the personality of the founders. I started to look around me and thought this was pretty accurate 👀. The right people to execute an idea always wins more than the idea.

Devin AI caused a stir with the engineer vs product beef. My fave tweet:

Do I think AI is coming for engineers & product peeps? well it depends if you’re a feature machine, outputs type of toxic environment (I’de listen to the Lenny X Cagan podcast linked below to learn more on outputs & outcomes teams), it’s likely cause there’s too many BS job roles, so the penny will/is dropping on cutting costs and as a panic reaction, companies are letting employees go and maybe thinking about things like Devin to be deployed thinking it solves the people problem.

If you’re the outcomes based product teams, then your real value is diverse perspectives & being lean already so no, but AI products are all about easing something so it can be a great aid (I’m sure Engineers would disagree and ofc we Product people love annoying our Tech Leads). It’s probably great for personal projects which gets people started with side hustles faster.

Leading me onto the LennyXCagan podcast. Some gems in there, but you can tell Cagans fed up of the product/tech worlds BS that he had to write another book and I’m here for it.

My take on the feature vs empowered product teams is that it’s literally down to leadership. You need people who have their ego in check to build great teams and products. Product theatre is far too real. Why product teams cannot write their own user stories has always blown my mind. Empowered thinkers are far more important in the ‘threat of AI’.

2. A product I procrastinated with this week…

I reviewed the Flo Health app (femtech). Through my realms of Twitter procrastination (refuse to call it X), I downloaded this because there was a whole chain of people talking about relationship infidelity tracking via Flo Health and people were responding about the features of the app & it’s brilliant product experience 🤣. Growth hacking and organic product acquisition at its finest.

I don’t particularly use an app to track any period cycles as Apple Health tend to give me the basics, I’m also shocking at this type of admin. But Flo had some interesting features:

Onboarding

An Instant stat of OB-GYN validation gave me good level of confidence that they know what they’re talking about. It asked me what I wanted Flo to call me so it values my relationship. I thought this was great & you can also connect to your partner (hence the Twitter infidelity chat threads). Clear, easy, value exchange onboarding without an instant email barrier is one of my fave types of onboarding.

Personalisation

It’s incredibly personalised. Learns a lot about me to give me the most accurate insights. It’s the way the world is going. I need you to keep me engaged on this app. To do that it needs to be tailored to me. Personalisation is the key to retention. It’s easy to get someone to download something, but amongst my sea of apps and Apple Health (which it also connects too), detailed insights need to keep me here and continuously engaged.

Flo chat Assistants

I particularly liked the chatbots (we’re all on the AI bandwagon so I felt inclined) and I think if I was using it for a particular purpose, I might use the bot to give me a safe space to learn and discuss. It works amongst the other features of the app.

Monetisation

I thought it was priced well (like the price of a sanitary pack) and monetised through a real value exchange, It’s giving me a lot in return. I think it has room to take on penetration pricing without too much of a dropout impact given the value it is giving and I imagine it can definitely increase overtime and the product would be worth paying the increase for.

So have I signed up? I haven’t become a paid member mainly as I don’t feel like the intensity of my need is high enough, yet. I didn’t particularly go looking for an app like this so my conversion would have been higher if I was. If I was family planning, I’de be a subscriber as it is brilliant.

3. Product gems that made me howl…

Leaving you with my fave gem for your thoughts…

& finally, am I even up to anything great for your nosy?

I’m currently picking up Flutter so I’m really excited to show you an end product soon. This is me creating a public commitment to actually release something! Don’t expect something spectacular but given I did Java at uni and a while back it hasn’t been too difficult to pick up. I just need to stay consistent to develop more. I tend to find a no-code option to get my ideas tested faster. Yes I pick the lazy route. Get subscribing so you can see how I get on with my Flutter journey.

I’m also continuing to work on community stuff from events, networks & mentoring. It’s part of my world to support people.

We’re also launching the next cohort of productology.online soon as well as recorded courses! If you’re interested in picking up more about product, I teach this with my co-founder Adil Hussain who is a PM over at the Financial Times. We created a super immersive course to create powerful product thinking. I’ll release more of these deats soon too but here’s some good quotes from the previous cohort…