We start with the customer and work backwards. And, very importantly, we are willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.

My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever."

So, it really was a decision that I had to make for myself, and the framework I found which made the decision incredibly easy was what I called — which only a nerd would call — a “regret minimization framework.”

For new initiatives a product manager typically starts by writing an internal press release announcing the finished product. The target audience for the press release are the new/updated product's customers, which can be retail customers or internal users of a tool or technology. Internal press releases are centered around the customer problem, how current solutions (internal or external) fail, and how the new product will blow away existing solutions.

To be uncharacteristically serious for half a nanosecond, yes, Woot has signed an agreement to be acquired by Amazon. It shouldn't change anything much for us or you after the deal closes, we just figured you’d like to know a few details. You see, when two companies meet over drinks and some light jazz and decide they'd like to get to know each other better… You know what? Our CEO said it best in his letter to us employees...

Though Amazon has excellent and proven features, these won’t necessarily work on any e-commerce website. Let’s take their customer reviews for example. Target.com bought Amazon’s customer review software. Though the software and the interface are exactly the same, Target.com basically doesn’t receive any reviews at all: in the first month after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out, Amazon got 1 805 reviews whereas Target got only 3 (both retailers sold about 2 million copies).