- Double Your Impact
- Posts
- 9 tips to build great nature products
I often share with you how we biodiversity builders need to learn from the biggest companies in the world. Not because they are perfect role models but because people still love them even though they mess up a lot.
So today, we get inside Apple, one of the most beloved companies in the world. Tony Fadell, the maker of the iPhone, wrote the book: "Build. An unorthodox guide to making things worth making."
Thanks to it, we get 9 great insights into how Apple, Google & co. are run and what you can implement for your nature venture.
So, let's dive in.
9 tips to build great nature products from the maker of the iPhone
Gif by producthunt on Giphy
1. Design a detailed customer journey
Just building a great product is not good enough in today's busy world. Coming from someone who created one of the most innovative products of our modern time, this statement means something.
To succeed nowadays, you need to become a master of the entire customer journey. So, map out each of the stages:
1. Awareness
2. Education
3. Acquisition
4. Product
5. Onboarding
6. Usage
7. Support
8. Loyalty
And start to improve the experience for your customers constantly.
This topic needs more exploration, so I wrote an entire article about this. You can find it here: Design A Mesmerizing Customer Journey: Getting Your Nature Venture From Good To Great.
2. Come up with real customer persona
Whether you are a nature NGO or business, you have to do a great job serving your customers. To do that, you must design a very detailed customer persona (a fictional profile of your customer).
This will allow you to see your nature venture through their eyes. Tony recommends getting as detailed as possible with it.
So, create a persona with the following:
give them names
genders
where they live
their age
their jobs
their interests
the things they love
their income
their education
their goals
their obstacles
what languages do they speak
the skills they have
The more detailed you go here, the easier it will become for you to put yourself into their shoes and not get your biased view on your nature venture.
3. Spend time on the details
In his book, Tony shares with us the importance of details. After some time running his own company, Nest, they heard from customers that the installation was the biggest issue with their product.
So, to ease the process, they added a mini screwdriver to the box. But instead of just adding a normal one, they spent some time designing it. Making them as pretty and practical as they could.
The end result?
After installation, customers would keep the screwdriver at hand to use them in their daily lives. Not only were they constantly exposed to the brand, but the screwdriver also got the attention of the customer's friend, opening the discussion to talk about Nest. Making it a powerful marketing tool as well.
So what can be your screwdriver?
4. Gain speed by focusing
Gif by keanumovie on Giphy
The first version of the iPod was built in 10 weeks. 10 weeks!
To build one of the most innovative products in the past 20 years, took only 10 weeks.
I think you and I are running out of excuses why our products or projects are taking so long.
If you believe that an update, a new product, a new service, etc., can be a game changer for your nature venture, dedicate time to it and focus on the task at hand.
10 weeks can be all the time you need to create something great.
You got this!
5. Offer painkillers, not vitamins
No, this is not a promo for medical drugs.
Instead, Tony is referring to the idea that vitamin pills are good for you but not essential. If you skip them or never try, you will actually never feel the difference.
Very different from painkillers. If you had an accident before or a chronic disease, you probably got to feel the power of painkillers. You would definitely know if you forgot to take them.
His point is that you should honestly reflect on whether your environmental NGO or biodiversity business is really solving a significant pain in your customers' lives or if it is just a nice to have.
Try to dig deeper into their pains and see how you can help them to eliminate them.
6. Focus on serving only one master
When you are having your nature venture, there is usually a path in front of you, and you have to decide at one moment. Do you create products for consumers or for other businesses?
Tony's point is that you have to choose. You can't serve them both equally good. You can try, but there is a high chance that your nature venture will stay mediocre.
The reason for this is that the marketing, your customer journey, and the product features all these have to cater to the group you want to attract. Serving 2 masters will make this very confusing.
There are obviously exceptions where you can cater to both, but your focus is to remain on serving one profile.
Apple, for example, is heavily used in businesses, but they are serving the consumer master. They just made their products so joyful that people wanted to use their products in their business, too.
So stick to one master.
7. Prepare yourself for breaking points
Now, you are in an extraordinary position that your nature venture is growing, and you can increase your impact. Congratulations!
