Don’t Suck, Be Awesome: A Simple and Straightforward Way to Build Winning Products

The Way You’re Building Your Product Sucks

What sucks about being an entrepreneur, a founder, or a product designer? It’s the uncertainty, the complexity, and the overwhelming feeling of not knowing what your customers want or how to reach them. You’re tasked with figuring out what problems to solve, what features to build, and how to craft a message that will resonate with your customers. The process can feel murky and convoluted, leaving you stuck in a cycle of second-guessing and overanalyzing, or simply barreling ahead blindly.

You know the stakes are high—get it wrong, and you end up in the mass graveyard of failed startups. You might feel so confident you know what customers want that you invest years of your life and millions of investor dollars, only to realize you never solved a big enough problem, or you didn’t really understand what features mattered most. Alternatively, you might find yourself buried in endless customer research, drowning in data, and still not feeling confident that you’re building the right thing. The pressure to innovate, differentiate, and connect with your audience can make finding product-market fit feel like climbing Mt. Everest in your undies, blindfolded.

But wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a simpler way? What if, instead of navigating a maze of complex methodologies, you could rely on natural, straightforward conversations with your customers to guide your product development? Imagine a framework that strips away the noise and focuses on what truly matters—understanding your customers’ world, their frustrations, and their desires, and communicating with them in a way that just feels human?

This is why I love the “Don’t Suck, Be Awesome” framework. This approach flips the product discovery process on its head by focusing on emotional, human-centered conversations. Instead of getting bogged down in technical details from the start, you begin by asking your customers what sucks about their world. From there, you dive into what specifically drags them down, what solutions they’ve tried, and why those solutions didn’t work.

As you peel back the layers, you start to build a clear vision of what would be awesome instead—what an ideal solution would look like. This vision then drives every aspect of your product, from design principles to feature sets, to your brand voice and core messaging. And the best part? You validate this vision before you even start building, ensuring that your product and your messaging are perfectly aligned with customer expectations.

In short, the “Don’t Suck, Be Awesome” framework simplifies product discovery, turning a complicated process into a clear, actionable path. It helps you connect with your customers on a deeper level, so you can confidently build a product that doesn’t just solve problems but also delights and resonates. Isn’t that what product discovery should be all about?

Who is Your Customer?

First, let’s introduce our cast of characters. Before we can understand and solve their problems, we have to get to know them as people. I won’t go into detail about persona interviews here, but you should spend some time getting to know them before diving into product discovery.

We’re going to interview a Project Manager at a tech company, who is up to her eyeballs in planning meetings, reports, and task management. She has to use a multitude of tools and has to pay very close attention to detail to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

We’ll interview a Parent with Young Kids, who has to juggle his career while tending to a couple of maniacs. He’s always pressed for time and playing catch up, and constantly stressed. Before kids, he was organized and had his life under control. Now, he’s living in chaos.

We’ll interview a Retail Store Manager, who has the huge responsibility of keeping customers happy, employees engaged, and shelves stocked. She’s not very tech savvy, and has to rely on outdated systems that require a ton of manual effort.

What Sucks About Their Life?

The first step to understand what truly bothers your customers is to ask them about what sucks about their life in general. Here, we want to identify everything that sucks about their day-to-day experience. The questions should be open-ended, informal, and emotionally charged.

We are trying to get away from pigeon holing ourselves into one problem or solution, and to understand not only what problems they care about the most, but the greater context of how problems affect one another.

Important note: I’m going to highlight the emotional language that we want to focus on. This will be key to crafting our core messaging and design principles later on.

Ask Broad, Emotional Questions: “What aspects of your work suck the most?” “What pisses you off the most about your daily routine?”

Look for Emotional Language: We are looking for signal here, and their emotional response is the best signal at this stage. The more emphatic and colorful their language, the bigger the problem likely is. “Ughh I freaking hate it when…” is a much more severe pain point than “Well, it’s kind of annoying when…”

Here are some example interactions:

• Project Manager:
  • Interviewer: “What frustrations do you deal with day to day as a project manager?”
  • Project Manager: “Honestly, it’s the constant juggling. It’s impossible to keep track of everything without something slipping through the cracks.”
• Parent:
  • Interviewer: “What exhausts you as you go about your day?”
  • Parent: “Mornings are the worst. Getting the kids ready, packing lunches, and somehow making it to work on time—it’s pure chaos.”
• Retail Store Manager:
  • Interviewer: “What’s hard about running your store?”
  • Retail Manager: “Keeping track of inventory is a nightmare. We’re always running out of popular items, and then we have too much of the stuff that doesn’t sell.”

