Products for Normies, Products for Sickos
Some products are made to have a perfect balance of features. They are "good enough" for "most people." A milquetoast Wirecutter pick. Those are products for "normies." But some products are made for the extremes, the edges. Those are products for sickos. (As a
Opinionated Is Good
In a user interview years ago, a customer said he found his Tortuga backpack to be too "opinionated." I got a little obsessed with that idea. A product should be opinionated. A designer—and by extension, his products—should have a point of view. Opinions are good. You
Simple is Sticky
The product that's the easiest to understand wins.
Making the Bug the Feature
Learn how Third Culture Bakery turned a bug of gluten-free pastries into a feature.
Navigating Ambiguity
To get promoted, have to be able to make better decisions despite more uncertainty.
The Best Jobs Page I've Ever Seen
The Stripe jobs page [https://stripe.com/jobs] is the best jobs page. Writing the page required a clarity of purpose that's driven the fintech startup's success in raising $1.6B [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/stripe/company_financials], attracting talent [https://twitter.com/patio11], and
Working From Home During a Pandemic
This post was originally an email sent to the Tortuga newsletter [https://manage.kmail-lists.com/subscriptions/subscribe?a=h4CLJm&g=fPVq6J] and has been edited to fit this format. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today’s newsletter is for everyone working from home during the pandemic. If you’re providing an essential service
Remote Jobs Are Better Than Gig Economy Jobs
Remote jobs hold more potential for spreading economic opportunity and reducing inequality than the non-HQ jobs created by the tech sector. The latter includes gig economy jobs (Uber drivers), contract jobs (Facebook and Google moderators), and the other high-headcount, low wage jobs (Amazon warehouse workers). A Vox profile of Silicon
How We Calculate Base Salaries for Remote Jobs
Learn how we calculate salaries for remote roles at a U.S.-based company.
The Differences Between Coaching and Managing
[Y]our role as a manager is not to solve problems. It’s to help others solve problems, themselves. – Claire Lew At Tortuga, we use the same words as Help Scout does for managers and individual contributors: Coaches and Players. We call our managers "coaches," not just because