Thread by @hnshah

When you make a product or new feature, your #1 goal is to build something people fall in love with.

An experience they can't live without.

We do this at @usefyi by creating a fake @ProductHunt page *before* we launch. Inspired by @Amazon's working backwards process.

“Working backwards from the customer” is a product process developed at Amazon which enables teams to focus on the customer need before a single line of code is written.

Here is @Werner’s explanation of Working Backwards from 2006 allthingsdistributed.com/2006/11/workin…

In a 2009 @nytimes article about the @AmazonKindle, @JeffBezos shares the two fundemental questions they ask when working backward:

Who are our customers?
What do they need?

bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/is-…

In 2012, @ianmcall shared more details about how Amazon creates an “internal press release” early in the product development process.

He says that “Iterating on a press release is a lot less expensive than iterating on the product itself (and quicker!)”

quora.com/What-is-Amazon…

I wrote about how Amazon Web Services (AWS) grew with my view point on how @Amazon used the working backward process to create a multi-billion dollar business: hitenism.com/amazon-working…

If you want to learn how to use Amazon’s working backward process for yourself to build products people love, this video is pure gold:



It has the most detailed explanation of the process that I have found.

My friend @kintan shared how the working backwards process relates to @Amazon’s leadership principle of Customer Obsession.

He walks through the launch of @amazonmusic unlimited as an example: medium.com/@kintan/custom…