A 4-step framework for building delightful products | Nesrine Changuel (Spotify, Google, Skype)

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/af5d73de9c46d06c

I feel like there's two buckets of teams. There's the product teams that are just like of course we need to make our product delightful, that's how we win. And then there's just a bunch of product teams that are like, What are you even talking about? We have features to ship, we gotta close some deals, we don't have time for the sometimes people think about the light as the confetti. If you shake the phone, you have snowflake falling, but that's not the light I talk about.
Delight is actually this ability to create products that serve for both emotional need and functional need. I know exactly what you mean. I never check Instagram anymore. I just don't feel good when I open it. The feeling of the product makes me not use it anymore. How can we build products where we can achieve the light goal? Recently, I booked an Uber. I was waiting for the driver and suddenly the driver
For no specific reason. But what happens is that when I get to the app, there've been only two clicks to get refunded. Bingo, your money is back. The emotion was supposed to be low, and suddenly the solution completely removes the stress and the friction. We need to satisfy
Three main pillars. The very first one is a big elephant in the room. When is this not worth your time? Companies like Workday, SAP, and Salesforce that did really well. Very undelightful. The hard truth is that
Today my guest is Nasreen Shingel. Nasreen was a longtime product leader at Skype, Spotify, Google Chrome, and Google Meet.
And through her experience building some of the most widely used consumer product in the world.
She developed a really pragmatic framework for how to build delightful and retentive product experiences.
A lot of product leaders talk about building great user experiences and making their products delightful.
But I've never seen a concrete and repeatable approach to actually doing this.
Especially one that helps you separate low impact confetti features, as Nestreen calls them, and ones that actually drive your KPIs and keep people coming back.
In our conversation, we talk about why product teams with limited resources, lots of fires, and priorities should actually spend time on making their products more delightful.
I found this part super interesting and surprising. We talk about what sorts of product teams and companies should invest in Delight, particularly B2B versus B2C, and then we dive into her specific four-step framework for discovering the highest ROI opportunities and prioritizing across them.
Nasreen shares a bunch of really cool real-world examples from her time at Google Meet and Spotify and Chrome, and also examples from Apple and a bunch of other companies she's looked at. A huge thank you to Matt Lemay for suggesting topic for this conversation. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. That helps tremendously.
And if you become an annual subscriber of my newsletter, you get a year free of 15 incredible products. Including a year free of lovable Replit Bolt, N8 and Linear Superhuman, Descript, Whisperflow, Gamma, Perplexity, Warp, Granola, Magic Patterns, Raycast, Chap PRD, and Mobbin.
Head on over to Lenny's newsletter dot com and click product pass.
With that
I bring you Nasreen Schenkel.
Today's episode is brought to you by DX, the developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchers to thrive in the AI era.
Organizations need to adapt quickly.
But many organization leaders struggle to answer pressing questions like, which tools are working?
How are they being used?
What's actually driving value?
DX provides the data and insights that leaders need to navigate this shift.
With DX, companies like Dropbox, Booking.com, Adion, and Intercom get a deep understanding of how AI is providing value to their developers and what impact AI is having on engineering productivity.
To learn more, visit DX's website at getdx.com slash Lenny.
That's get dx.com slash lenny.
This episode is brought to you by Jira Product Discovery.
The hardest part of building products isn't actually building products, it's everything else.
It's proving that the work matters, managing stakeholders.
Trying to plan ahead.
Most teams spend more time reacting than learning.
Chasing updates, justifying roadmaps, and constantly unblocking work to keep things moving.
Jira product discovery puts you back in control.
With Jira Product Discovery, you can capture insights and prioritize high impact ideas.
It's flexible, so it adapts to the way your team works, and helps you build a roadmap that drives alignment, not questions.
And because it's built on Jiro, you can track ideas from strategy to delivery.
All in one place.
Less chasing, more time to think, learn, and build the right thing.
Get Gira Product Discovery for free at atlassian.com slash Lenny.
That's at Lassian dot com slash Lenny.
Messerine, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.
Hi Benny.
Thanks for having me. It's my pleasure. So you just published uh a book that is coming out uh or just came out a couple of days ago from the time this podcast is coming out.
It's on a very polarizing topic, product.

And the reason I think it's polarizing is I feel like there's two buckets of teams. There's like the teams, the product teams that are just like,
Of course we need to make our product delightful and that's how we win, that's how we differentiate. It's so important.
And then there's just a bunch of product teams that are like, What are you even talking about?
We have features to ship, we gotta close some deals. We don't have time for this. We have fires constantly we gotta
rebuild their infrastructure. I don't we have no time for delightful stuff.
So the my goal for this conversation is basically two parts.
One is help people understand why this is worth investing in very practically.
Not just the warm and fuzzies of it.
And then two give them an actual framework.
and model for how to do this successfully and not waste time on stuff that's not
Useful.
How does that sound?
Sounds like a great goal. And uh uh let's share this goal together today. Okay, this is our mutual goal. We have aligned KPIs. Okay, so let me let me start with just this broad question and let's just see where this goes.
What is your best pitch?
For Y product team.
With limited resources, constant fires, lots of parodies.
should spend time on delight and delightful features.
Every time I talk about the light, whether in a conference or a workshop, I always start with this very simple question.
What is your favorite product?
I mean what I love about it is the range and the variety of answer I usually get. Like some people would choose products for the
Productivity it get.
And other may choose product because they feel joy or comfort with it without even
Knowing how to explain that and that's even more exciting because we connect with product at different levels. We might connect with product for the functionality part
Or we might connect with product because it fulfilled a certain emotional link that we were not even aware of.
And so the best product
Deeply.
Emotionally connect with users and that's the essence of the light.
So
Delight is actually this ability to create products that serve for both.
Emotional need and sanctional need.
And the hard truth
Is that even
functioning product, very well functioning product may tend or still experience some trouble or
issue getting tractions and uh growth and uh uh and the success that is hoped for if they do not allow users to feel
certain emotions. So let's take Spotify for example, like
Users do have plenty of options to stream music.
But features like wrapped or
Mood based recommendation or like the Discovery Weekly allow users to be seen and heard and even connected.
So that's why like the light is not about sprinkl sprinkling joy on top of your utility. It's about
Creating an experience where emotion is completely on the heart of the experience.
So let's be clear.
The light is
not a luxury nowadays and more nowadays because
market is so crowded, it's even a differentiator. It's a strategy that we can adopt in order to grow our business.
gain in loyalty, in word of mouth, in growth and even in revenue.
I think about as you talk I've had some feelings recently like this actually.
I never checked Instagram anymore.
And my wife
I was talking to my wife about it'cause she checks it off and I was just like
I just don't feel good when I open it.
Doesn't
Feel nice.
And so I just don't ever go there. And so if she sends me all these DMs and things in there, I'm just like, I didn't never nothing you send me in Instagram I will even see.
And that that actually is a recent example of just like yeah, the feeling of the product.
Makes me not use it anymore.
So I know exactly what you mean.
Also think about linear.
Which
It's like their whole thing initially was we're just gonna make the most
Amazing
Basically task management system.
And
On the surface you'd be like
That is not gonna work.
There's like Jira and Asana and Mundane.
All these guys uh
You're not gonna win just making it awesome and they are winning. They're doing.
Super well
Uh, because they are so thoughtful about every
part of the experience and you could say it's been it's very delightful.
So I I totally hear what you're saying.
When you talk about delightful features, adding a delightful feature, just like what is
What's a good way to understand what's a delightful feature?
Make you delightful.
So when we create products
Uh it's really important that
the solution that we're building is solving for both needs and I really highlight the fact that there are
functional needs, like for example you want to book a flight, you're you want to listen to music.
Oh and it should also solve for the emotional needs, which could be I want to feel less lonely.
I want to feel comfortable, I want to feel secure.
And the best product are those that create and craft solutions.
But blend the two. So if you can blend the
two dimensions like the functional side and the emotional side with the same solutions, then you are creating what we call
emotional connection. And by the way, emotional connection is not a new topic. I mean you've probably heard that very much in the design area and the marketing area as well. I mean, you agree with me the best design is the emotional design.
The best marketing is the marketing like a emotional marketing. I mean we see the best ads coming from those emotional ads.
