High Signal Podcasts Evidence ledger
Method
Browse
← Back to evidence

Evidence receipt / preference

Published · transcript-backed

Nesrine Changuel: preference

28 Sept 2025 Lenny's Podcast A 4-step framework for building delightful products | Nesrine Changuel (Spotify, Google, Skype)

“like create that exceed expectation part of the products. And I really wanted to make this clear because sometimes people think about the light as the confetti or, I mean, the other day I was giving a workshop and someone showed me like, hey, if you shake the phone, you have snowflake falling.”

— Nesrine Changuel

Source trail

Everything needed to verify it.

Speaker
Nesrine Changuel
Attribution
Verified speaker
Claim type
preference
Recorded
28 Sept 2025
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

Transcript context

…So the second pillar is about anticipating need, meaning that, remember, in the light, you have surprise. And if you have to wait for your users to tell you exactly what they need from you, then you are just honoring their need. You're not exceeding or you're not even anticipating what they are already, you want to offer them. So another example probably is... Actually, I, my husband for many, many years, he's trying to convince me to move to Revolut, you know, Revolut app, that banking app. And honestly, I was comfortable enough with my traditional banking app and I didn't want to add more check and et cetera. So I did resist not getting into the temptation of trying, but that was until one specific moment. Actually, a couple of months ago, we went on a family trip to Singapore. And when we landed there, we actually realized that our French operator or like do not allow us to have like international calls for free, meaning that we had to pay extreme high fees for roaming and for data. So what are the choices? Like either you have to buy a local ECM or you need to accept these fees. which are very high. And that was the moment when I looked at my husband, he opened his Revolut app. He went to a tab called eSIM, buy eSIM, seven euro, it's done. It's like, how the hell did Revolut thought about putting an e-theme for a bank app? I mean, it's really insane. But then when you think about it, like most of Revolut users are international or expats. So they travel a lot. And in that case, they anticipated the need that people will travel and they will probably need at certain destination, that kind of thing. Feature. So that's the anticipating needs part. Creating surprise by giving them something before even people ask you for. And by the way, Rahul Wora, I mean, the CEO of Superhuman, who's been on the show, by the way, and I loved his show, he said something very similar. He said, like, in order for a product to be loved, you need to set the bar higher than your users themselves. Like, that's about exceeding expectations. And now we're getting to the third pillar, which is exceeding expectations. So once you anticipate their need, it's really important to exceed expectation, which means that, okay, how can I surprise them by giving them more than they ask? And here again, I have an example maybe that everyone is familiar with. I mean, I use Chrome, I love Chrome, but my husband is a Microsoft corporate user, like heavy Microsoft user, and he uses like Edge all the time. I mean, the other day I've seen him doing something that really surprised me. Like he was about to buy a coffee machine and he went through the entire journey. He put the coffee machine on like a for payment he was about to pay. And suddenly, actually, Edge suggested him for a complete what to feel feature, a coupon. Like he was about to pay something like 120 euro and suddenly you get 15% discount because Edge found out that there is a coupon you can apply. ested him for a complete what to feel feature, a coupon. Like he was about to pay something like 120 euro and suddenly you get 15% discount because Edge found out that there is a coupon you can apply. And you just get 15% discount. That's for me exceeding expectation because I was not even asking for a coupon. I was about to pay the 120 euro anyway. So that also by itself creates a kind of surprise. So these are the three pillars. We need to play with them. We don't have to do them all at the same time. But every time we bring the product, we need to think about how can we reduce friction? How can we anticipate our user's need? And how can we... like create that exceed expectation part of the products. And I really wanted to make this clear because sometimes people think about the light as the confetti or, I mean, the other day I was giving a workshop and someone showed me like, hey, if you shake the phone, you have snowflake falling. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I mean, why not? But that's not the light I talk about. It has to come with a value. It has to come with a concrete reason. And I call this like the confetti effect. Like people think about confetti as a way of delighting their users, but if it doesn't bring any value, then... Don't do it. And by the way, I'm not here to say don't do confetti. I mean, why not? Confetti could come with value and could bring some joy. And the best example is on Airbnb, maybe the one that you're most familiar with. Like I'm an Airbnb user, both as a host, but also as a guest. And as a host, I have a goal, which is to make sure that I always keep my super hosts back till like I love that. And of course, it allows me to provide the best experience for my guests. And you know how it works. Like every three months, Airbnb reassess whether you want to, you can remain a super host or not. But you know what happens? Like every three months, if you're renewed as a super host, and when you open the app, the app turns into confetti, like just to celebrate that moment with you. And that kind of moment is like, why not? Because I feel like Airbnb is recognizing my effort and celebrating that small moment with me. So it's about making sure you understand the value of your users and making sure that you're providing a solution that just brings them joy and surprises. The Superhost example is actually really interesting because I built the Superhost program. That was one of my projects at Airbnb, me and my team. And interestingly, it came from not from like, here's a metric we need to move. Let's build Superhost. It instead came from this guy, Chip Connelly, who was just on the podcast, who was a longtime hotelier. And he's just like, you need a way to differentiate status and levels of quality. And this is one way to do it. And there's a lot of actually fear on the product team that this is going to take search conversion. People will be distracted by this thing. Interestingly, it made hosts really happy like you, just like I want to be Superhost. I don't know why, but I want to be Superhost. It didn't actually move any metrics, which is interesting. It might have changed over the years, but it was an interesting contrarian project that feels like, how could you not have it? But it didn't really move any metrics, which always surprised us, but maybe it did later. Anyway, I really love this very simple way of thinking about delight. And I think you're almost underselling what this framework is helping people with, which is just how to build great product experiences. So there's this joy plus surprise piece, which is just the emotional component. You'll feel delighted if there's joy and surprise. And then this three piece, more, I don't know, even practical way of thinking about it, removing friction, anticipating needs, exceeding expectations. Like this is how to build great experiences. And part of that is being delighted by it. Part of it is just, this is a great experience. I think a big elephant in the room with this question is B2B versus B2C. And just like, when is this not, worth your time. I imagine companies like Workday and SAP and ServiceNow and all these Salesforce that did really well, very undelightful. The way I think about this is when it's like a greenfield market and there's nothing amazing yet, you don't need to make it as great of an experience as long as it's solving a real big pain point. But as the market gets more competitive, Linear is a good example here, the way you can stand out is make it a much better experience make it much more…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.

Search evidence