Invest Like The Best
Episode 213 Focus on the First Mile
Invest Like The Best

Episode 213: Focus on the First Mile

Invest Like The Best

Episode 213

Focus on the First Mile

Scott is an angel investor with early investments in Pinterest, Uber, and Airtable and is the CPO of Adobe. We cover the importance of a customer's first mile with any product, the tech trends that will dominate for decades, and what those trends mean for investors and creators.

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[00:03:24] - Philosophy for building great products

[00:04:52] - Starting the journey of building a great product 

[00:06:08] - Making the first mile better

[00:08:12] - Understanding user progress in product building 

[00:10:25]  - Getting to awareness and attention and interest in a product 

[00:12:41] - The concept of window dressing

[00:14:24] - Taking an idea and turning it into a high-value product 

[00:14:42] - The Messy Middle

[00:16:49] - Keeping rewards structure in place for teams to stay engaged

[00:19:56] - Using his knowledge in product building to invest in other companies

[00:24:00] - The concept of an "object model"

[00:25:52] - User psychology concepts they keep in mind when designing a product

[00:27:51] - Implementing all of these strategies into a product

[00:29:25] - The era of edu-ployment

[00:31:05] - How this will impact colleges

[00:33:27] - The evolution of the talent/audience relationship

[00:35:32] - Decentralization and companies of 1

[00:37:44] - How that decentralization will impact his investment thesis

[00:39:21] - How increased productivity tools could help with more creativity in the workplace

[00:42:04] - Training people to be more creative in the workplace

[00:44:33] - Future of user interfaces

[00:44:58] - The Interface Layer: Where Design Commoditizes Tech

[00:48:10] - Good design principles

[00:49:51] - The future coming out of COVID

[00:52:09] - Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Focus on the First Mile

Introduction

Patrick
My guest today is Scott Belsky. Scott was the co-founder and CEO of Behance, the world's largest creative network, and a prolific angel investor, having made early-stage investments in Pinterest, Uber, Carta, and Airtable. His company was acquired by Adobe in 2012, where he is currently the chief product officer. In this conversation, we cover the importance of focusing on the first mile of a customer's experience with your product, why every user is (at first) either lazy, vain or selfish, and what the rise of creativity tools means for creators and investors in the future. We also cover the major trends that Scott thinks will dominate for the next decade. This was one of those conversations where I was left with 10 great lessons that will stick with me for a long time. Please enjoy my conversation with Scott Belsky.

So Scott, I've been so excited to do this with you. I think we'll make the first part of this conversation about the psychology and process of building great products. And then we'll talk a lot about everything else that you do. You have your hands in so many interesting things. My opening question, I guess, is just very broad, which is what is your philosophy of building great products, generally speaking?

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