But the reality is that
And even before I start writing the book, I realized that it's not that much smoke spoken about in business.
And in products.
I mean that by itself creates a gap because you have designers talking about the motion, marketers talking about the motion, and then in the middle
Business are like what are you talking about? We need to ship features, we need to ship functionality. So we cannot achieve that.
So much needed goal.
So in product I call it delight.
You might ask why the light
'Cause every time I talk to a founder or a CPU or
Any product leader.
They all start by saying we need to delight our users. I mean this sentence by itself is very much repeated.
The truth is that they don't know how to delight. I mean, we agree that we should delight, but we don't necessarily know how to delight.
So
So I started from this concept and I tried to come up with a concrete
of course framework but also an actional way to put that into practice.
And in order to get even deeper into the definition, I wanna highlight that there are
Two definition for delight.
Uh I promise I'm not gonna spend too much time on the theory, but the first definition is the theoretic definition.
So the light is in the motion.
And there's a professor called Professor Pruci who actually created what we call the wheel of emotion.
Uh and he actually
Conceptualized
Delight as a combination of two emotions.
Could you guess what are these two?
Uh the combination well, I I've seen your stuff, so I think I know what you're gonna say.
Uh
There's gonna be exceeding expectations.
Is a part of it. And then I forget the other piece, but I think that's important.
So so the light is an emotion.
And it's a combination of two emotions.
Mm.
So these two emotions are joy and surprise.
Mm. Okay. There we go. I swear to right. I've started right that second. I'll I'll take it.
Okay, joy and joy and surprise.
Just just try to feel it now. Like imagine yourself in a moment or situation where you are experiencing at the same time joy.
And surprise in that case you are delighted. So that's the theory behind the light. Now
Let's go to the practical side.
The practical side
Where how can we put the light into practice? How can we build products where we can achieve this delight goal? And in order to do that, you we need to satisfy
Three main pillars.
The very first one
Is
Like removing friction.
The second one
із
Anticipating need.
And the third one
is exceeding expectation.
I'm gonna explain these one by one, maybe through examples, so that people can get exactly what I talk about.
The first one I said by removing friction. It's really important when you're building product to identify what we call these valet moment, these moments where the emotion is at the at the bottom.
And maybe the user is experiencing some anxiety, some stress, and how can we leverage or the experience so we can reduce these value moments?
The best example I could share with you is actually something that did happen to me recently.
I was actually about taking
train from Paris to London, so I booked an Uber.
And Ur assigned me a driver.
I was waiting for the driver and suddenly the driver canceled for no specific reason. And I was so stressed. I I really had to catch my train. I was like
late already. So I jumped into the first taxi that just passed in front of my building and I forgot about my about my
Uber application. What happened is that actually when your driver cancel, Uber do their best in order to to assign you a new driver, of course. And I didn't pay attention to that, so the driver came to my place
He waited for me and then I ended up being charged for the waiting time, charged for the trip that I didn't took, and I was so angry when I realized that on my app.
So I was psychologically prepared. I need to
write an entire essay about what happened and how I want and I need to be refunded.
But what happens is that when I get to the app, there've been only two clicks.
to get refunded. Like select the trip you want to be refunded and bingo.
Your money is back.
Wow.
It like you know, I mean, I've been into these moments where the emotion was supposed to be low and suddenly the
Like the the solution that they provided is something that completely removes the stress and the friction, and of course now I can take more trips.
without the stress that may come out of that.
So that's removing
Friction.
That's a really good example just to double down on how awesome this is. Like just making it easy to do something that you expect to be really hard is
Delightful.
Like canceling a subscription, unsubscribing from something.
Uh awesome example. Okay, keep going.
So the second pillar is about anticipating need, meaning that
Remember in delight you have surprise.
And if you have to wait for your users to tell you exactly what they need from you, then you are just honoring their need. You're not exceeding, or you're not even anticipating what they are already uh you want to offer them. So another example probably is a
Actually I
My husband for many many years he's trying to convince me to move to Revolut, you know, Revolute app that uh
banking app. And honestly I was comfortable enough with my traditional banking app and I didn't want to add more
uh check and et cetera. So I
Did resist not.
uh getting into the temptation of trying.
But that was until one specific moment. Actually, a couple of months ago, we went on a family trip to Singapore.
And when we landed there
We actually realized that our French
Operator
or like uh do not allow us to have like uh international calls for free, meaning that we had to pay extreme high fees
for roaming and for data.
So what are the choices? Like either you have to buy a local E Cm
Or you need to accept these fees.
Which are
Very high.
And that was the moment where I looked at my husband.
He opened his Revolute app.
He went to a tab called Isim.
Buy a sim seven euro, it's done.
How the hell did Revolute thought about?
Putting an e se in for a bank app.
I mean it's really insane, but then when you think about it, like most of Revolute users are international or expats. So they travel a lot and in that case they anticipated the need that people will travel and they will probably need at certain destination
That kind of.
Feature.
So that's the anticipating need part.
Creating surprise by giving them something before even people
Ask it.
you for and by the way, Raul Wora, I mean the CEO of uh Superhuman who've been on the show, by the way, and I love his show.
He said something very similar. He said like if for in order for a product to be loved
You need to set the bar.
Higher than your users in fact.
Like that's about exceeding expectation.
And now we're getting to the third pillar, which is
uh exceeding expectation. So once you anticipated their need, it's really important to exceed expectation, which means that
Okay.
How can I surprise them by giving them more than they ask?
And here again I have an example maybe that everyone is familiar with.
I mean I use Chrome, I love Chrome, but my husband is
a an Microsoft corporate user, like heavy Microsoft user, and he uses like Edge all the time.
I mean
The other day I've seen him doing something that really surprised me. Like he was about to buy a coffee machine.
And he went through the entire journey. He put the coffee machine
on like a for payment he was about to pay
And suddenly
Actually Edge suggested him for a complete autofill feature a coupon.
Like he was about to pay something like one hundred twenty euro and suddenly you get fifteen percent discount because edge
found out that there is a coupon you can apply
And
And you just get fifteen percent discount.
That's for me exceeding expectation because I was not even asking for a coupon. I was about to pay the twenty twelve hundred twenty euro anyway. So that also by itself great.
It kind of.
surprise. So these are the three pillars. We need to play with them. It we don't have to do them all at the same time. But every time we build the product we need to think about how can we reduce friction?
How can we anticipate our users' need?
And how can we?
Like uh create that uh exceed expectation part of the products.
And and and I really wanted to make this clear because sometimes people think about the light
As
The confetti or I mean the other day I was giving a workshop and someone showed me like hey, if you shake the phone, you have snowflake falling.
Yes.
Yeah, I mean why not? But that's not the light I talk about. It has to come with the value. It has to come
with with a concrete reason. And I call this like
the confetti effect. Like a people think about confetti as a way of delighting their uses, but if it doesn't bring any value, then
Don't do it.
And by the way, I'm not here to say don't do confetti. I mean, why not? Confetti could come with value and could bring some joy. And the best example is on Airbnb, maybe the one that you're most familiar with. Like I'm an Airbnb
User.
both as a host, but also as a guest.
And as a host, I have a goal.
Which is to make sure that I always keep my superhost bad I love bad and of course it allows me to
Provide the best experience for my guests.
And you know how it works. Like every three months Airbnb reassess whether you wanna
You can remain a superhost or not.
But you know what happened, like
Every three months if you're renewed as a superhost and when you open the app
It the app turns into confetti, like just to celebrate that moment with you.
And that kind of moment is like, why not? Because I feel like Airbnb is recognizing my effort and celebrating that small moment with me.
So
It's about making sure you understand the value of your users and making sure that you're providing a solution that just brings them joy.
And surprise.
The superhost example is actually uh really interesting because I built the superhost program. That was one of my projects at Airbnb.
Мі і май.
Uh and interestingly
It came from
Not from like
Here's a metric we need to move.
Let's build superhost. It instead came from this guy Chip Connolly, who was just on the podcast.
who's a long time hotelier and he's just like you need a way to
Differentiate.
status and levels of quality.
And
This is one way to do it.
And
There's a lot of actually fear on the
Product team that this is gonna tank.
Search conversion, people will be distracted by this thing.