Now, what you will experience sooner or later are breaking points.
Points in which you realize that you might be hiring more people, but you won't get faster, maybe even slower. Or points in which you feel you are losing your culture.
His main point is that rather than demonizing these points, he sees them as an opportunity to create something even better.
His most important tip here is to take those breaking points seriously because they can become real problems. So, dedicate time to them when you feel something is off.
Even better, anticipate them. So, for example, if you have a big grant coming in or a venture capital round and you know that you will hire plenty of people, prepare yourself so that things get bumpy and anticipate countermeasures beforehand.
8. Apple, Google & co. have problems like any other company
We often put those innovative companies on a throne of innovation and attention. But while reading Tony's book, one of my main takeaways was that they face exactly the same issues as any other company.
Politics, assholes, unmotivated people, unclear priorities, projects that make no sense...just to name a few.
So yes, continue to expose yourself and learn from other top companies, but also, don't beat yourself up when your nature venture currently doesn't run as smoothly as you want.
In German we say "Die anderen kochen auch nur mit Wasser" - "The others also just boil with water". Ultimately, every company comes down to the same main ingredient...people.
9. Establish Heartbeats
The last tip was the first action I immediately implemented in my business, Wildya. It is the concept of heartbeats.
Tony worked in massive teams that needed to be orchestrated so they all come together at the right moments to align and then continue to work simultaneously.
He called these points heartbeats because they make it visible if your project is still alive and going in the right direction.
There are 3 kinds of heartbeats:
External heartbeats - moments that are dictated by the outside world, like holidays, conferences, etc.
Team heartbeats - each team creates their own heartbeats that serve them, like meetings, design sprints, ideation, etc.
Project heartbeats - where all the teams come together to synchronize the work so that the big picture is coming together
Heartbeats ensure that your nature venture stays alive.
Your turn: Let's implement the 9 tips to create great nature products
Here are 5 Actions you can take to create great products:
1. Take 30 minutes next week to reflect on this article (Why? All theory is useless if you don't implement it. The implementation is the hardest bit. So, dedicating time to it ensures that you will take action.). What made most sense to you? What is currently holding you back the most?
2. Pick 1 of those tips that you want to tackle right now (Why? Of course, you should improve everything. But picking the most important one will help you keep expectations realistic and move faster.)
3. Block some time slots in the following weeks to work on it. (Why? Your week will be hectic again. Don't get an excuse to push this activity into another week.)
4. Create a SMART goal of what you want to accomplish and create small actions to get you there. (Why? Like this, you can ensure that it actually leads to the desired impact.)
5. Execute!
Cheat sheet to start building great products
In a nutshell: Even iconic products like the iPhone don't appear out of magic. There are straightforward ways that help you to build the next iPhone, like a moonshot product for nature.
Website: Build Website (more info, investment possibility, collaboration opportunity)
Before you go.
If you think this newsletter is helpful, please share it with 1 ecopreneur in your network.
This will help me massively to keep these tips free.
Apple, Google & co. are inspiring companies, but they are not working with magic. They just figured out some aspects you haven't yet. With those 9 tips, you can get a closer look at what makes them great.
As always, these tips actually make a lot of sense when you read them. Not really magic, right?
Now, it comes to the most crucial part: you need to implement them. Otherwise, this newsletter was useless.
Even if it is just one tip. Pick it up and start implementing because we must build greater products and services that get people stoked on nature.
See you next week. Have a wild one!
Best,
Oliver
🦧 Whenever you are ready, there are 2 ways Wild Business Mates can help you grow and double your impact:
1-to-1 business consulting. Detailed and personalized consulting to double the impact of your biodiversity organization in the shortest possible time. Not sure how to tell better stories?
Sign up for the waiting list. By writing us to [email protected] (unfortunately, we are booked out at the moment)
Wild Business Mates in Action. Wild Business Mates help you execute in areas you are struggling with. Tech, Marketing, Sales, Communication, etc. We can realize all the steps I mentioned above.
Reply