The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (founder of Zynga)

What you'll learn

• 1 (02:55) **Introduction of Mark Pincus and his new book** - Lenny welcomes Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga, who has created over a dozen successful consumer products; his book *Life at the Speed of Play* synthesizes his product-building learnings.
• 2 (03:13) **The Proven Better New framework overview** - Mark introduces his core philosophy: instincts are right 95% of the time, but ideas are wrong 75% of the time; the framework isolates your innovation zone by separating proven, better, and new.
• 3 (04:53) **Proven: master what already works** - Mark explains that "proven" means copying the best-of-breed approach on a specific platform for a specific audience; example of Sid Meier’s Civilization failing on Facebook because it didn’t copy the proven first-time user experience.
• 4 (08:17) **Better: small increments that users love** - "Better" must be something 10 out of 10 existing users would say "fuck yeah" to; often it’s polish or small improvements that power users notice; example of Words with Friends making Scrabble better for mobile.
• 5 (09:53) **New: the risky, novel idea** - The "new" is the back-of-the-box hook that gets downloads, but it’s probably wrong 75% of the time; Mark advises having multiple new ideas ready to test.
• 6 (12:04) **Why copying is a moral arbitrage** - Mark argues that copying feels wrong to ambitious founders, but defining ambition in the eyes of the consumer (not peers) makes it acceptable; burning your resume means prioritizing user love over peer respect.
• 7 (14:44) **Examples of Proven Better New in action** - Slack may have been just proven and better with no new; Craig Newmark took two years to add photos to Craigslist because he understood that change upsets users; the best products are usually better versions of things that existed before.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app