Interestingly, it made hosts really happy, like you, just like
I wanna be super host. I don't know why, but I wanna be super host.
Uh
It didn't actually move any metrics, which is interesting.
May it might have changed over the years, but it was an interesting interesting contrarian project that
He feels like
How could you not have it? But it didn't really move any metrics, which always surprised us, but maybe it did later.
Anyway.
Uh
I really love this very simple way of thinking about delight.
And I think
I think you're almost underselling what this framework is helping people with was just how to build
Great product experiences.
So there's this
Joy plus surprise piece.
Which is just the emotional component.
You'll feel delighted if you're
There's joy and surprise.
And then this three piece.
More than
I don't know, even practical way of thinking about it. Removing friction, anticipating needs, exceeding expectations.
Like this is
How to build great experiences and
Part of that is being delighted by it. Part of it is just this is a great experience.
I think a big elephant in the room with this question is B to B versus B to C, and just like when is this not?
Worth your time.
I imagine
Companies like Workday.
And S A P and ServiceNow and all these
Salesforce.
That did really well.
Very undelightful.
The way I think about this is
When it's like a greenfield market and there's nothing amazing yet.
Yeah.
You don't need to make it as great of an experience as long as it's solving a real big pain point.
But as the market gets more competitive, linear's a good example here.
the way you can stand out is make it a much better experience, make it much more delightful.
Um thoughts.
Yeah, thanks for bringing this B to B versus B to C thing,'cause it comes a lot and every time I talk about the light, people might connect that to the B to C word.
And honestly
For me, like uh as long as they are human using the product at the end of the day, then they need their emotion to be hard. So
Um
So for example when I actually started this project of the light
I realize that most of my career has been mostly closed to the B to C work. Yes, like I've been working.
Skype, Spotify, Google Me, Google Chrome.
So I quickly realized that I needed to interview people from the B to B space so that I get
The sense of what's the light in their space.
So I interviewed people from like GitHub or Atlassian or
Snowflake, I mean, I really wanted to get a variety of industry and type of industries.
And what I realized which
Probably not a surprise is that they do value emotional connection in a way or another. I mean, it's not something new. They just do it in a different way. So for example, for Dropbox, they do have a product principle called Cupcake, for Snowflake, they have something called um superhero. I mean the names could vary, but the
meaning is exactly the same. I mean it's all about bringing joy
to the customers.
So I came up with this concept of B to H.
But she's business to human.
For me, it's really important to take into consideration human emotion while building the product, whether in a B2B space or a B2C space. And by the way, exactly as you said, like since people are so much exposed to B2C examples, I mean the expectations are getting higher. And we are expecting also from B2B products
to become more human and to feel more human. So actually when I wrote this book, I
Define what I call humanization as a type of delighter. I mean I listed a couple of delighters.
And humanization is one of them, and I even said it's my favorite.
It's about asking the following question.
If my product was a human
How would the experience would be better?
Just think about it that way.
So for example, when I work for Google Meet
And I actually joined B Google Meet right when pandemic.
happen like twenty twenty.
And we had of course to work on those challenges of like how people are taking
These new ways of working from home. So instead of comparing
Google Meet.
to Zoom or Teams or whatever other video conferencing tool. Do you know what did we compare Google Meet to?
That's the best, do you think?
Maybe just uh like an actual conversation.
Exactly. I mean that's the bar that we're setting ourselves. Like
Comparing Google Meet to how this experience of meeting
could be better if we were all having this conversation in a row. Because if you
Get this as a goal, you said
a higher bar of expectation and you start to think in a human way.
And by the way, there is another example that really stick to me, which uh
When I was uh preparing for this project, I spoke with uh head of product from Dyson, and he said a very similar thing. Actually, when I spoke with Andy,
He said um we don't compare our diesel vacuum cleaner to other vacuum cleaner.
We compare them to what if I hire
A real person?
And how would that real person would be better than
The robot that we are building.
Actually if you hire a certain person to clean your house, you probably tell that person to
start with a certain room or to clean in a certain way.
Which the robot was not ready at that time. So they added recommendation into their robot to get closer to what
A re real human, like a
Space.
could happen. So tha that's the concept of humanization. It's all about making sure that your product
Or it's actually about reminding users that there are real human behind the product, that we wanna achieve that.
If you wanna see a really delightful human like
Uh vacuum cleaner.
The the matic. I don't know if you've seen the matic.
Uh, I just got one and uh yeah, that is a pure delight.
They they nailed it on They didn't need to read your book. They nailed it.
Um
So coming back to this B to B piece, I think it's an important
piece to just make sure we
How people see
Do you feel like what I said is true that
If it's like a new
market without a ton of
Competition.
And you're solving a
Big pain point. They're like, This is a hair on fire problem, I just need
I need a CRM that works, or I need a
Customer service thing for service now.
uh there's less need to get this right to uh exceed expectations to anticipate needs if you're just like solving the problem they have
And there's nothing else.
Uh.
That's probably gonna be okay.
Honestly, maybe the product will work, and of course it has to work. But the problem is that if you do not integrate that part
into the way how you're building the solution, you're probably just building a product, but not the product that will stand out.
I mean
If there is another competitors who's addressing the emotional needs, then the other product will win. I mean, that's how the market is today.
So of course you will
Make a product that works, but uh do you want it to just work or do you want it to stand out? And and by the way, since we're talking about this B2B and D to C space, just a couple of days ago, I was thinking of posts, uh LinkedIn post.
that I really loved, so I'm sharing it here.
Actually it was from a product leader from Buffer.
And actually he said something really interesting. He actually said that
We realized that um about two percent of our users
Who are not
Using buffer.
They are clearly inactive. They are not using our product for many months. So we decided to send them an email and say, Hey, we noticed that you're not using our product. Are we gonna refund you?
Meaning that we're gonna lose money, yes.
But it's about trust and integrity. So this is a B2B space. This is about creating trust. This is about creating the this connection. And the reaction is really funny because you might remind people to
Like
Resign or
close your contract with a certain
A product.
But
The that even creates a deeper connection that might even add like
drive you to not cancel at all. Like, okay, you're inviting me to cancel, but thanks so much for your honesty. So I'm gonna remain. I mean this kind of thing build trust over time and build emotional connection over time. So
It might not, as you said, like create like a big impact on metrics, but over time as you're building
personality or building a br a brand for your product, it will definitely have impact over time.
Slack, I think, is a good example of that. I remember using Slack for the first time, the little delightful animations and these little funny quotes.
And
They ended up being a thirty billion dollar company.
It feels like what I'm hearing in is just like the more competition there is, the more you need to stand out, the more this is something you need to get right.
Because
If there's a problem you're solving, no one else is.
You know, the experience doesn't have to be incredible. Like Revolut is another example. There's a lot of banking products.
But the way they stood out.
Incredible experience, light a delight.
Okay.
Let's get to how to actually do this. We've been so far with just like here's why it's worth thinking about and doing now.
Let's talk about how to actually
Approach this.
You have a really simple and uh
Clear way of approaching this, so you're not going to
Spending time in the wrong stuff.
Yeah, and not just
Besting can fetti.
Yeah, it's called the delight model. Talk about that.
Yes, so the things that we did not really spoke about is the fact that over my product career, I've been like a regular PM, but during my time at Google
I've been the delight BM.
So there's even an entire product team who actually work on making sure that the product is delightful. I mean, we do have such a thing for Chrome, we have that for Google Meet, I mean
That's a real thing. And of course I understand that not every
Company could
allow themselves having the luxury of having in the light PM. So that's why I came with this concept of
How can I make this?
actionable and I created the delight model. It's very simple. And by the way, what I wanna really highlight here is that you do not have to change any way of working or any uh any strategic um
steps that you're already taken in your company. So what is it the light uh model?
It happens in four steps. So we're gonna walk them
One by one.
And the very first step is about identifying user's motivators.
What I mean is that actually users are using products for complete different reasons. And that's the very first thing that you need to get aware of.
I mean we do segmentation, that's usually something that most of product people do, but we usually segment based on demographic or behavior, meaning that who they are.
What do they really do with the product?
And the third type of segmentation that I believe is very powerful is the motivational segmentation.
