I’m Marie, co-founder of FYI and Product Habits, AMA 🔥

@katetalbot2 50-50 chance that I was right :) I think we all have intuitive abilities and can tap into them if we try. So I'm tapping into my intuition which I've honed quite a bit in this lifetime.

@abari_dennis I recommend doing pricing research to decide how to price your product - learning from your customers, not making decisions simply because of how a competitor is pricing. For all you know, the competitor has no idea what they are doing, or, they realize that their pricing isn't working and they are in the process of changing it. One thing you could start with to understand how customers think of the competitor's pricing is by reading reviews where customers mention pricing - what are they saying? (I don't just mean a few reviews, you'll need to read 100s if you can).

@csallen Hi Courtland! I love this question. So I came into tech/startups in 2016 and hadn't ever heard of the fit frameworks, even though I had already spent a decade as a business person. I just did business, launched new products, did research. And then suddenly, once I got into startup land everyone was talking about all these types of fits. And it's intensified quite a bit recently. I love product/market fit as a survey methodology and a way of thinking about a milestone to hit and then keep hitting again and again as the market and customer expectations change. I wish I had known about it sooner! But beyond product/market fit surveys and the concept of attaining product/market fit, it feels as if there is an obsession with different kinds of fits. My hunch is that it helps people have a mental model about how to operate. But I don’t see people regularly thinking in terms of fit. For me, my response to Nathan’s question is how I think about businesses I'm running. Using honesty to guide you. You could call it self-honesty fit. (oh no, now I'm coming up with fit frameworks!)

@helengriffinjr We discovered the problem through 52 interviews, 1000s of survey responses (feature/value, pricing, competitor analysis/NPS, early access surveys) and tons of user tests, and then even more customer interviews. Plus, we monitored usage of our MVP and the product as we iterated. This was not the normal way that most people do early research, we had a lot of data to work with and also we'd found a particularly painful problem to solve. We were also public about the research we were doing and shared what we learned along the way, which helped us get a lot more responses. We used the same process then as we do now to learn from the data. There's no real difference except that we've been able to refine how we analyze surveys/interviews/user tests to be even less biased by quantifying everything.

@alida_ouandji I've always had a strange aversion to business books, I discovered it in college and the aversion lives on nearly 20 years later. And yet I had no problem reading 600+ page Victorian novels day after day during graduate school and still delight in that practice. But try as I might, I can't finish business books. I think it's because I personally learn best by doing. For resources, I can recommend this directory of hundreds of marketing templates that we curated Marketing Resources List - it will rock your world :) I almost finished a great marketing book called "Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth" and really enjoyed it. Lots of good learnings in there. If anyone else has ideas, please chime in to help Alida :)

@marie_prokopets thank you. It will help a lot

@nat_sandman 1) Overcommunicate 2) Get on video when in meetings 3) Encourage accountability and build it in 4) Have fun! I have a whole post on the top 11 best practices for remote work that you should check out https://usefyi.com/remote-work-b... Our tech stack is.... Slack - We use this as a team to communicate G Suite - Product/marketing/growth is all about G Suite Confluence - Engineering prefers Confluence FYI - We can't live without FYI ❤️ Quip - A few writers we work with prefer Quip Google Hangouts - for smaller team meetings Zoom - for bigger gatherings Trello - We've used it in the past, but recently we've steered away

@brianmwang As a preface to my answer, Atomic Habits will be arriving on my doorstep any minute now via Amazon carrier. Let go of each and every fear. Let go of the ego. Move beyond attachments (material, mental, other people). Live from the heart. Live in the service of others. Trust completely (and exercise discernment). In the meantime, while I work up to that... one thing I want to do is create from my heart and be in the creative flow consistently. That goes for creative writing, product work, whatever I do. Beyond that, I don't have many "dos" that I crave to accomplish in this lifetime.

@marie_prokopets what a lovely reply. I appreciate how much you seem to value ways of doing rather than the "accomplishments" themselves.

@matthew_hollingsworth I do a pretty bad job of this... Work non stop in my apartment, not leaving the house, late hours. At my best, I make time to see friends in person during the week, make sure to have packed weekends filling myself up, and go work at a coworking space and/or coffee shop. I think the main key is getting out of the house and socializing with people who aren't your significant other.

@marie_prokopets It's constant struggle for sure! Thanks for sharing your experience and doing this AMA. Really admire what you and your team is doing at FYI!

@5harath I've been in bad habits land for a while and (your question is very timely) decided to start more good habits last night/today. Today I didn't rush to look at my phone when I first woke up. I waited about 40 minutes before I jumped in, and noticed how anxious looking at Twitter, Instagram and my email made me feel. This made me want to go move to a tropical island without a cellphone. Yesterday evening I took a nice long walk with my dog at 9pm because I felt that I'd been sitting at my computer all day. One that I missed last night was that I wanted to plan my day and tasks and non-work things (meditation, cleaning the house) yesterday. Not sure yet what other good habits the day has in store...

Good luck @marie_prokopets! Thanks for being so open. I still believe that we all can rewire our routines into something more mindful. I recently started two new habits as well. One is writing gratitude journal first thing I wake up in the morning. Second habit is a very deep and hard one. I have a sticky note that says "If today were the last day of my life, what would I want to do?" All I need to do is to answer that question and keep the answers close to me throughout the day. Both habits have tremendous impact on me in less time. I'm more happy and content these days. Wish you the same with whatever you are trying. Again, thanks for answering my question.

@5harath Love your two habits! I do a morning gratitude mental walkthrough when I wake up and when I go to bed - but only when I remember. I love your mechanism which involves writing, and the sticky note too.