AI & Work
AI Chatbot Checkbox
An AI chatbot can become a purchasing checkbox rather than a differentiator. Sean discusses the distinction between a common feature and a distinctive customer capability.
TranscriptEVERGENCES / IDEAS IN MOTION
Videos
Short videos from Sean Everett on AI, customer discovery, product design and growth. Watch a clip, explore its ideas and read the transcript.
86 videos
AI & Work
Tools Change, Outcomes Remain
A house-building analogy separates changing tools from the outcome a customer still needs. AI is considered as a tool for delivering that outcome.
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Product & Design
Give Customers a Superpower
What useful new capability could make a customer’s life faster, better, easier or cheaper? Sean asks how a product could create meaningful customer value.
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Growth & Value
Pay for Outcomes
A service buyer may value closed-won customers over leads at the top of a funnel. Sean distinguishes an outcome from an intermediate activity.
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Customer Discovery
Discovery Is Not a Pitch
Customer discovery is a listening exercise. Start with understanding rather than selling.
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Product & Design
Let the Technology Disappear
Technology should support the human experience. Adding a feature is only useful when the experience gets better.
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Product & Design
What Can Only You Build Together
A useful partnership question: what can we create together that neither of us could create alone?
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AI & Work
Choose Execute Review
Choose the task, check that the tool can do it, then review the result. Execution is only part of the workflow.
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Growth & Value
Purpose Meets Customer Value
Start with work that matters to you, then ask what value someone else would pay for.
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AI & Work
Learn Where the Potholes Are
Trying, failing and learning can improve the next attempt. Experience matters when tools change quickly.
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Customer Discovery
Follow the Thread
Ask about a real problem. Listen to the answer. Then follow the thread with a useful question.
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Customer Discovery
How Are Decisions Made
How are decisions made? Who decides, how long does it take, and what evidence matters?
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Growth & Value
Can You Do It Again
The test of a capability: can you deliver it again, consistently, over time?
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AI & Work
Internal and Customer Facing AI
Separate internal workflow improvements from the experience your customer sees. Both deserve a deliberate decision.
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Growth & Value
Your Combination of Skills
Individual skills can look ordinary. The useful combination you build over time can be much more distinctive.
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AI & Work
AI as a Creative Partner
There are only so many hours in a day. Think about the help that would actually support what you are trying to create.
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Product & Design
Imagine the Useful Thing
A design exercise: put the constraints aside briefly and imagine one useful thing that would make daily life easier.
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Product & Design
Different Layers Different Speeds
A house is a useful way to picture pace layers: the frame, the walls, the furniture and daily life change on different schedules.
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Product & Design
Values Include Consequences
Building something helpful also means thinking about its second- and third-order consequences.
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Customer Discovery
Separate Opinion and Evidence
Separate the opinion from its underlying principles and evidence. Ask what another person could independently check.
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Growth & Value
Grow the Pie
An ecosystem can create value beyond a fight over the same customer. What could grow the pie?
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AI & Work
Put the Decision in the Middle
Put the decision in the middle. Test the idea together rather than treating disagreement as a personal attack.
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Customer Discovery
Ask Why They Choose
Ask what customers keep choosing, then ask why. The reasoning behind a preference can be more useful than the preference alone.
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Product & Design
Ideas You Can Move
A design thought experiment: what if ideas and AI architectures could be manipulated like physical objects?
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Growth & Value
The Work Between Wanting and Getting
An outcome often depends on more than one tool: people, communication, purchases and coordination. Where can you reduce that work?
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Product & Design
Some Layers Should Change Slowly
Before rebuilding a system, distinguish its durable structure from its faster-changing layers.
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AI & Work
Tools Are Not the Mission
AI, robotics and other technologies are tools. Which mission are they serving?
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Growth & Value
Fascination Sustains the Work
If you will work on a problem for years, what keeps you drawn to it? Start with a fascination that can sustain the work.
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Product & Design
Escape the Feature Copying Loop
Once baseline requirements are met, avoid an endless feature-copying loop. What is the larger strategic choice?
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AI & Work
The Decisions Your AI Inherits
When decision principles are encoded into software, their effects reach customers. Be deliberate about what you encode.
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AI & Work
Map the Use Case Before the Code
An AI use case needs more than code: define the behaviour you want, then check the result.
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Customer Discovery
Ask for the Reasoning
Ask which principles support a claim, then ask for the evidence.