Which means that you need to segment your users.
based on why do they use the product. Like for example, like when I worked at Spotify
We know that there are people who use Spotify to
Search for a specific track.
Or
There are people who use Spotify because they want to get inspired.
And others will listen to Spotify because they wanna feel less lonely, or they wanna feel productive, or they wanna feel connected. I mean, these are motivators. And the very first step of the model is to make sure
But we have a list.
Of what we call like functional motivators.
And
the emotion motivators. I'm pretty sure like most of you l listeners are familiar with the functional motivators.
But the emotional motivators is an extreme
Because we're gonna use it later.
That's the first step. So just to be just to be clear, so functional motivators are like
I I need to find a song, I need to get inspired.
I need to find some for my kid to listen to. What are s what are some examples of emotional motivators?
So emotional motivator motivator for the Spotify example could be I want to feel less lonely or I want to uh change my mood.
that's something that's something you go to Spotify without specific
uh think in your head to listen to but
the the need is to change your mood or to feel nostalgic or something like
that. I mean these could be example. For example, in the case of Uber, I know that they have been working heavily on allowing users to feel secure.
And they build a lot of features for security results.
It's interesting. It's like a nuanced version of jobs to be done.
There's the functional jobs to be done and then there's the the how you wanna feel.
Yeah.
Super interesting. Okay, great. And even when the when we talk about emotional motivators, we have the
Personal emotion motivators and the social emotion motivators. The personal emotion motivators is how user want to feel while using the product. That's exactly AICE.
The social emotional motivators is how users
want others to feel about them.
while using the product.
I mean think about Rapt, for example. A lot of people share their Rapt.
Because they want to share how cool they are and in order to be perceived cool and just feel connected. I mean, these are different areas of emotional connection.
So
These are the
This is the first step.
Identifying emotional motivators
also as well as functional motivators.
Now the second step is to convert those motivators. I mean as soon as you have this list
How can I convert these into an
opportunity or product opportunity. So you have the basis. I mean the hardest job is to identify these motivators and then you can
identify for that opportunities related to that. And by the way, we see the shift that we are not too much talking about
product space, but rather
Opportunity space because
solutions are not only about solving, but also about honoring needs and then making sure that we are solving for those needs. So we can use things like how might we or whatever I I'm by the way, I'm not very religious or strict about
Whatever framework could be used here.
It's all about starting thing from these motivators.
Um
define them and put them in the strategy as opportunities to be solved.
So this is second step.
The third step
where we get to more concrete things here is to try to identify solutions
But that's all for those motivators. So remember
We actually identified functional motivators and emotion motivators and I defined what I call the delight grid. So the delight grid is a matrix where we place
Functional motivators.
And emotional motivators.
And then you will select among all the identified solutions
And you place them in the grid based on what motivators is this solution solving for?
I mean, is it solving for one particular functional motivator? Is it solving for one particular emotional motivator or both?
Why are we doing this? Because we are categorizing features into three types.
There's the
Surface delight when a feature is only solving for
An emotional
Motivator.
I mean think about wrapped. We used wrapped a couple of times here, but
Rap that has nothing functional into it.
It's all about allowing people to feel cool and and share that with their friends.
That surface delight.
Yeah. Another example of surface delight. The other day I was using my Apple Watch and it was my birthday. So on my birthday I had these
balloon. I don't know if you experienced it, like it's saying happy birthday in the screen. I mean why not? This is all about
creating this emotional connection on the emotional level only.
The second type of delight is what I call low delight. It's when the feature is only solving for one
Of those
Functional motivators.
En of course
The third type, which is the most powerful for me, is
is the deep delight.
Actually this happens when you have a feature.
Where
You are at the same time solving for a functional need.
And also solving for an emotional need.
For example, in the case of Spotify
Discover Weekly or Spotify Jam.
Could be a good example of deep delight.
Where we actually
Can of course
learn or get inspired with the new music, but in a personalized way. So it
Allows us to feel heard and seen.
and understood by the app.
And that's the third step, which is about
Identifying solutions and make sure that they are delightful and categorize them here. The the fourth
Step.
which is the last step of the model is validating because
How can we make sure that
We are not just
creating only surface delight or we're just doing it in the wrong way. So I created something that I call the delight checklist. It's actually just a checklist that anyone can go through.
To make sure that the
feature that we're building is making user impact.
Із мекинг бізнес і пакт і вас лак дилайт із нотан excus.
To just add.
Like yeah.
aesthetic and and fun part in the product. It really has to be aligned with the business. But also there are other couple of things like feasibility, uh familiarity
Uh a very important part for me is inclusion. Like inclusion really has to be taken into consideration here.
Because uh when we talk about emotion
What makes me happy is not necessarily what
make you happy, right? I mean even myself
I might be happy with something
that is not necessarily what's gonna make me happy tomorrow. So
Inclusion is really important when we talk about the light because we've seen a lot of example where
Done.
wrong. And I can share can share some example.
Here as well. So
The example that come to my mind is uh actually something that happened last year.
here in Paris or in France in general. It was deliverable, you know, this uh
uh company that uh deliver and
Actually, it was Mother's Day.
And on Mother's Day they
came up with the idea of sending notification to deliverable users.
And the notification
Look exactly as a missed call from your mom.
I mean, if you look at it from the screen, it says like Miss Call from your mom.
You click on it.
You get like hey, it's Mother's Day. Think about your mind.
It it was supposed to be delightful. The problem is that this feature had the worst press ever in France, like people r really started to
complain about it because
Yes, did it.
The intention was positive. Yes, it was joyful for some people.
But
Not everyone has the luxury of enjoying such notification. For some it means joy, for others it means grief or sorrow or whatever. So
It was not inclusive enough, so
That's why I'm highlighting the inclusion parts with delight.
because it might be undertaking sometime.
Okay.
Incredible. And that was a really good example of
Why you have this checklist at the end of making sure this is actually not gonna upset people.
Well, accidentally.
This episode is brought to you by Lucid Link, the storage collaboration platform.
You built a great product.
But how you show it through video, design, and storytelling is what brings it to life.
If your team works with large media files, videos, design assets, layered project files, you know how painful it can be to stay organized across locations. Files live in different places, you're constantly asking, is this the latest version? Creative work slows down while people wait for files to transfer.
Lucid Link fixes this. It gives your team a shared space in the cloud that works like a local drive.
Files are instantly accessible for anywhere.
No downloading, no syncing, and always up to date. That means producers, editors, designers, and marketers can open massive files in their native apps, work directly from the cloud, and stay aligned wherever they are.
Teams at Adobe, Shopify, and top creative agencies use Lucid Link to keep their content engine running fast and smooth.
Try it for free at lucidlink.com slash lenny. That's L-U-C-I-D-L-I-N K.com slash Lenny.
So let me just sh
Mirror back these four steps.
And then I'm curious if there's another example of
something you built that followed this model that had a really good impact. But let me um let me share. So basically
What this is is to help you figure out what is worth investing in.
Under this umbrella of delight.
Which hopefully now you're convinced is worth your time.
Especially if you're trying to stand out amongst a bunch of competitors.
So step one is identify user
Motivators.
Like what are people what are the jobs to be done?
Both.
Very
Tanch.
Practically, functional you call them, functional needs, and then also emotional needs.
Are people trying to feel
Uh
Happy, sad. What are within that bucket actually I'm gonna take a quick tangent.
When you think about emotional needs, what's like the
taxonomy of'em is I know there's a lot of emotion, anger.
Uh like what are the most common emotional needs in your experience to think about when you're like
Okay, here's when
Here's how to think about what the options might be.
It depends on the area, but for some product it could be security, for other it might be uh like a I wanna feel a better version of myself.
Like for example, when I spoke with some leaders from Euro
uh they might consider this as an emotional need. Like they are using the product, of course, for the functionality that is allowing them
to achieve but also to showcase that they are better facilitated.
Or they are a better leader or just feel a better version of themselves. This could be a potential emotional motivator. So it can range depending on the type of the product or the industry.
But actually emotions could be
Like a we can use for example the
a wheel of emotion as a basis where we can select from it.
But uh not all emotion could apply to all type of products. It has to be specific.
Cool. That's a really good example, uh
Uh
Oh, feeling security. It feels like that's something that
More and more people want uh all these AI companions, like they're gonna have all kinds of emotional needs. So identify user motivators, functional and emotional.
