"Back in prehistoric times, socialization came to be when humans started forming groups in order to survive. The most important objective for an individual was to not be excluded from the group."

"“the product speak for itself.”"

"He insists that product managers should be “literary and artistic youth”, not just “logic driven.”"

"His product philosophy focuses on combining intuitive design, human psychology, and what’s technologically feasible."

"Being a product creator is like being in a relationship with the users. Otherwise, it’s only a business transaction. Product managers must have big hearts."

"All features have to go through Allen for approval. As a result, WeChat has benefited enormously from having a singular and coherent identity."

"I believe this is necessary, because a good product requires a certain degree of ‘dictatorship’, otherwise it will embody all sorts of different, conflicting opinions and its personality will become fragmented."

"Innovative; it must have creativity Useful Beautiful  Easy to use  Unobtrusive, modest  Honest  Timeless; it won’t become outdated  Doesn’t skip over any small details  Environmentally friendly and doesn’t waste resources  Not overly designed, “less is more”"

"Allen believes that the primary goal for technology should be helping humankind increase efficiency."

"5 centuries before Christ, Confucius set forth his own Golden Rule: ""Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself."""

"The backbone of his philosophy is to think about users as his friends."

"He believes that only when one treats users with genuine empathy, will products be used for a longer time."

"Quality, not openness, is the greatest good that a platform can deliver 🧠"

"what you see & read determines what kind of person you are and the thoughts you’ll have."

"communication is the process of inculcating one’s self-image into another person’s mind"

"If users weren’t willing to do this, whatever marketing they did would be meaningless. Although it took more time, it meant that the product was healthy when it really started to grow."

"At WeChat, every PM ensures that each feature or service has a meaning or a dream behind it. If a feature is made for just gaining traffic, and it doesn’t provide value to users, then it’ll have problems, it won’t last.”"

"If one does everything users ask, the result is increased complexity and a loss of coherence."

"he sees the competitor as WeChat itself - and whether his organization will be able to keep up with users whose tastes and needs change every year."

"if WeChat can’t give our users even a little bit of hope, then we can’t judge whether what we’re doing is right or wrong"

"When a platform only focuses on pursuing its own benefits, it’s short sighted, it won’t last. When a platform can benefit the people, then it’ll take on a life of its own."

"Only 9% of us will be able to stick with our new year resolutions."

"1st stop: Motivation vs. Discipline"

"In other words, discipline is something you do, and choose to do; motivation is a thing that can come and go, which you cannot choose to do or control."

"Newton's third law of physics states: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

"Let motivation inspire you, but don’t expect it to stick around."

"Focus on building disciplined habits instead. Get specific in what “discipline” will look like for your specific goal. Schedule it in your calendar."

"It takes 21 days for a new habit to form."

"2nd Stop: Valley of Pain"

"As you embark on the first 66 days, you will inevitably traverse the “Valley of Pain”."

"Fear & Resistance. A rule of thumb: The more scared you are of a work or a calling, the more sure you can be that you have to do it. The more important the accomplishment is to the evolution of your soul, the more resistance you will experience facing it."

"But ultimately it is taking away time from you actually doing the work. Begin."

"We owe it to those who have left us prematurely, to make the best use of our time today."

"Sharing your goals tricks us into our ego being satisfied with others perceiving us that we’re x, ultimately before you deceive anyone else, you first have to lie to yourself."

"“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better."

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,"

"…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt"

"3rd Stop: Discipline is not enough, it has to feel good."

"Discipline metabolizes a jolt of motivation so that it can get you over the “Valley of Pain” and into the realm of “Feeling Good”. Feeling good calcifies into habit."

"Not feeling good after a while of doing the habit? Drop it. Life’s too short to do something you hate and suffer from everyday."

"“The ultimate word is I Like."

"It lies beneath philosophy, and is twined about the heart of life. When philosophy has maundered ponderously for a month, telling the individual what he must do, the individual says, in an instant, “I Like,” and does something else, and philosophy goes glimmering."

"Philosophy is very often a man’s way of explaining his own I LIKE.”"

"Like I mentioned earlier - it’s hard, if not impossible, to control our thoughts but we can control our behaviors."

"To achieve success in any long term pursuit, perhaps the most important attribute is simply showing up."

"Sometimes when we are feeling down and unmotivated, the best thing we can do to change our mental state is to change our physical state."

"The action of discipline is needed to traverse the “valley of pain”, leading us to the land of “feeling good”, thereby solidifying our habit."

"The important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying. Why is this so important? Because when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen."

"A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid."

"4th Stop: Habit fuels identity, giving us the motivation to do it all over again"

"As our disciplined actions turn into habits with the the balm of dopamine, their summation become our identity."

"Habits fuel identity in our quest of self-actualization - to not just shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it."

"When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy."

"A newsletter for the thoughtful."

"This newsletter is free because I believe everyone deserves to have access to wellness resources."

"What I uncovered was not so much a cunning businessman, but a deeply philosophical digital anthropologist and empathetic first-principles thinker."

"He then returned to Tencent, cleaned up QQ’s email system, and realized in 2010 that the rapid growth of messaging platform Kik presaged the future of communication."

