I was listening to Lenny's Podcast (highly recommend if you haven't checked it out), and Tobi from Shopify said something that really stuck with me.
He spoke about the importance of unquantifiable metrics. Things like taste, enjoyment, and how a product fits your brand.
It is a great reminder that data is crucial, but it is not everything. Some of the best product decisions do not come from dashboards or A/B tests. They come from intuition, experience, and a deep understanding of what actually matters to people.
Tobi pointed out that only about 20% of a product's value is fully measurable. The other 80% comes from less tangible factors. Things that cannot be captured in a spreadsheet. Are you proud of what you have built? Does it feel like your own?
If you focus only on what is quantifiable, you risk missing what makes a product truly great.
The part I'm referring to starts around 19-minutes - worth a listen or watch!
Transcription
[...]
In a lot of different places, this is one of them, but also in its product. It's just not overfitting for the quantifiable. I think this is one of those things where everyone competes for highly quantifiable things. It's kind of fun, like a game. You tweak a number, and if it's 0.1 more, it's better than 0.1 less. That gives an immediate sense of gratification.
But I think the overlap between the most valuable things you can do with a product and the things that are fully quantifiable is maybe 20%. That leaves 80% of the value space unaddressed by those who only focus on what can be measured.
What actually happens is Shopify is comfortable with unquantifiable things—taste, quality, passion, love, and even strong emotions like hate. The deep satisfaction a craftsperson feels when they've done a job well is actually a better proxy for success—if you allow it to be—than just whether a unit test passes. The unit tests might not pass, but they'll be fixed 15 minutes later.
It's the same with our product. We don't just rely on A/B testing tools or conversion rates. Representing your brand is an unquantifiable question. Are you proud of what you've built? Does it feel like your own? Businesses need to embrace more unquantifiable things.
One of the most powerful forces in business is fun and delight. If people have fun doing something, that's upstream from so many other things. If all the metrics are down, but everyone says, “My God, I'm having so much more fun,” then, given some time, the metrics will start going up.
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