Turn those mate motivators into delightful product opportunities.
Figure out where
You have opportunities to
Achieve that sort of
Delight.
Identify potential solutions, like actually ideate on solutions.
And then validate the ideas through this checklist which you have in your book.
Are there a few you want to share there, just like your checklist of stuff you wanna think through?
Yeah, so we spoke about uh inclusion as a really important one in the the light checklist.
Another area could be familiarity as well, because of course we love innovation, but we want to make sure that we're not surprising too much. I mean we uh think that we love surprise, but we don't want to be very much surprised it. And I have a maybe interesting story uh to share here, which is uh something that uh
actually created the success of Discover Weekly. So I'm not sure if you know about that, but I'm gonna go ahead and share it. Yeah, let's do it. I I I use Discover Weekly all the time.
So when Discover Wiki was first uh thought of or like Spotify, by the way.
Yes. So
Discover Weekly.
Uh, how it was created was the fact that it was supposed to be a complete discovery, meaning that it was supposed to be complete new for the users.
So that's the idea behind it. It was like we're not the user is not supposed to
Find or listen tracks.
That
has been listened to or liked before.
So it was shipped and when it was shipped, like of course we have s we started to see uh big success in the metrics.
But you know what, two weeks later.
People like the engineers realize that there've been a bug in the future.
Actually the bug was that sometimes the algorithm was injecting some of the like it song.
So the playlist was not completely new to the users. It had some
a familiar feature, I would say.
So of course the engineers fixed the bug.
And you know what happened?
Metric. All the metrics, exactly. Like all the metrics, all the success metrics of the feature was going down.
So they quickly realized that actually what users really liked in the Discovery Weekly was not the fact that it was completely new
But
This familiarity that has been injected randomly in the app just made it even more better and and even more appreciated by the users. So they fix it the back.
And now with Discover Wiki that you're enjoying is a buggy version, if we can say. So uh I mean that's why I I I added familiarity as a as a
as an element that needs to be checked,'cause we don't wanna just inject complete
new surprising feature to the user that might be shocking.
That's an amazing story. That was your team that worked on that?
Yeah, I've been very close working with them because I've been working on the uh transcoding part and we had to transcode these tracks for that. That's so funny.
How many other products are we missing out on by not making these mistakes by accident?
Uh that makes so much sense. Just like people want a little bit of like oh yeah, I love that song. Oh let's go and then oh kill there's something new.
Uh that is so funny.
Okay, so so these are the four steps and again
What you're trying to do here, I'll just go back to what makes something delightful.
Is
You remove friction.
Make something that you expect to be hard.
Really easy.
Like canceling an Uber and getting a refund on Uberite.
Anticipating needs.
Which I think was the E SIM example you gave in in the Revolut app. And Revolute, by the way, very delightful experience from what I hear. I've never used it myself being in the US.
And then exceeding expectations. Giving someone
And and then
Yeah, be giving something you never expected and like wow what was the example there again, just to make that really concrete of anticipating
Of exceeding expectations. So for exceeding expectation, we spoke about, for example, the shopping, uh it's called the cashback feature. Oh yeah, the plenty of them, yeah.
Yeah, that's amazing. Is that something is that something Microsoft does or that's like a extension that you're
has been a lot of it. No, it's it's completely a part of the product. And it's even auto fill. Like it's auto fill. You don't even I mean saying like a password autofill. And I know Chrome is working on it, so it's coming if you're a Chrome user. Wow.
What a what a what a weird thing. Like I I I love it, but it's funny that that happens. Like all these poor businesses are gonna lose out on all this.
Revenue. Anyway, we're going to have to get into that. Uh okay.
Is there an example, like a broader example of something you worked on following this model?
the
was really successful, really impactful.

Google particularly for Google Meet, I I told you like I've been a
PM for delight. So we had that mission that we really needed to delight our users. And that's how I actually learned that it's actually a discipline. It's not the buzzword. It's something that we can really put in place. So I do have two examples I can share with you. One is from Google Meet and one from Google Chrome, which
One do you want to listen to? Let's go with Chrome since we've chat chatted about me, but I want to hear them both. Let's start with Chrome.
I love Crown. Let's start with Crow.
So when I work for Chrome I had to work on the most
Challenging.
Issue.
What do you think is?
Most challenging issue of Chrome.
Uh memory memory management? No. It is even worse. Okay.
Okay. No, it's the it is the hardest one,'cause actually when it worked at that management
I realize that people are working with tabs for
complete different way. It's like people are leaving tabs open as reminders or as to do, or just because they forget about it. They're guilty of that.
Yes. And I had to work on the iOS part, like the mobile part. And believe me, like if you look at data, you see so many people having so many tabs open. I mean the numbers is just uh amazing. Ninety nine plus is all I ever see.
Yeah, because we we do not put three digit anyway. The real number could be really high. And so we had to address this problem. I mean, from a functional perspective, this is
is a problem. I mean from a
uh from a memory, from a performance, from a space. I mean we don't want users to have to have like five hundred open tabs for without even realizing, by the way, that they have five hundred open tabs.
So we had to work on that and how did we do that?
The way we did that is actually we interviewed a lot of users trying to ask them, Hey, what if you navigate through your open tabs and
Let me know how you are like a
You can find an open task or
That that was for me a very important phase because that's how you realise
And there is a relationship between people and their tasks. And I really say relationship because
For some people
The data tabs are really, really important things.
I mean for them there's
absolutely no choice for Chrome to close tabs on their behalf. Like it's it's uh
It's a really important thing. So we had to understand that relationship first. And then we asked some people to navigate us through how they can find the specific tab in their tab grids.
And a lot of people
Got like a
a bit frustrated or like uh they found that a bit hard or

Like they felt that there is a need to apologize, not for the content of course of the tab they had, but
It's just something like, hey uh I'm I'm sorry, I usually don't have that many cars open. Uh and that's not the point. The point is to see if you get frustrated from the experience itself or not.
So that phase by itself, trying to understand not only the functional part, but also that emotional part, like the frustration part, the ashamed part sometimes was really key in order to build a feature.
that can align with these values and these motivators or these emotional parts. So what we built actually was a feature that exists today on iOS, uh, which is called inactive tabs. So inactive tabs is that ability where you can
Actually this this happened automatically where all tabs
um longer than twenty one day that was not touched actually or opened for more than twenty one day are placed in this folder of inactive steps. So the results is that you're getting like a
Cleaner.
tab grade and people are feeling less stressed about the amount of tabs that they have, but also
they keep that trust of Chrome because they know that we did not close their tabs. Their tabs are actually there in that inactive tab.
Grup.
So that was one of the features we build.
It was supposed to be functional only. I mean we could just maybe
compress the thumbnail or just do a performance way, but also that's an example of deep delight where at the same time you're solving for
uh a functional need.
and at the same time including the emotional dimension into it.
That is a super cool example.
Oh yeah.
That's actually the reason I switched up I started using Arc.
I don't know if you've used Arc before, which is built on Chromium. It's its own startup, the browser company. Josh Miller was on the podcast. They delete they actually
uh delete your tabs after some number of hours like days.
And once you get used to that, it's actually great. I'm like, Okay, please go away.
And then you can save'em if you want, you can pin'em.
I haven't used Chrome in
Probably long enough where I remember just the tabs.
deactivate. Like they just have to reload when you go back to their old
uh it's cool that now they move to a different folder to kind of get them out of the way and clean up your whole thing.
Uh very cool.
Okay.
What's the Google Meet story?
So I told you when I joined Google Meet it was maybe one month before Covid hit Europe, like the worst
Uh
Period, you can join Google because I mean the
Usage just gets skyrocketed. Like
we all found ourselves moving from having meetings in rooms and clinics to hundred percent
Remote.
So
The very first couple of months, and it was about three to four months, I had to understand the behavioral e the impact or the emotional impact of this new behavior. The fact that people are
staying home and having these back to back. What's the emotional impact of this new experience? And of course, what we did was to interview a lot of people and with the help of user researcher, we collected a lot of information. And when we tried to synthesize these uh informations,
We actually realize that there are three main patterns. Like people are saying
I'm feeling bored.
People are saying there is a low interaction.
