Design of a long-lasting relationship

Is it too weird to approach building a long-lasting romantic relationship like designing a product? Let’s figure it out.

When designing a product, you start with understanding your user. And you need to understand the user REALLY well. What does the user’s daily routine look like? What are the user’s habits? What are the user’s goals? The list of questions goes on and on.

It’s interesting how much you can learn about life by applying product design principles to everyday situations.

When you’re trying to understand your user, don’t make any assumptions. You have to figure out by listening to what the user says, and by observing what the user does. Those things don’t necessarily go hand in hand. What the user does is more important than what the user says.

You’re NOT your user. Don’t even dare to assume that if something is good for you, it will be good for your user. I believe it’s a trap a lot of us fall into. Too often we expect others to see the world the same way we do.

When you think you understand your user well enough, try to delight your user. You have to put the user's needs above everything else. And keep experimenting until you find product-market fit or you fail.

You fail only if you didn’t spend enough time on the previous step. For example, if you think you know the user but you actually don’t. And you keep banging your head against the wall without even realizing that your assumptions were conceptually incorrect in the first place.

After you find product-market fit, your user will start paying you back.
But it’s foolish to expect anything upfront.

And never ever stop working on your relationship with the user. Keep delighting your user. Otherwise, the user could churn in search of another delightful product.

And of course, keep in mind that your unit economics should work - an effort that you put into building the relationship should be eventually paid back by the user. Otherwise, it’s not worth it.

Now the fun part. Replace “user” with “partner”, “designing” with “building”, and “product” with “relationship”, and I believe this is how you approach a romantic relationship to make it last longer.

Although, I keep experimenting myself.

It’s interesting how much you can learn about life by applying product design principles to everyday situations.