Shipped is better than perfect—an update from the Nori Product Team (bonus)

As any good developer can tell you, if you release a product you feel good about, you waited WAY TOO LONG to get said product on the market. 
 
Last summer, Nori’s product team was spending time onboarding farmers, building up auctions and a spot market, but they didn’t have a defined launch date. And they were trying to build out the Nori marketplace in its entirety—before customers had the opportunity to use it. So, what initiated the team’s pivot to an iterative process on an accelerated timeline?
 
Michael Leggett is Nori’s Director of Product, Jacob Farny is the team’s Principal Product Designer, Jaycen Horton serves as the Principal Blockchain Architect, and Software Developer Richie “never writes code with bugs” Farman. On this episode of Reversing Climate Change, the Nori product team joins Ross for a product update, walking us through what they’ve been working on and how their priorities have shifted since last summer. 
 
They describe how participating in Techstars inspired the decision to sell carbon removal for cash, driving them to think iteratively to get a product out much sooner. The team explains their greatest challenges leading up to the Lightning Sale and in the migration to the ongoing Live Sale, discussing why serialization and working on the blockchain make their job more difficult. Listen in to understand the Nori product team’s audacious goals for Q1 (and beyond) and learn how they are working to scale the sale of NRTs moving forward.
 
Key Takeaways
 
[3:10] What the product team was working on last summer
Build up auctions and spot market (not clear on ONE thing)
Siloed from other departments to divide and conquer
 
[6:29] What inspired the product team’s pivot in priorities
Leaning on SMEs for shortcut to feedback
Decision to just sell carbon removal for cash
Simplified process, allowed to launch sooner
 
[10:35] How Techstars changed Nori’s direction
Mashup of business development and product teams
Think iteratively + do less to get product out sooner
Single team urgently working toward coherent goal (Lightning Sale)
 
[19:44] The product team’s struggles around the Lightning Sale
Collect demand without ability to deliver product
Minimum version working on blockchain (not instant)
No control of decentralized system, refunds tricky
Serialization on centralized and decentralized system
Difficult to articulate what selling, define customers
 
[32:46] How Nori differs from previous carbon markets
Shop for project vs. get narrative after the fact
Allows for microtransactions (e.g.: ride sharing)
Facilitates scale for large companies
 
[38:05] The migration from Nori’s Lightning Sale to Live Sale 
Execute at own pace with oversight to real time transactions
Particular challenges around serialization and blockchain
 
[44:01] The product team’s priorities for development in Q1
New approach to obtaining land management history
Watch right people use software, make changes as needed
 
[52:32] What the product team is looking forward to
Audacious goals on rates of enrollment, verification
Execute on learnings to grow healthy marketplace
 
Connect with Ross
 
Nori
Nori on Facebook 
Nori on Twitter
Nori on Medium
Nori on YouTube
Nori on GitHub
Nori on Patreon
Nori Newsletter
Email podcast@nori.com 
Nori White Paper
Subscribe on iTunes
Carbon Removal Newsroom
 
Resources
 
Product Update on RCC EP070
Techstars
Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead and Kevin Maney
Nori’s Carbon Removal Marketplace
Microsoft’s Carbon Negative Plan
COMET-Farm
Granular
Cropland Data Layer
Climate Careers
Trey Hill on RCC EP059