Minlum

I keep PMs and designers up to date · Week of November 3

One trend stood out for your work this week:

📈 Trend · AI in Product · 89 posts in the last 30 days

Study Muse's permission screens. They are the best current example of asking for access without scaring people.

Todd Gagne · Product Strategy

• Speeding up a product can remove what customers pay extra for. Write that down, and check each change against it.

• Starbucks' app let people order ahead and skip the line. Numbers for speed and app use went up.

• But the author says people paid $6 a latte partly to spend time in the café.

• No number showed if the café felt worth the price. Sales at existing stores fell six quarters in a row.

• For your design review: show a flow you made faster beside the old one, and ask what customers might lose.

Jon Sabutis · AI in Product

• From notes apps to banks, products add the same AI chat panel. The author says nobody asked for it.

• It's on by default. Close it, and it's back after an update.

• A better AI feature: Gmail's gray text that finishes your sentence. It waits until you type, so there's nothing to turn off.

• Before you build one, ask who needs it. Launch it switched off, and count who turns it on and keeps it on.

• For your next prototype: replace the AI chat panel with help where the user is working. Make it wait until they act.

Ravi Mehta · Metrics & Experimentation

• Knowing your numbers isn't the same as knowing what to change.

• Activation drops, the team has several theories, and nobody knows which is right. AI can explain the drop in minutes, but that isn't proof.

• The author's example: customers who invite a teammate are more likely to stay. But maybe they invite only after the product has helped them.

• So before you add an invite pop-up, ask if anyone tested that inviting makes people stay.

• For your design review: if someone wants a pop-up because of a data pattern, ask if a test showed it helps users.

Krista Melgarejo · Growth & Retention

• Two founders say users usually bring in new users best when a task needs another person.

• At one hiring test app, recruiters must send each test to a candidate. So each candidate sees the app.

• Sharing work brings in users too. Early on at one portfolio app for PMs, most signups never finished a portfolio.

• The fix: resume import, guided steps and email nudges helped them finish. More users had something to share.

• For your design review: mark each step where users need a teammate or candidate, and put an invite button there.

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