And there was even a new term that
was born during
Covid time, which she is called the zoom fatigue.
You probably heard about that. It's funny that was Zoom fatigue and not Google Meat Fatigue. I was really happy it was called Zoom fatigue. It's always better to put it on the competitor when it's negative. Anyway, it's bittersweet, bittersweet.
So we had to work, I mean, in that case, if you can see, we did not really identify motivators. We did identify demotivators.
'Cause sometimes it's even easier. Actually it's sometimes it's easier to
let you know what frustrates me or stress me, then tell you what makes me happy. So
If identifying emotion motivators turns turns out to be complicated, so you can try to identify those.
emotional demotivators.
And in that case we had to work on these three D motivators and come up with solutions that could help.
leverage that or at least reduce in a way or another.
So when we worked on zoom fatigue.
We actually realized and we uh get help from a study that was published from Stanford, by the way.
that one of the causes for the Zoom fatigue was the fact of seeing
Your self view.
It's not about seeing others.
It's the fact that you see yourself. Why? I mean, just imagine yourself walking on the street and someone is holding a mirror next to you. I mean, even if you avoid, you'll really will try always to check how you look.
So
The fact that it was severe was a big risk and it was even listed as among the most significant risk of zone fatigue or causes of zone fatigue. So we worked on
Мінізінь сел віць ассим.
As you can minimize your self view, meaning that
You can still broadcast or share your video, but you don't have to see yourself.
That's one example that worked on. The second one which was related to
Low interaction and boredom.
We try to understand how can we bring in
little bit more of joy, but at the same time allow people to feel heard and seen and active. And that's how we actually brought reaction, image reaction, you know, that waving hand or thumb up. Because sometimes it feels invasive to unmute yourself and say, I agree.
Or cla cut the speaker for saying yes, uh I don't agree or something. I mean
These images can help you stay alive.
Stay connected and present.
And somehow improve the interactivity part. So these are the two features that we introduced.
Back then.
That is such a cool example. I find myself using Google Meet
All the time now instead of Zoom, so
Great job, Google Meet Team. I know Zoom was waiting for a long time and I feel like Google Meet's really turned it around. Good job.
Let me ask a couple of questions.

Keep digging into this question.
It feels like
Some COs
Founders, leaders are like, Yes, this is worth investing in.
Let's definitely do it. There's a lot that are just like no stop. Like we got
Other stuff to do.
What's your best advice for trying to get buy in from SEO or just some kind of leader that's shutting this kind of stuff down?
The very first advice is to try not to convince
I mean honestly, if you try to convince
It's a lost bottle. I feel like uh we live in a world where
Things are true, things are false.
If you come to your CEO and leader say, like I heard Nasrine talk about the light, we should absolutely do that.
It uh it might seem like a threat for for the organization, for the ways of working,'cause it's something new.
Instead of
Have you heard about this concept of uh perception versus
uh perspective.
Mm, no.
So perception is our way of seeing things. This is exactly how we understand things. This is how we are convinced. For example, you listen to a podcast talking about the light, then you are
You have your own view about what this is about.
Perspective though is the other view, is the world view, how other perceives the light. So there is very likely it's very likely that others like leaders and CEO, the reason why they're saying no is because
Their view.
is that the line is about this nice to have, or the cherry on the top. So instead of trying to convince and that's why I said don't even try to convince, is to try to align and put yourself
into the leaders and the CEO shoe and try what do they value most.
Once that try to see how can the light
Align or help.
Achieve that goal.
And let me share an example with you. Cause um when I left Google and I started coaching founders and CPO, I had one founder actually.
Who uh has been running a seat startup for helping musicians and artists to find curators. I mean, that's the core value and mission of the startup. And the when we initiated the coaching side, we actually started talking about strategy, OQR, I mean, that's exactly what he was he had in line. He wanted to get help.
into creating product strategies and OCRs. And over time, as we started like coaching, we ended up talking about delight.
The reason is
I actually asked him this very simple question.
I asked him.
Do you think
Your users are proud to use your product.
Are they proud enough?
To tell others artist and musician
To use your product.
And I think that was a really hard question for him.
Because after reflection he said
No.
They are not proud because they feel like
They are little.
I mean they are getting our help.
So they are not able to get you curator by themselves.
So who's gonna
Tell others that they are little like artists and they are having help from from us.
That was
The beginning of the conversation.
And I think after two weeks he kept coming back saying, Hey Mr Green, I think we need to shift our entire strategy discussion into how can we make
our users proud of using the product. We need to find ways
To turn our product into
Like our users into Proud users.
And so they can tell others tell other musicians they will play the word of mouth.
game and they will.
Allow our product to succeed. And that's exactly what we did, by the way. So in the beginning, this founder was completely opposite to the fact that.
we introduced the light into the product, but as soon as we he realized that
The fact that
he invest into allowing their user to feel proud is so important for the growth.
And the word of mouth and the success of the business, that became
The number one strategy. And by the way, they've been growing. They are now available in the US. So things are going super well for them. But just to show that
The fact that you're saying no does not necessarily mean that
It's the wrong thing. It's just it's not aligned enough.
You need to find way to align them.
with what they found.
Uh that's awesome advice. It's good advice for just any
Thing you're trying to get buy in from is
Understand their goals.
connect what you're proposing to what they want to achieve.
And it's almost like don't even use the word delight.
Just like think about okay, here's what they believe we need to do.
How might removing friction?
Antipa anticipating needs and exceeding expectations.
Get us there.
Yeah.
And then later be like ha ha
It's delight.
Just kidding.
Okay. That was an awesome example.
So along those lines, just when you have all these ideas, we talked about this a bit, but just like you have a bunch of ideas, a bunch of ways to do
Add the light, made it make it a better experience.
What's your advice for prioritizing?
amongst all of the ways that you can remove friction.
anticipate needs, exceed expectations. How do you pick the things that are actually worth investing in?
The very first thing that I really wanna highlight here is that we need to shift from the mindset that tells us
balancing or like a how can I balance between
the light and functionality because we need to move away from
the light versus functionality into
The light in functionality.
So that's the biggest move that they really
uh wanna share here because we should really get away from idea that
Should I prioritize the light or should I prioritize functionality? And remember, like deep delight it is that concept of trying to solve
problems and create solutions in a way that
emotion is taken into consideration into that. And by the way, I created this model called fifty forty ten.
And fifty forty ten is actually a guidance or a recommendation so that if you have done your delight great and you categorized your solutions or your roadmap or your backlog.
into low delight.
Surface the light.
And deep the line.
Fifty forty ten will tell you that
Fifty percent of your features should be for low delight, yes.
Fifty percent should be for functionality only because like a product has to function. I'm not saying that you should only work on the light.
Forty percent for deep delight were actually functionalities there.
It's just that we are
building it a little bit different so that people will feel valued.
And only ten percent for surface delight.
I mean you can.
bring a little bit of surface delight throughout the year, maybe two features a year, that will just bring that joy that people
we create the of course the brand and the personality that we are working on. And when I worked at Spotify, for example, we had some times where we of course blended all that into the same roadmap. Like for example, we had the time
Where we were working on improving search because at some time
Uh maybe you don't remember that, but uh at some
point of time, like a search was not functioning that well, so that was improv improved. And that's of course functionality only.
And also we work on introducing video podcasts on on Spotify. And we worked on Canvas. So Canvas are the small video looping video, you know, the small flip when you open Spotify and you have like a small clip. Oh my s my my uh son is addicted to that. He's like he likes to play music and then he found this thing that is like
TikTok for Spotify was just listening to the music in these little clips. I'm like Yeah How do I it's I don't want to have to be watching that. It's like little iPad almost, but but it is delightful.
So for me the success comes from the
the blending or the balancing or you how can you create a roadmap where you have a bouquet or
Deep delight, surface delight and low delight all together.
These are all some examples.
Say
Someone listening is super bought in.
How do we do this at our company?
And then then say they're a manager. Say they're like
a manager of PMs or even just a PM, is there something more they can do to create
Kind of this culture of delight.
being important.
To start it's a mindset.
And I call this the delight culture.
I mean, uh of course it's really important to talk about it so that we understand what it is.