Which of Their Problems Suck the Most?

Once you’ve identified a range of issues, it’s time to focus on what sucks the most. This is about prioritizing the most severe problems that they are most eager to find a solution for. Again, I’ll highlight the natural, emotional language to focus our messaging later.

The goal here is to come up with a stack-ranked list of their most severe frustrations. We want to target the highest ranked problem that we think we can solve.

Ask Prioritization Questions: “Out of all these things that frustrate you, which one causes you the most stress?” “If you could snap your fingers and fix just one thing, what would it be?”

• Project Manager:
  • Interviewer: “You’ve mentioned a few things that frustrate you—juggling projects, too many meetings, and manual updates. Which one stresses you out the most?”
  • Project Manager: “Definitely the manual updates. They’re such a time sink, and I’m always worried I’ll miss something important.”
• Parent:
  • Interviewer: “You’ve mentioned a few stress points—mornings with the kids, keeping up with household chores, and balancing work. Which one is the hardest to manage?”
  • Parent: “Mornings, hands down. If I could just get through the morning without losing my mind, the rest of the day would be a breeze.”
• Retail Store Manager:
  • Interviewer: “You talked about inventory, managing staff, and customer complaints. Which one keeps you up at night?”
  • Retail Manager: “Inventory, for sure. If we don’t have what people want, we lose sales, and that’s the lifeblood of our business.”

What Specifically Sucks About Their Biggest Problem?

After narrowing down the most severe problem, dive deeper to understand the specific frustrations that make it such a problem. Ask them how it impacts them, what it costs, and how it makes them feel. Really twist the knife and get specific, because this will help you create the blueprint for what your solution needs to do and how it needs to make them feel.

Ask Deep Dive Questions: “Can you walk me through step by step what makes that so frustrating?” “What specifically about that process drives you crazy?”

• Project Manager:
  • Interviewer: “You mentioned that manual updates are a major pain. What about them drives you crazy?”
  • Project Manager: “It’s just so tedious. I have to check multiple tools and make sure everything is aligned, and if I miss one detail, the whole project could be off track.”
• Parent:
  • Interviewer: “What is it about mornings that makes them so chaotic?”
  • Parent: “It’s like everything happens at once. The kids are slow to get ready, I’m trying to pack lunches and find something to wear, and then someone forgets their homework or needs a permission slip signed last minute.”
• Retail Store Manager:
  • Interviewer: “What about managing inventory is the most frustrating?”
  • Retail Manager: “It’s trying to predict what’s going to sell and what’s not. We end up with shelves full of stuff that just sits there, while we run out of the things everyone wants.”

What Have They Tried Before That Sucked?

Understanding what solutions your customers have already tried provides valuable context. It helps identify what works and what doesn’t, and why. We want to understand how those solutions fell short of meeting their needs, but don’t forget about the positive. They invested in those solutions for a reason, something was promised that they cared about. We want to keep the awesome parts of those solutions, while improving the sucky parts.

Ask About Previous Solutions: “Have you tried anything to fix this? How did that work out?” “What was your experience with that solution?”

Take the Good with the Bad: “What drew you to that solution in the first place?” “Was there anything you really liked about it?”

• Project Manager:
  • Interviewer: “Have you tried anything to make those updates easier?”
  • Project Manager: “Yeah, I tried using a few different project management tools, but they all required too much manual effort. One tool was great at organizing, but it still didn’t sync with our other systems, so it didn’t really solve the problem.”
• Parent:
  • Interviewer: “Have you tried anything to make mornings easier?”
  • Parent: “I tried setting up a morning checklist for the kids, but it sucked because they never followed it, and I ended up doing everything myself anyway. It was a good idea, but it just didn’t work in practice.”
• Retail Store Manager:
  • Interviewer: “What have you done to try to improve inventory management?”
  • Retail Manager: “We tried using an automated inventory system, but it was too complicated, and the staff didn’t use it properly. It ended up causing more problems than it solved.”

What Would Be Awesome Instead?

