Chaos to Clarity: Building Products That Matter

Hi, and welcome back to The Atomic Builder! This is where product managers, entrepreneurs, and non-technical creators learn to build software in the AI era. Thanks for being here—you could’ve been watching cat videos, but you chose AI & product management. I salute you! 👏

I have a confession. I have a ‘superpower’—talking a lot without saying much. Turns out, I can write that way too. My first draft of this issue was longer than The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But don't worry, I’ve cut out the elves and orcs (for now).

I know you're eager to dive into product-building mode, but hold up. First, let's learn how to build stuff you actually need. We're setting up the groundwork for creating MVPs together today. Otherwise, you're just creating another product nobody asked for (aka Feature Graveyard).

I’ll share my (not-so) secret formula: it's called V.A.L.U.E. By the end of this newsletter, you’ll be equipped to identify and validate meaningful problems like a true product ninja (yes YOU are!).

3 Steps to Avoid the Feature Graveyard

1. Gather Data: Identify Pain Points Using ChatGPT

👉 Here’s your task: Use ChatGPT to identify pain points from feedback data.

Your feedback sources could include survey responses, customer support tickets, user conversations, and more!

But here's the catch—not all prompts are created equal. To maximize your output, you need to craft a useful, well-structured prompt. You’ve probably heard the old adage: “garbage in, garbage out.” The same applies to AI—quality input leads to quality results.

If you have lots of data, try Dovetail, it’s an AI tool that auto-tags and clusters feedback themes. It's like having a data analyst, but without the hit on payroll…

2. Empathy Map: Getting Into Your Users’ Heads

Once you have raw user insights, an empathy map helps you understand users better. Think of it as a way to become a mind-reading superhero for product design.

How to create an empathy map:

1. Draw four quadrants labeled Think, Feel, See, and Do (you can add others, this is the baseline you want though).

2. Populate each section using your feedback data.

👉 Pro tip: AI can speed this up by summarizing key user insights. Tell ChatGPT to break down your feedback by thoughts, emotions, and actions to help you populate this.

Example:

• Think: "Will this product save me time?"

• Feel: "This UX makes me want to scream."

• See: "All my competitors already have this feature."

• Do: "Complain on social media."

You don’t have to do the empathy map manually. You could use my Product Workbench system to help do this systematically. The point here is to take that raw data and get into your users shoes, really feel what they feel.

3. The V.A.L.U.E. Framework

Finally, we validate which pain points are worth solving using my V.A.L.U.E. framework:

This framework helps avoid the trap of chasing shiny but irrelevant problems. Think of it as a compass for navigating product chaos. We’ll use a hypothetical situation to see it in action. Say hi to Priya…

Meet Priya, The Frazzled PM

Let’s meet Priya Sharma, a fictional Senior Product manager drowning in stakeholder alignment chaos. Here's how she applies the framework:

1. Voice the Pain: Priya’s inbox is a firehose of escalations from senior leaders.

2. Assess the Impact: 10+ hours a week are wasted on misaligned priorities.

3. Look at Solutions: Trello and Slack aren't solving this miscommunication crisis.

4. Underline Urgency: Priya’s quarterly deliveries are at risk.

5. Evaluate Feasibility: She quickly prototypes an AI-powered stakeholder alignment tool to test the concept.

Can you see below how Priya moves from pain points to establishing the need to prototype?

Priya’s story shows how quickly you can turn raw pain points into validated ideas. Now it's your turn to apply the framework to your own challenge!

Create Your Own Stakeholder Alignment Tool

Like a knight in shining armor, we’re going to swoop in and rescue Priya.

We’ll be creating a tool that streamlines stakeholder communication and prioritization. Think of it as your AI-powered meeting-saver. I’ll be totally frank with you about how easy/hard this will be. It’s important that I give you an accurate reflection of the state of the tools that help build this software - you can expect that here at The Atomic Builder HQ.

This is where we start thinking like builders 🛠️ .

👉 Here's your task: Use ChatGPT to brainstorm feature ideas for a stakeholder alignment tool or a tool YOU (!) want to build following the output of the exercises above.

Remember what a good prompt looks like from above? Let’s exercise that muscle here:

“List the core features and functionalities that an AI-powered tool for stakeholder alignment should include. Categorize them into key areas such as communication, task prioritization and goal tracking. Provide a brief explanation of how each feature would help improve stakeholder alignment and reduce miscommunication.”

I always use AI as a sparring partner - you’ll be surprised how fast AI can ideate with you!

Falling in love, why it’s bad for you…

Hold those DMs! 💔 

I am of course talking about falling in love with a solution. Early in my career, I was (brutally) taught that falling in love with a problem is the only sure fire way to truly solve a problem. This lesson followed my blunt insistence to proceed with building features for a system that were nice to haves but not rooted in any true and fundamental need. That failure taught me the golden rule of product strategy:

Frameworks like V.A.L.U.E. are how I (and YOU!) can avoid costly mistakes today.

What’s Next?

I know most of you wanted to start building ASAP—but trust me, getting a basic grounding on how to go from noisy users (love them, bless them) to determining what’s really worth building is crucial. Almost as important as sourdough bread was in 2020.

So Priya, things are about to get serious... In the next issue, we’ll jump into AI-powered design (think mockups and visuals) to identify how these tools might be useful. Get ready to create like a product ninja!

Stay tuned, let’s build 👊

Faisal

Founder, The Atomic Builder

🎵 This edition of The Atomic Builder pairs well with:

"Help!" by The Beatles – because sometimes, product problems really do make you want to shout for help! 🚨🎤