But it has to be part of the culture of the organization. I mean, that's how I see it. So
For example at
Google I've seen that um
For it.
During long time.
We had uh
Like a product pillar called the light.
And the fact that it was a permanent place in the strategy and we see it all the time, that's actually a kind of reminder.
that we need to build features and create opportunities that map and align with that pillars. I mean just the fact as a director having this as a pillar is a first step.
And the second thing is to make it part of the routine. I mean the routine of your and the rituals of your company. So here an example, when I worked at Spotify, we used to have something called
A squad health check.
Maybe you heard about that at some point. I mean something about checking how how good is the team is functioning.
And it was happening every quarter.
And actually the leaders
used to be extremely religious about making sure that the team is actually doing it. And the fact that they show that they care
made it happen every quarter. So the leaders actually if they are bought in, as you said, and they are convinced, they have a a big role to play into putting that in place by
Giving it a chance.
Um
Again, when I worked at Spotify we had something amazing called hack days. I mean I've seen it in other company, but
it's never as good as at Spotify. So we used to have
Hack days.
Every month.
And we used to have Hack toward the end of the um the year.
And again, the fact that it's happening
On a regular base may
The thinking and the mindset.
completely adopted, like the mindset of innovation and going completely out of the box, et cetera. So now I'm advocating for
The light.
And I actually uh help organizations setting up the light days and I recently did this.
With a company called Megros. It's uh actually the largest supermarket chain in Switzerland.
And we had hack days or like uh delight days in that case.
where we actually of course spoke about the light and then we allowed all the teams
to go crazy and innovate and think about the lightful features. It was very playful.
The team loves it and we ended the day by giving them the chance to demo and we select the best
or the winning delight feature that the the the company will end up implementing. So it's about putting it as a routine in a continuous way so that it becomes like part of the culture, not just
a topic that is brought in.
Once in a while.
That sounds so fun. I delight day. And again, when people see hear this word, it could sound like the confetti example.
But it's you keep coming back to this point. Delight is not just that
Surface level low
type of delight. There's deep delight that solves
anticipated needs exceed expectations or roofs friction. So Z is
is still a type of delight, but it's actually one that also happens to solve a functional need.
Okay.
It's interesting so as you talk, I've been thinking about like what are the fastest growing companies in the world, the top product teams.
And it's interesting how
Delight. They're so delightful.
And I don't think it's a coincidence. So I think about
Cursor.
Maybe the fastest g maybe the second fastest growing company behind Chat GPT. Like speaking of exceeding expectations, you just like
Click tab and it
Codes for you.
Anticipating needs, that's like the ultimate example of anticipating your need. It's writing your code for you.
Okay, delight. Amazing.
Uh lovable.
Like it's called Lovable.
Amazing example. Chat GPT, if you can imagine exceeding expectations and blowing your mind.
Incredible example of delight.
Uh, I think about linear is we're talking just like they are winning in
in a very credit space because they invested in making it much more delightful.
Uh, I think about Suno, if you know the music AI app where it just like creates magical music for you, just telling it what you want to hear.
So there's so much here of just like
But yes, there's a lot of power to making
Especially in a crowded market, in AI especially just
It's almost like cable stakes now. It needs to blow your mind for anyone to pay attention.
We just need to be careful because
The surprise has an effect that vanish over time.
So there's this thing that is called habituation effect.
How can you make sure that you're not just surprising your user once when they use it the first time and then they become like normal use case? So
You mentioned like couple of example. Of course I do agree, they are all delightful. But one of the element that you that is part of the delight checklist is are you
Or do you at least have a plan to maintain that delight or that surprise over time. Like for example, when we introduced background replace in Google Need,
We first introduced like a blur, then we added static image.
Then we allowed for video background.
Then we added like a
Immersive background waves like a
moving slowly as if it's very real. And now they even have like AI generated
Background. So it's about
Creating that surprise over time in a complete continuous way to avoid that habituation effect.
Such a good point. Makes me think about Snapchat, who
Their only like l strategy was just keep out innovating everybody else.
with new lenses and maps and all like
That was their whole thing, just do the newest thing. I keep doing it. Keep doing new stuff to keep people excited.
Uh such a good example. Hard to do.
Okay, uh
I know you also have a story about an Apple reactions.
Uh

Good or bad delight.
You share that?
It's actually a feature that very much known nowadays, but uh maybe people don't know exactly what's wrong or what's what's good or what's bad about it. So
It actually happened a couple of years ago now that actually Apple
introduced updates uh into their operating systems.
And that update, of course, enabled the fact that if you
uh gesture you initiate like fireworks or whatever, any type of shit.
Yes, it's just your reaction. And it happens actually during the time where I worked at Google Meet and the reason why I remember it very well is because we had a lot of complaint from our
meet users saying, Hey what this picture is about. I wanna disable it And we're like, you need to disable it on your
Like an operating system if you're using a Mac.
And why is not
uh like uh inclusive by the way. I mean this is one of the example I use for the non ex uh inclusiveness of a of a delightful feature because
It did happen and that that's a real story, by the way, though being a person having
uh a call with a therapist having a hurt finger
And he was trying to show his finger to the therapist and what happened is like
Fireworks happening. I mean, what an appropriate time for white fireworks. And of course, bad press. I mean you wanna avoid this bad press. And and that's why like the light is great, but do it in a conscious way and make sure that it's adapted for all situations and all all cases.
Wow, such a good example of the light gone wrong. I I had so many podcast episodes where the guest is like thumbs up and then just this thing shows up and
I did stuff like what is going on here? What is like no one told you it was turned on.
How do you even turn this thing off? Oh my God.
Uh that's such a good example.
Okay.
I've covered everything I was wanting to cover. Is there anything that we haven't covered? Anything else you wanted to share that
Uh
You wanna
Share before we get to our very exciting lightning.
We spoke about some of the benefits of the lie jack, driving loyalties and uh retentions and word of mouth and that's
Very much clear. But there is one
overlooked benefit that even myself I was not aware of
And I wanna share that with you,'cause it's an interesting conversation I had a couple of months ago. I was actually giving a delight workshop in one of the largest health tech uh company here in France. It's called Doctor Lib.
And we had an amazing day. We spoke about a lot of ideas of the light.
But then toward the end of the day, I was approached by the product director called Suzanne, and she actually told me something that sticks I think it's worth mentioning here. She actually said
Uh, Miss Reen, you spoke about a lot of benefits of the light, but there's one benefit that did not mention at all.
And I was curious like
What is it?
I've seen
All the PMs today super motivated.
Excited like crazy.
The fact that PMs are working on the line brings them very high level of motivation. We're not talking about user motivation here, but like the employee motivation. And it's so real. I mean, of course we have some time to work on upgrades and migrations and non fun stuff.
But when you work on delightful features, PMs are super excited because they see reaction of users, they see the love of the users.
And they get even more happier and more productive. And for me, that's actually a real benefit that of course I was not mentioning during the day.
But I think it's something that all leaders can take into consideration'cause we wanna make
Light work life.
More exciting and more
More. In the giant.
That's a that's a really good point. Like ideally you find a thing that
You're very excited to build'cause it's so fun.
And drives functional needs and is just
Delightful, makes people joyous and uh surprised.
Uh
That's the Venn diagram we're shooting for.
Amazing. Okay.
Well, with that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. Are you ready?
Oh, I'm ready.
What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people?
The first book is called Factfulness.
Yeah, maybe you heard about it. It comes from
Ula Rossling and Hans Rossling and Anna Rossling.
The three are Swedish.
It got it's been
bestseller for years. It's still a bestseller, by the way, New York Times.
And here's a story. Actually I have a story about this book.
Uh I was living in Sweden back then. I've been living in Sweden for about seven years, by the way.
And it was twenty nineteen.
And I had two kids.
Three and two at the time.
And as every Scandinavian, we've been dreaming about having a cargo bike.

So
Uh we started looking for a cargo bike and it happens that we found a cargo bike
parking exactly on our building yard.
And so it had a
For sale.
Yeah.
Like a sign. So we contacted the owner, it ended up to be
The bike belongs to
Uh Sling, which is actually the author of Factfulness.
