Book · 200 pages

Escaping the Build Trap

Melissa Perri · Melissa Perri (O'Reilly) Paid Intermediate

The full book behind the essay, for when you want the system and not just the idea. It gives you the language of outcomes over outputs so you can defend a no to your team and your customers with something concrete. Worth it if requests are piling up faster than you can reason about them.

  • Tie every build decision to a measurable customer or business outcome
  • Say no to work that only adds output without moving an outcome
  • Set up the org so outcomes, not feature counts, decide priority
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It answers 5 questions

  1. How do I say no to feature requests without losing customers?
  2. Every user interview gives me a different feature request. How do I turn messy feedback into a real prioritisation decision?
  3. What is a sane way to prioritise between fixing bugs, paying customer promises, and building the exciting new thing?
  4. How do I stop myself from adding features nobody asked for just because I enjoy building?
  5. How do I set a roadmap when half my revenue comes from one big customer who keeps asking for custom features?

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  4. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  5. Basecamp's battle-tested, opinionated system for shipping meaningful work in fixed cycles without endless backlogs, a primary... Basecamp / 37signals Book · free online book Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters Ryan Singer
  6. Video · ~25 min How to Talk to Users Eric Migicovsky
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