Kent talks with Alex Hillman of Stacking the Bricks about customer research, product fit, and the kind of product engineering that starts before implementation: understanding who you are serving, what they already believe, and how to make people feel understood instead of sold to.
They cover audience selection, observational research, helping in public, aligning your work with customer and business priorities, and why AI makes human judgment, trust, and synthesis more important rather than less.
Alex brings a product and marketing lens that fits this season perfectly: great products do not just solve technical problems, they help the right people recognize that you understand their world. The conversation starts with finding an audience and quickly turns into a practical way to build product sense inside a company: learn how customers describe themselves, observe where they gather, listen for the language they use, and speak from their priorities instead of your own taste.
The second half gets into Sales Safari, Stacking the Bricks' observational research practice. Alex explains why surveys and interviews can miss important signal, what to look for in real conversations, and how notes on jargon, pain, worldview, and recommendations can turn scattered internet conversations into useful product understanding. The through-line is simple and demanding: reduce the distance between you and the people you serve so your software, messaging, and decisions feel anticipated rather than manipulative.
Homework
- The next time coworkers or product teammates disagree about direction, step back and observe the conversation.
- Ask: who is this disagreement in service of? Is it serving the customer, the decision maker, the loudest person, or someone else?
- Practice this once a day or once a week, then use the patterns you notice to decide what you should contribute.
Resources
Guest: Alex Hillman
Host: Kent C. Dodds
Video