And so uh by the way, uh used to be the data
PM at Google because he sold his uh
statistic software to Google at that time. And the interesting part is that actually it's a book that is about how can we drive our thinking more using facts than
using bias. And this book was recommended by Barack Obama and Bill Gates and everyone. So
The fun story is that I get to read this book before anyone else because it was released that day
And I met that guy who's awesome, so that's my first book.
Well.
Great story.
And the second book is actually very close to my heart. It's called Uh Strong Product Community by Petra William, who's been on the show, by the way.
And the reason why I recommend this book is because actually I started my career in research. I've been a researcher after having my PhD for a long time.
And when I moved from research to product, I noticed that there is a huge difference in the fact how researcher contributes to community versus product contributions
contributing to community. And I quickly, really quickly
felt lonely when I became a PM.'Cause as a researcher, you go to conferences, you review each other's work, and when you become a PM, you have nobody really to review work or to collaborate.
Close it with.
So for me, it was really essential from day one.
To become a speaker or to contribute to some community, whether inside the company or outside the company. For example, like Google, I was initiating something like,
PM speaker series where we invited people from the outside to share their insights and perspective.
So with that I actually get uh we invited Petra at that time and then we she got uh
Uh she interviewed me and the interview was featured in the book. So if someone wants to stay sane
And contribute and learn in a product community, that's a great book, I recommend.
Awesome. Okay.
Is there a favorite?
movie or TV show you recently watched that you really enjoyed.
I have a T V m show and a movie. Which one do you wanna listen to?
Let's do T V show first. T V show.
Okay, so the T V show
has nothing to do with business or product. It's called it's the equivalent of um
the American greatest baking, by the way. It's called the meilleur pâtissier.
And here is why I love it. I mean, of course I love baking. We did not spoke about that.
But the reason why I love it is because the candidates are not professionals.
Of course they are good bakers.
But they are not professional. Meaning that
They make good cakes.
But they fail a lot of cakes as well, and this failure is the most exciting part of the show. It makes it relatable.
I mean I succeed as many as I fail and the fact that I can see these failures is
Allow the show to be
relatable. And that's why, for example, I don't like shows like Top Chef or whatever where the candidates are super, super
uh professionals.
And by the way, I mean
I also participate a lot in true cooking classes and I love doing that.
And I realized that most of the chef during those classes talk about emotion.
And they talk about we need to feel when we taste and when we eat. And maybe, or just maybe, that's why.
I'm talking about delight and emotional today with you. Okay. Uh you said there's a movie too. Let's share that. The movie I have in mind is called Anto Chabre. Again, it's a French movie, but it was a so successful that there've been a remake.
The remake is called
Uh the
Upside.
Maybe you've watched this movie. So this is based on a real story.
And the reason why I love this movie, I mean it's
My favorite by far is because you go through all emotion throughout the entire
Okay. I mean you go through joy
Sure.
Sorrow, sadness, all in the same.
uh period and you even laugh for complete and appropriate uh situations
And uh
There's one moment, one particular element that made this movie
Very unforgettable and very special. It's actually a soundtrack.
The soundtrack
is something that is so special in the movie and goes so well with the movie that makes it completely unforgettable.
And so when I watched the remake
I was completely disappointed because
That soundtrack was not part of the movie. So I was completely disappointed, as I said, and that's exactly what I call the anti delight. So I was anti delight at that time.
Un under exceeded expectations. Yes.
Okay.
Is there a favorite product you recently discovered that you really love?
So we spoke about revolute.
It turns out to be one of my favorite product these days.
'Cause uh it's actually surprising me almost every time. I mean, this is one of these rare products that every time I use it
There's a new surprise. And they they are really applying this concept of continuous surprise. It's not just like one off and then they they they move to something else. So I really like the fact that they are continuously um
Surprising users.
But there is another one actually that I might
Probably share here.
Where when I was interviewed for Google
They asked me this question, What's your favorite product?
That was Backly.
six or seven years ago.
And I I actually answered with a complete non tech products.
I actually said at that time the Yo Yo Strawler.
So the U stronger.
It was a surprise, yes, for the interviewer at the time, but it turns out to be the most successful interview I had because
Yu Strawder has something special that really
Serve it one of my very much need at the time.
It's a stroller that is completely foldable. There was no one at that time.
That you can travel with it.
in a claim.
And at that time one of my biggest stress and fear was taking
playing with small kids and how am I gonna manage those in lines and in cues?
And that stronger.
Serve it exactly.
My emotional needs
By allowing me to travel and take the sort of
With me on the plane. So
Just sharing this story because that was my answer for my Google interview.
It's a really good example of an emotional need of just like
Uh
confidence this can work on a plane when I'm all stressed out with my baby.
Uh I went with the upper baby stroller.
Whatever it's worth. It doesn't fold as well.
Okay, two more questions. Is there a a life motto that you find yourself coming back to sharing with friends?
And family and worker and life.
It might sound cliché.
But
My life motor would be
Shoot for the star.
Or even higher if you can. And I've been really following this
One was for my entire career.
Uh, I told you that I started my career in research and during my PhD.
I
realized that most of my degree are coming from France, so I really had to introduce some international element into it.
So I wanted to apply for an exchange programme.
And uh when I applied
Do you know who did I apply first? Like

Straight with.
Mm.
Stand for it.
Like I apply for Stanford. Like let's see how it goes. I mean the guy answered and he said yes, but you have to pay
A lot of fees. I mean, that's the policy.
Okay, I didn't really manage to get that sponsored, so I didn't also want to reduce the prestige of the university, so I applied for U CLA and it did work. I mean for me that was something that I really
wanted from the beginning, have something extra or or not. And I kept doing that throughout my career. Like I wanted to work for the Best Tech company.
And I work for Google.
I want it to be featured in the Best Podcast.
And I'm with you nailed it.
Once
Go to go.
It she used to be on one of the best stage.
And I'm working on being on a TEDx, why not?
There we go. No, you need Ted, that's head X.
That's the goal.
The original. Okay. I'm gonna love this.
Okay, final question.
Say someone's coming to Paris, where you're based, where do they get the best croissant?
Actually the best restaurants are not necessarily in the very fancy bakeries.
They are in those small beakers that you find all the corners.
And you have to smell the butter.
Smell the butter. Yes, from the outside. If you don't get it.
It's not a good sign.
Wow. So okay, so if you can smell
butter standing outside of this bakery. It's not where you want to get your croissant.
Wow, I've never heard that tip okay. I need to know what butter smells like, but I think I can I think I get it. It smell like caramel with uh hus, I mean it smells really good. You need to uh train your
Uh your ability to face that. I love this answer isn't like
This is like teach a person to fish kind of answer. Like you can find them if you just go smell.
Uh Nasreen, this was awesome. It's everything I hoped it would be.
Uh
We covered a ten of ground.
Let's tell people where to find your book.
called Product Delight, the uh how to make your product stand out with emotional connection.
Uh where do they find it?
Where do people find you and how can listeners be useful to you?
Yeah, so uh people can reach out on on my website, Nestream dash hangl dot com.
Uh, they can of course reach out, there is a contact form. I'm happy to get their
inquiry or question or whatever. They can also learn more about the book. Uh there is a website for it, like a
Product the lightbook.com
I also started recently a newsletter where it's called The Light Tips, where I actually share stories, delightful stories that I find useful for people to get inspired with.
And something actually very recently started happening. Like as soon as I started talking about delight, people started spontaneously to share their delightful stories, like either personal or professional. And I love those. So if anyone listening wanna share delightful story.
I would love to listen to those.
And just wanna end with the fact that the life is a movement.
I mean, when I started writing this book
A friend author told me the following. He actually said when we're writing about something.
is either writing about a known problem
We're giving a solution for a known problem or we are giving a solution for an unknown problem.
And the second is harder.
And I chose the second.
I mean I'm going with evangelizing that the light is an important thing. That's what's gonna
Allow your product to win and stand out. I know it's harder, but I'm pretty sure that that's what
will help us create a ward delightful ward. So if they wanna
have an implement the light culture into their organization they can reach out and that's exactly what I love doing with organizations.
Amazing. What a cool place to be. Just people sharing all these delightful examples with you all day.
What a cool job. Uh Nasrin, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you, Lenny.
Hi everyone.
Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.
Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast.
You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at Lenny's Podcast dot com.
See you in the next episode.