Attack of the Post-It Notes

It started slowly. There was no warning, no call to arms, no time to prepare. This was not your typical invasion. It was, in fact, a systematic attempt to burrow under the surface and quietly take hold, like the tendrils of a plant as it climbs up a tree, like the spider which weaves a web knowing the flies will come.

“None of us could remember who first introduced them into our ecosystem but the fingers were immediately pointed at the Product Team.”

Looking back, the signs were obvious, hidden in plain sight. The innocuous square shape, the distracting colors, and the way they could attach themselves to various surfaces with a strip of stickiness ensured they went largely unnoticed. Their design was inspired, really, a confluence of ease, cost, and versatility that you couldn’t ignore.

None of us could remember who first introduced them into our ecosystem but the fingers were immediately pointed at the Product Team. They were the ones who had fallen prey to their clutches, their office Ground Zero for the invasion. Blame soon fell by the wayside, as the intruders started to leak out from the Product Team and into Customer Success and Sales. We started dropping like flies, rushing headfirst into the warm embrace of pink, of blue, of green, of yellow. Oh, that cursed yellow.

The reasoning had been so innocent, so simple. The Product Team were receiving countless nuggets of advice, pearls of wisdom, and ideas on how to improve their offering. They were so unprepared for the onslaught of feedback they received that they had no system in place to store it, to manage it. And so, they turned to the stacks — for that’s how they transported themselves — of the colorful squares.

“Soon after the Product Team made the fateful decision to write down the feature requests, you couldn’t move without seeing the squares. Blocks of color strewn around the room, like we were part of a painting that was not yet finished.”

Their usefulness was unparalleled. The Product Team found that they could etch their ideas into the intruders, leaving a permanent reminder of each and every piece of feedback they received. The colors allowed ideas to be codified into categories. The stickiness enabled the ideas to be stuck to walls, to desks, to computer monitors.

Of course, that’s precisely what the intruders wanted. Soon after the Product Team made the fateful decision to write down the feature requests, you couldn’t move without seeing the squares. Blocks of color strewn around the room, like we were part of a painting that was not yet finished. We urged the Product Team to do something about it. We told them that it was going too far. But the Product Team were ensnared by the intruders, who had planted the false belief in their heads that Post-Its meant progress.

The symptoms began to show themselves. The Product Team became lethargic and unproductive, as if time itself had stopped for them. The product became dated, increasingly useless to our customers, and that’s when the real troubles started. Customers began to look elsewhere, flocking to our competitors whose products were continually developing and improving. They had found a way to stop the invasion dead in its tracks. And it fell to me to find out how they had succeeded.

I ventured to our biggest competitor and I pleaded for the answer. Their Product Team’s office was clean and tidy, not a Post-It note in sight.

“It was some kind of software. They showed me how their customers could submit feedback, how they could then prioritize all of the ideas, enabling the Product Team to make data-informed decisions.”

“How did you do it?” I begged. “How did you defeat the Post-It notes?”

They could see I was desperate. “Look at this,” they said, pointing at a screen.

It was some kind of software. They showed me how their customers could submit feedback, how they could then prioritize all of the ideas, enabling the Product Team to make data-informed decisions. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This was it. This was the achilles heel of the Post-It notes. This was my secret weapon.

Upon returning to the office, with news of what I had witnessed, the screens were blank and the Product Team nowhere to be seen. A breeze blew gently through the office, whisking a Post-It from its resting place and over to my feet. I picked it up.

“There’s just too many of them!!!” was the message.

Too many ideas, too many post-it notes, and too many of us believing we were doing fine. This Post-It note had hit the nail on the head. I slumped down in my chair, surrounded by the enemy, and I realized that it was too late for me, but that I could warn others. I grabbed my pen, grabbed a Post-It, and wrote one solitary word, my ‘rosebud’, the solution to the Post-It note problem. That word?

Receptive.

Learn more about how Receptive can help your SaaS business to manage the product backlog and close the feedback loop with your customers. Book a demo today!