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Growth & Value
Growth Needs More Than Maintenance
Keeping the business running and improving it are different jobs. Growth asks for investment in product, service and customer experience.
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Customer Discovery
Questions That Reveal the Choice
Try asking how two options feel different, why someone would choose one, and what feels expensive. Listen to the answer.
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Growth & Value
Learning Speed Changes the Gap
A learning advantage depends on the pace of improvement, not just where you started. What helps your team learn faster?
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Product & Design
Find Your Own Taste
A quiet starting point for taste: remove the noise and ask what genuinely draws your attention.
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Product & Design
Build From Lived Experience
Your experiences, interactions and ways of seeing the world can become material for new products and services.
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Growth & Value
Strategy Is a Set of Choices
Sean describes strategy through decisions about the market, team, brand, product, service and resources.
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Product & Design
The Product Serves the Outcome
Describe the outcome your customer needs, then work back to the product that helps deliver it. Make the market message match what you can actually do.
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AI & Work
A Wishlist for a Helpful AI Guide
A hypothetical wishlist for an AI guide that could research, remember and help with everyday tasks; not a claim about an available product.
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Product & Design
Follow an Idea to Its Source
Look beyond the visible influencer or big brand: ask where the idea came from, then follow the chain back. What source would you study more closely?
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Customer Discovery
What Customer Interviews Uncover
Listen for the values, decision patterns and purchase criteria beneath the answer. What would change your next product decision?
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Growth & Value
Give Your Strategy Deck a Point
Charts need a through line: what customer frustration or value does the strategy address? Make the point clear.
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Product & Design
Design a Different System
New capabilities can start with a structural problem in the existing system. What would you change for customers and partners?
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AI & Work
Human Connection When Creation Gets Easy
Sean considers how human connection and shared values might matter as creating products becomes easier.
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Product & Design
Product Is More Than a Process
Sean argues that product work goes beyond delivery processes and passing along customer feedback, while explaining what he thinks a product discussion should address.
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AI Strategy
Budget for New Capabilities
Sean contrasts investing in new capabilities through discovery and creative thinking with automating the tasks already in a day-to-day workflow.
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AI Strategy
When Historical Data Adds Value
Historical data can support differentiation when losing it would materially reduce customer value. Sean contrasts accumulated useful history with data collected for a single interaction.
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Growth & Value
Build Revenue From Customers
Sean illustrates bottom-up revenue planning: add what individual customers pay over time rather than relying only on a top-down market-share assumption.
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Product & Design
Learn Through Repeated Attempts
Sean uses an illustrative pottery story to contrast learning through repeated attempts with trying to perfect a first version. This is a teaching metaphor, not a verified experiment.
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AI Strategy
Pair a New Capability With Its Enabling Workflow
Sean describes pairing a new capability with a workflow improvement that enables it, considering both sides together.
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AI & Work
Build Depth in More Than One Skill
Sean uses a tic-tac-toe metaphor for combining broad knowledge with depth in more than one skill, rather than relying on a single specialization.
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Customer Discovery
Why Would the Buyer Choose Yours?
Using a water purchase as an example, Sean asks how a buyer chooses between competing products and alternatives.
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AI Strategy
Budget for AI Delivery Costs
Sean discusses input and output token usage as part of the cost of delivering an AI product or service. Accounting treatment depends on the business and arrangement.
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Customer Discovery
What Customers Require Before Buying
Sean distinguishes the requirements customers expect before considering a purchase from the features that differentiate a product or service.
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AI & Work
People Need to Evolve Too
Sean considers how people can build skills as AI changes work, alongside changes in technology, companies and investment.
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AI Strategy
Look for Friction Near Revenue
Sean uses expense filing, receipts, accounting codes, approvals and rework as an example of friction surrounding revenue-generating work.
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Product & Design
Choose Your Nonnegotiable Requirements
Sean discusses using experience and judgment to decide where to compromise and which requirements should remain nonnegotiable.
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Product & Design
Design for a Feeling
Sean describes an illustrative design exercise: start with a meaningful memory or feeling, then connect it to colors, materials, movement and craftsmanship.
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Customer Discovery
Study What You Already Buy
Sean suggests studying products you already own and use throughout the day, then comparing the reasons behind those purchase decisions.
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Growth & Value
Fundraising Stories Have Survivorship Bias
Sean highlights survivorship bias in fundraising coverage: successful raises receive attention while unsuccessful attempts are less visible. This is a qualitative observation, not a measured failure rate.
