Your product is a joke | The Paperclip | eesel.app

Improv comedy is a kind of theatre where performers create unscripted scenes based on prompts from the audience. I've been doing improv for 3 years and I often catch myself thinking that the framework used in improv applies to product pretty well.

The base reality in any improv scene is the "who, what, where" of the characters on stage. For example, a base reality could be two friends (who) having lunch (what) in a park (where). When you're on stage with eyes peered on you, there's a natural rush to be funny but we need to resist. The base reality needs to be laid first and in fact, it doesn't need to be funny. It needs to be clear and serve as a neutral background for the funny things to contrast against.

The key product lesson is that you should understand the world you are in before you do anything else. This is the base reality of your product. Who are your customers? What are their problems? What do they do about these problems? What part of the existing solutions will you not change? Resist the natural rush to be creative with features, designs, engineering - and first observe and understand your base reality. The base reality shouldn't be innovative and you should be careful about contriving it to be what you wish. Be specific and truthful. Here are some examples of base realities.

Once a base reality is established, improv performers look to find the game. This is the unusual thing that stands out, and everything funny revolves around. It's really important for improvisers to explicitly frame the game (with a shocked reaction, a confused question, a dramatic pause and so on) so everyone (including the audience) understands what's unusual.

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