assumptions are fatal

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, an 18 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

this publication is a place for me to reflect on productivity, health and tech, and drop unique opportunities in the space right to your inbox daily. if you’re new here, sign up to tune in! 💌 

btw, feel free to reply with topic ideas you want me to write about for future posts.

onto today’s topic: assumptions are fatal 🔪 

it’s easy to be blinded by a seemingly novel idea. 

you think you know everything your users would want and value, but in reality, the only people that know this are the users themselves. it’s important to do user research and debunk assumptions. otherwise, the next thing you know you’re building out a feature for a year and realize it’s useless, scrapping away hundreds of hours of work. 💔 

i was just about to spend dozens of hours on a new initiative, thinking it would provide value to the families we’re serving, until i hopped on a few user interviews and realized that each family i spoke to was either indifferent or feeling positive with the status quo.

my assumption was completely incorrect, and it saved me a lot of time as well as resources.

it’s so easy to get started with user research, but it’s important to ensure the data you’re receiving is actually applicable and useful. if you’re doing a survey determining whether there’s a need for job interview prep services, why are you posting the survey link out to a discord server about gaming?

make sure your audience is well defined, so you can get results that actually mean something. of course, it’s equally crucial to develop well-thought questions. just sticking to, “do you think you would need this product/service in your life?” is terrible. 👎️ 

you’re practically feeding an answer of “yes” to the audience. dig deeper in the root cause, validate the problem, and pinpoint existing solutions. these questions will shape an opportunity that actually has solid backing to it.

don’t go shooting in the dark, always validate.

have you had any very wrong assumptions?

daily opportunity + resource drops 🔍️