"Zhang attributes many of his product epiphanies to Sigmund Freud. Specifically that sex is a driving force for human nature."

"01. Product Management is art, not commerce 🎨"

"At the start of WeChat's creation Allen’s mission statement for the company was to not perceive WeChat as a commercial product, but rather as an impressive “work of art”."

"His product philosophy focuses on combining intuitive design, human psychology, and what’s technologically feasible. After these are melded, economic viability naturally comes afterwards."

"02. WeChat follows the “Grand Design” approach to innovation vs. “Design Thinking” 🌏"

"WeChat has integrated both approaches in the product development process. However, it leans more heavily on the Grand Design approach given Allen’s top-down management style."

"All features have to go through Allen for approval. As a result, WeChat has benefited enormously from having a singular and coherent identity."

"I believe this is necessary, because a good product requires a certain degree of ‘dictatorship’, otherwise it will embody all sorts of different, conflicting opinions and its personality will become fragmented.”"

"03. Allen models WeChat’s design process after Dieter Rams 👩‍💻"

"Allen believes that both hardware and software products are essentially tools, so principles for tool design are applicable to both."

"Innovative; it must have creativity Useful Beautiful  Easy to use  Unobtrusive, modest  Honest  Timeless; it won’t become outdated  Doesn’t skip over any small details  Environmentally friendly and doesn’t waste resources  Not overly designed, “less is more”"

"04. Make the best tool and get users out of the app as fast as possible 🔧"

"WeChat encourages users to put down their phones - In 2018, WeChat ran a campaign encouraging users to put down their phones and meet their friends more in-person."

"05. Products should serve delight and human connection ✨"

"Send a Drifting Bottle to meet new friends - this early feature enabled users to send drifting bottles with voice and text messages that get virtually picked up by another random user."

"06. The Golden Principle: The User is Your Friend 👯‍♀️"

"It means putting their needs above even company stakeholders."

"Allen has prioritized avoiding all monetization that might negatively impact daily platform usage, despite facing pressures of being a publicly-traded company."

"Despite all the advertising revenue potential with an app that has over one billion daily active users, WeChat limits ads in its social feed to just 2 per day."

"It’s disrespectful to touch people’s hearts on purpose"

"Just as you wouldn’t recommend random products to a friend, a platform shouldn’t recommend merchants without the users best interests at heart"

"Our goal is to allow good services to surface themselves and be found by users – not through our curation. This is also driven by our respect for users."

"We don’t want to curate or interfere with various services provided on WeChat."

"Users have told us their need for certain features, such as syncing conversation history to the cloud. It’s not that we can’t realize the sync technically. But from a security point of view, it’s best not to retain chat history, so that has always been our default mode.”"

"07. Letting value creators cultivate value 💪"

"Refusing to pay creators for content - Allen believes that a platform that is well designed enough should empower creators to make money off of authentic and quality content themselves."

"Enabling tipping to creators directly"

"08. Quality, not openness, is the greatest good that a platform can deliver 🧠"

"Allen believes the greatest good a platform can offer are: Breadth and diversity Quality of the content"

"These lay at the heart of a platform’s core responsibilities. It is within these parameters, that individuals can then freely choose the content they want to consume."

"“what you see & read determines what kind of person you are and the thoughts you’ll have."

"Keep in mind, Allen’s view here also reflects the regulatory reality of China’s internet which holds platforms responsible for the content it contributes."

"09. Social products should be authentic and alleviate stress, not engender it 👀"

"Back in prehistoric times, socialization came to be when humans started forming groups in order to survive. The most important objective for an individual was to not be excluded from the group. The way to meet this objective was to demonstrate their value to the group through boasting."

"Allen believes that “communication is the process of inculcating one’s self-image into another person’s mind” and socialization is a core human need that WeChat strives to solve through Moments - a place to post photos of your life."

"10. Products shouldn’t rely on “Growth Hacking”. If a new product can’t grow naturally, don’t market it 📈"

"11. PMs shouldn’t be solely evaluated on monetary KPIs 💰"

"Thus, everyone’s job is not to create the best products, but to use all means possible to acquire traffic."

"At WeChat, every PM ensures that each feature or service has a meaning or a dream behind it. If a feature is made for just gaining traffic, and it doesn’t provide value to users, then it’ll have problems, it won’t last.”"

"12. User Research is a requirement for all PMs via the 10/100/1000 Principle 💯"

"Every month, PMs are expected to do: 10 end-user interviews read 100 user blogs collect feedback from 1,000 user experiences"

"13. However, one must be selective with the user research you act on and make decisions from good principles first"

"He has two general rules of thumb for any new feature request:"

"Coherence - is it consistent with the existing design?"

"Simplicity - can I still do the basics well if I add this feature?"

"14. Challenges come from users not competitors 💥"

"he sees the competitor as WeChat itself - and whether his organization will be able to keep up with users whose tastes and needs change every year."

"15. The best KPI is hope 🤍"

"I often think if WeChat can’t give our users even a little bit of hope, then we can’t judge whether what we’re doing is right or wrong."