The Hidden Pattern Behind Winning Products | Farmville creator Mark Pincus

Description

Mark Pincus created FarmVille and Words With Friends, built Zynga into a multi-billion dollar company, and experienced both spectacular success and painful failure along the way. In this conversation, he reveals the lessons that came from nearly missing the biggest opportunities of his career, rebuilding after setbacks, and learning how to spot winning ideas before everyone else. You'll learn why most founders build the wrong thing, how great products tap into deep human needs, what separates products people try from products they use every day, and why your instincts are often right even when your execution fails. Mark also shares the frameworks he used to build Zynga, navigate Facebook's rapidly changing platform, make high-stakes decisions under pressure, and avoid the compromises that quietly destroy companies. Timestamps: 00:00 The Principles of Great Products 01:34 How to Test if Your Idea Has "Heat" 04:02 Falling Out with His Father 06:14 Early Career Fails 09:27 The Presentation that Kicked him out of Bain 12:04 The Book of Life System for Making Strategic Decisions 17:56 Why Your Instincts are Good and Your Ideas are Bad 22:29 Copying is the Key to Great Product Design 23:22 System for Building Great Products 24:05 How to Use "Proven Better New" to Build Ideas 27:39 Why Deconstruction Leads to Better Products 29:33 All Founders Go Through This 35:14 How Zynga Changed Social Gaming 37:25 Pitching Zynga to Steve Jobs 40:36 The Fatal Mistake Founders Make 41:24 The Fight Between Peter Thiel and Sequoia 43:03 The Explosion of Farmville 45:45 Zynga's Near-Death Experience on Facebook 48:36 Why Failure Machines Reveal Your Best Ideas 49:28 The Thing that Almost Killed Words with Friends 53:05 Why the Minimum Viable Product Approach is Hurting You 54:03 Building Fast is More Important than Building Right 56:19 How Zynga Missed Their Instagram Moment 58:50 Your Company Should Be a Democratic Dictatorship 1:02:25 How to Build a Meritocracy in Your Company 1:03:44 Jeff Bezos' Invaluable Management Trick 1:05:2