Now it’s time to shift from focusing on what sucks now to imagining what could be awesome instead. For every sucky thing they mentioned, flip it to a positive that would be awesome. This step involves brainstorming ideal outcomes at every level, addressing the specific frustrations identified earlier.

Ask Ideal Outcome Questions: “If you could have anything, what would the ideal solution look like?” “What would make this whole process a lot easier for you?”

• Project Manager:
  • Interviewer: “If you could have anything, what would make managing those updates easier?”
  • Project Manager: “It would be awesome if everything could just update automatically across all tools. I want to focus on the work that matters, not the admin.”
• Parent:
  • Interviewer: “What would make mornings less chaotic for you?”
  • Parent: “It would be amazing if the kids could get themselves ready and the lunches could pack themselves. Even better if we could somehow prep everything the night before without it being a hassle.”
• Retail Store Manager:
  • Interviewer: “What would make managing inventory a breeze for you?”
  • Retail Manager: “It would be awesome if the system could predict what we need based on trends and automatically order it before we run out, without any guesswork.”

Framing the Solution

With a clear idea of what would be awesome, start framing the solution. This means we’re specifying exactly what the product should do, how it should work, and how it should make them feel in order to be awesome. We’re defining the shape of the solution, not the product itself. We’re essentially defining the success criteria, so whatever we end up building, we know beforehand what will make it a success. We are creating product-market fit before we even build the product.

• Project Manager:
  • Interviewer: “What’s important for this solution to do, and how should it make you feel?”
  • Project Manager: “It needs to sync everything automatically and be super intuitive—no complicated setups. Using it should make me feel confident that nothing will slip through the cracks.“
• Parent:
  • Interviewer: “What’s important for this solution to do, and how should it make you feel?”
  • Parent: “It should help me prep everything the night before in a way that’s easy and not stressful. It should make me feel like mornings are under control, without any surprises.”
• Retail Store Manager:
  • Interviewer: “What’s important for this solution to do, and how should it make you feel?”
  • Retail Manager: “It should be easy for the staff to use and make sure we never run out of popular items. It should make me feel confident that we’re always stocked up on what customers want.“

Key Framework: “Wouldn’t it be awesome if?“

Throughout this process, continuously contrast what sucks with what would be awesome using the “Instead of [sucky thing], wouldn’t it be awesome if [awesome thing]?” framework. By connecting and contrasting what sucks with what would be awesome, we help them see the vision of what could be. Now we should be getting strong signal that they’re bought in. Look for that emotional language and palpable excitement.

• Project Manager:
  • Interviewer: “So instead of spending hours on manual updates, wouldn’t it be awesome if everything just synced automatically?”
  • Project Manager: “Exactly! That would free up so much of my time to focus on more important tasks.”
• Parent:
  • Interviewer: “Instead of chaotic mornings, wouldn’t it be awesome if everything was prepped and ready to go the night before?”
  • Parent: “Yes! If I could just wake up and know everything was already set, mornings would be so much easier.”
• Retail Store Manager:
  • Interviewer: “Instead of constantly guessing what to order, wouldn’t it be awesome if the system could automatically predict and order what you need?”
  • Retail Manager: “That would be a game-changer. It would take so much stress out of managing inventory.”

Make an Awesome Product

Now that we have clarity on what our solution needs to do and how it needs to work, we can build a product that completely meets their needs. We can turn each statement from before into a concrete feature, but we can also take their emotional language and turn it into a set of design principles to guide the implementation. This ensures that the product not only meets the functional needs of users but also aligns with their emotional desires. Here’s how we structure this:

Design Principles

The design principles are high-level guidelines that shape the product’s overall approach. These principles allow us to make decisions about what to build and how it should function. Every part of the customer experience can be held up to this standard. If the thing doesn’t follow the principle, it sucks.

Project Manager:

• The product should be:
  • Effortless: The user should spend minimal time on manual tasks.
  • Automated: Key processes should run in the background without requiring constant attention.
  • Reliable: It should consistently deliver accurate results, avoiding mistakes that could derail projects.
• The product should not be:
  • Overcomplicated: Avoid adding unnecessary features that clutter the interface.
  • Rigid: It should adapt to various workflows, not force users into a single way of working.

