#127 - Building Successful Products With Game Thinking - Amy Jo Kim

Tech Lead Journal

“3 core ideas in game thinking: super fan funnel to find the right people, loop design to create the experience people want to stick around for, and concept testing to figure out the user experience."

Amy Jo Kim is a game designer, startup coach, author, and co-founder of Game Thinking. In this episode, Amy shared how we can use game thinking to build better and successful products that people want. She first described some top reasons products fail and gave a few tips to avoid product failure by validating our ideas before building the product. Amy then explained in-depth the 3 core ideas in game thinking, which are identifying super fans, building a sticky core habit loop, and validating the product concept using storyboards. Towards the end, Amy shared how we can get started with game thinking and why we should do it early in our product journey.

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:04:32]
• Quitting and Starting Own Journey - [00:08:08]
• Top Reasons Product Fail - [00:16:44]
• Validating Before Building - [00:27:37]
• Identifying Super Fans - [00:33:03]
• Building Core Habit Loop - [00:35:41]
• Storyboarding - [00:42:48]
• Getting Started with Game Thinking - [00:48:48]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:51:48]

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Amy Jo Kim’s Bio
Named by Fortune as one of the top 10 influential women in games, Amy Jo Kim is a game designer, community architect, and innovation coach. Her design credits include Rock Band, The Sims, eBay, Netflix, nytimes.com, Ultima Online, Covet Fashion, & Happify.

Amy Jo helps entrepreneurs & innovators bring their ideas to life through at gamethinking.io. She pioneered the practice of applying game design to digital services and is well-known for her books Community Building on the Web (2000) and Game Thinking (2018).

In addition to her coaching practice, Amy Jo has taught Game Thinking at Stanford University and the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where she co-founded the game design program. She holds a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Washington and a BA in Experimental Psychology from UCSD.

Follow Amy:

• LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/amyjokim
• Twitter – @amyjokim
• Game Thinking – gamethinking.io

Mentions & Links:

• Game Thinking Masterclass – https://gamethinking.io/masterclass/
• G School – gamethinking.io/programs
• Innovator’s Quiz – gamethinking.io/quiz

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