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Customer connection & product experience
Where Is the Customer Connection?
Examine the relationship between a buyer and a product company. Ask where that connection lives, how strong it is and whether you invest in it.
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Craft, taste & durability
Build Products People Keep Using
Durable materials are part of lasting design. Continued usefulness matters too: consider the objects, tools and spaces people return to over time.
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Growth, learning & product stories
Three Ways a Product Conversation Travels
One-to-one conversations, one-to-many communication and word of mouth play different roles when a product reaches people. Start by distinguishing them.
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Customer connection & product experience
Customer Criticism Can Be a Product Signal
A complaint about a seam, durability or an unmet need can reveal something specific to investigate. Look for the product detail behind the criticism.
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Purchase decisions & pricing
Which Requirements Matter Most to Your Customer?
Listen for the requirements customers prioritize. Security, scalability, price, ROI and new capabilities can matter differently to different buyers.
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Revenue, financing & business impact
What Business Result Should Your Roadmap Change?
Connect quarterly product work to a business question: what revenue or EBITDA impact is the investment intended to support? Make that link explicit.
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Delivery, AI & work design
A Product Spec Starts the Conversation
Mockups, requirements and blueprints help communicate a product. Bringing them into an implementation still involves conversation, debate and compromise.
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Purchase decisions & pricing
Who Pays for an Ad-Supported Product?
An ad-supported service has users and paying advertisers. Examine how those different roles can shape engagement goals and create incentive tension.
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Growth, learning & product stories
Give People a Reason to Follow What Comes Next
A brand can offer an unfolding story through its products and experiences. Consider what makes someone want to see the next chapter, beyond a new colorway.
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Customer connection & product experience
Who Is Responsible for Product Craftsmanship?
Ask who is steering the product and who cares about craftsmanship. A screen shows only part of what someone experiences when they encounter the real thing.
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Craft, taste & durability
Build From the Materials Up
Slow down enough to work with the people who understand the raw materials. Build toward a product vision layer by layer, with care for the components.
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Purchase decisions & pricing
Trust Can Be a Buying Requirement
Buying criteria can include trust, data use and values as well as features.
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Growth, learning & product stories
Publicity Changes What a Brand Signals
Publicity can affect what a brand stands for and what buying it signals. Evaluate the attention in relation to the values you want the product to communicate.
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Growth, learning & product stories
Explain the Detail That Led You to Build It
Explain the product detail that was missing from the alternatives. Use a concrete illustration to make the difference understandable to the customer.
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Growth, learning & product stories
Iteration Needs Market Feedback
A new feature or colorway is not the whole iteration process. Refine the product through interaction with the market and what that interaction teaches you.
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Purchase decisions & pricing
Observe What Sells at Different Price Points
Observe purchases at different price points while recording what else changes. Interpret the pattern alongside differences in product, audience and conditions.
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Craft, taste & durability
Taste Is More Than Spotting a Trend First
Taste is not simply discovering a song or wearing a trend before someone else. Explore the distinction between being first and developing a sturdier preference.
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Delivery, AI & work design
Where Can You Add Value Beyond a Repeated Task?
For work built around repeated steps, consider value beyond the process: judgment, improvement or helping automate it.
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Customer connection & product experience
Design for Trust in the Product Experience
A welcoming interaction can be part of a product’s value. Consider how safety, calm and the fear of data misuse shape the experience of a simple text box.
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Revenue, financing & business impact
How Funding Choices Shape Business Priorities
Funding choices can influence whose needs receive attention. Consider the role of customer revenue when weighing debt and equity in a business.
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Growth, learning & product stories
Look Beyond Views to Customer Actions
Observe shares, bookmarks, outreach and purchases alongside views. Follow the numbers with conversations that can help explain what people cared about.
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Purchase decisions & pricing
Why a Faster Result Can Be Worth Paying For
Customer urgency can shape willingness to pay. Shipping and transaction-processing examples show why the value of speed depends on the problem and the buyer.
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Revenue, financing & business impact
How Does Your Business Keep Getting Paid?
Ask whether customers keep paying or must be found again each cycle.
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Delivery, AI & work design
AI Can Speed the Product Workflow
An idea must become a design, implementation and usable product. AI may accelerate that work while the translation from idea to reality still needs to happen.
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Leadership & enduring principles
What Do You Want to Stand For?
Clarify the principles you want your work to stand for, and consider how shared values can outlast a project.
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