Parent:

• The product should be:
  • Streamlined: Simplify morning routines by preparing everything the night before.
  • Calming: Reduce stress by providing predictability and ease in daily tasks.
  • Intuitive: Even in a hurry, the product should be easy to use without requiring much thought.
• The product should not be:
  • Overwhelming: Too many options or steps should be avoided.
  • Inflexible: It should accommodate last-minute changes and unexpected needs.

Retail Store Manager:

• The product should be:
  • Predictive: Anticipate inventory needs based on trends.
  • Efficient: Ensure that inventory management doesn’t consume excessive time.
  • User-Friendly: It should be easy for all staff to use, not just the manager.
• The product should not be:
  • Complex: Avoid requiring extensive training or setup.
  • Reactive: Inventory issues should be addressed proactively, not after they become a problem.

Feature Set

The feature set is directly derived from the insights gathered in customer interviews, specifically from the “Instead of this, it would be awesome if that” statements. These features should be prioritized based on the severity of the problem they address.

Project Manager

• Automated Scheduling: Syncs with all tools and platforms, updating tasks and deadlines in real-time.
• Intelligent Alerts: Notifications that highlight potential risks or missed updates without overwhelming the user.
• Customizable Workflows: Allows project managers to tailor the system to their specific needs without extensive setup.

Parent with Young Kids

• Night-Before Prep Assistant: A feature that helps organize and prepare tasks for the next morning, reducing chaos.
• Morning Routine Dashboard: An easy-to-read interface that tracks the morning schedule, ensuring everything is on track.
• Flexibility for Last-Minute Changes: Allows parents to easily adjust the routine when unexpected events occur.

Retail Store Manager

• Predictive Inventory Management: Automatically orders stock based on sales trends and patterns, ensuring popular items are always available.
• Inventory Analytics Dashboard: Provides clear, actionable insights into what’s selling and what’s not, helping managers make informed decisions.
• Easy Reordering System: Simplifies the process of restocking, making it quick and error-free for all staff.

Do you see now how we created an incredibly clear blueprint for a winning product simply by following a natural conversation? Each feature directly ties back to a specific problem that was identified as something that “sucks” and addresses it by making it “awesome.”

Make Awesome Marketing

The marketing strategy for this product should be built from the ground up, using the language and emotional tone expressed by our customers. This involves defining the brand voice, creating the value proposition, and validating that our message resonates in the market.

Defining the Brand Voice

The brand voice should reflect the style of communication and the specific language used by our personas. By aligning the brand voice with how our customers talk about their challenges, we ensure that our messaging resonates deeply.

Look back on the text we highlighted before. We used their words, verbatim, in our messaging to ensure it resonates with them. Remember, marketing is the art of using your customers’ own language to make your customers feel like you are one of them.

Project Manager:

• Voice Style:
  • Practical and Efficient: Project managers value time and efficiency, so the tone should be straightforward and no-nonsense.
• Example Language:
  • “I just need a tool that works without being such a time sink, so I can focus on the work that matters.”
  • “I need a tool to help me make sure nothing falls through the cracks.”

Parent:

• Voice Style:
  • Reassuring and Supportive: Parents are often stressed and overwhelmed, so the tone should be calming and empathetic.
• Example Language:
  • “Mornings don’t have to be pure chaos.”
  • “I want to start my day feeling in control.”

Retail Store Manager:

• Voice Style:
  • Confident and Proactive: Retail managers want to feel in control of their store’s success, so the tone should be empowering.
• Example Language:
  • “Keeping track of inventory shouldn’t be a nightmare.”
  • “With this tool, you’ll be confident that you’re always stocked up on what customers want.”

Crafting the Value Proposition

The value proposition is crafted directly from “Wouldn’t it be awesome if?” statements that we used to define our solution. It focuses directly on what “sucks” and offers a clear “awesome” solution.

Project Manager:

• Problem: “Manual updates are a time sink and a source of constant stress.”
• Value Proposition: “Wouldn’t it be awesome if project updates happened automatically, freeing you to focus on the work that matters most?”

Parent:

• Problem: “Mornings are chaotic, leaving everyone stressed before the day even begins.”
• Value Proposition: “Imagine starting your day with everything under control—wouldn’t it be awesome if mornings were smooth and stress-free?”

Retail Store Manager:

• Problem: “Keeping track of inventory is a constant struggle, leading to missed sales and overstock.”
• Value Proposition: “What if your inventory could manage itself? Wouldn’t it be awesome if you always had what customers want, without the guesswork?”

How Awesome is it, Really?

Before building the product, it’s crucial to validate the value proposition and messaging. Let’s take everything we’ve created and put it out there to see how the market responds.

Follow-Up Interviews

• Objective: Confirm that the language and value propositions resonate with the customers.
• Approach: Use the value propositions in conversation, asking customers directly if these statements align with their needs and if they would be interested in a solution that offers these benefits.

Content Marketing

• Objective: Test engagement and resonance through blog posts, social media content, and landing pages.
• Approach:
  • Blog Posts and Social Media: Share content that addresses the sucky problems and highlights the awesome solutions. Monitor engagement metrics like shares, comments, and click-through rates to validate the problems you’re describing are resonating. Some examples:
    • “Top 5 time sinks in project management”
    • “What you can do to make sure nothing falls through the cracks”
    • “Top 5 reasons why your mornings are pure chaos”
    • “How to get through the morning without losing your mind”
    • “Top 5 things that make retail management a nightmare”
    • “The biggest game changer that takes the guesswork out of inventory management”
  • Landing Pages: Create landing pages that tell the story from their perspective, describing what sucks about the problem you’re solving, and the awesomeness they will experience after using your solution. Connect your evergreen blog posts to these landing pages to create a signup funnel, and always remember to A/B test your messaging and track signup attribution.

Validation Metrics

• Engagement: Are customers interacting with the content? High engagement suggests that the message resonates.
• Conversion Rates: Are visitors taking the desired action (e.g., signing up for more information)? High conversion rates validate the appeal of the value proposition.
• Feedback: Direct feedback from follow-up interviews can provide qualitative insights into how well the messaging aligns with customer expectations.

By defining the product and crafting the marketing message before development begins, we ensure that the solution we create is not only functional but also deeply aligned with customer needs and expectations. This approach allows us to build and validate the value proposition iteratively, refining it based on real customer feedback before finalizing the product.

A More Awesome Way to Build Products

Product discovery often feels like a complex, overwhelming process, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The “Don’t Suck, Be Awesome” framework offers a straightforward approach that demystifies this crucial phase of product development. At its core, this method is about having natural, emotional conversations with potential customers—conversations that dig deep into their experiences, frustrations, and desires.

The process begins with simply asking customers to describe their world: What sucks about it? What frustrates them and drags them down? These open-ended questions set the stage for a deeper exploration, where we stack rank and prioritize these pain points to identify the most significant problems they face. By asking them to dive into the specifics of these challenges, we uncover not only what they struggle with but also why certain solutions they’ve tried have failed them.

This journey doesn’t stop at identifying what’s broken; it evolves into envisioning a better world. Through the “Instead of this, wouldn’t it be awesome if that?” framework, we start building a vision of what could be—what the ideal solution might look like if it truly met their needs. This vision then becomes the foundation for defining our product’s design principles, feature set, and ultimately, our brand.

By framing our feature set around these customer insights, we ensure that every aspect of the product is designed with the user’s needs at its heart. This also shapes our value proposition, which clearly communicates the benefits of our product in a language that resonates with our audience. But we don’t stop there. Before writing a single line of code or designing the first interface, we validate our value proposition, feature set, and brand voice through iterative testing. This approach allows us to refine our messaging, ensuring it’s perfectly aligned with customer expectations and desires.

The beauty of this framework lies in its simplicity and effectiveness. It strips away the complexity of product discovery by focusing on the most human aspect of the process—understanding and addressing real, emotional pain points. By doing so, it allows us to build a product that doesn’t just solve problems but creates a truly awesome experience for our customers. And when you can lock in that experience before development even begins, you’re setting your product up for success from day one.

This iterative, customer-driven approach to product discovery ensures that when it’s time to bring your vision to life, you’re not just guessing what your customers need—you’re building exactly what they’ve asked for, in the way they’ve asked for it. That’s the power of “Don’t Suck, Be Awesome”—a framework that turns complex product discovery into a clear, focused path to creating something truly great.

But Eric, This Sounds Hard!

If it were easy, nothing would suck anymore! Don’t worry, I’m here to help. I’ve spent over 20 years helping companies like OpenAI, Sony, and Wordpress build awesome products. If you want to build an awesome product that makes your customers’ lives suck a little less, let’s chat.

Book a Call With Eric Now