Power Moves: Why Your Experimental Users Are Your Best Teachers

We call them "power users," but that misses the point.

Welcome to Frank Takeaways. I'm Frank, writing the notes worth keeping from decades at companies like Slack, Etsy, and Google. I run a coaching practice dedicated to guiding leaders through the tricky stuff of building products and high-performing teams.

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Anthropic's latest Claude feature—automatic writing style matching—proves a counterintuitive truth: your experimental users are your best product teachers.

You might call them "power users," but that misses the point. Their value isn’t in mastering every keyboard shortcut—it’s in their willingness to experiment. They’re your product’s scientists, running daily experiments in how to solve real problems.

The Experimental User Paradox

Here's a truth that makes product managers squirm: sometimes the best features start as solutions for the 1%. While conventional wisdom demands "build for the masses," watching your experimental users explore your product reveals opportunities hiding in plain sight.

Take Claude's Projects feature—a beautifully ambiguous sandbox Anthropic released without dictating its purpose. It's like handing someone a laboratory and seeing what discoveries emerge.

Personally, I've found one powerful way to use Projects is as my writing command center. I use it to organize long-form essays, social media drafts, and professional introductions. But that's just one experiment. I'd bet my collection of unused domain names that other users have turned Projects into testing grounds Anthropic never anticipated. This is the magic of intentionally undefined features—they become laboratories for user innovation.

These experimental users don't just use your product; they conduct field research, discovering possibilities you might never have considered. They're also your most compelling advocates. When they share their discoveries, their followers listen. Think of it as user research with a built-in marketing boost—a two-for-one deal any growth hacker would envy.

The Etsy Effect: When Experimentation Lights the Way

At Etsy, our own laboratory was search filters—a feature often as overlooked as an app’s terms of service. Less than 10% of users accessed them, but those who did showed us something fascinating.

These experimental users revealed how local search wasn't just a convenience—for heavy items like mid-century sideboards, it was the only way to make the sale. By studying their behavior, we transformed their discovery into a mainstream feature, automatically surfacing local results for heavy items in everyone's searches.

The takeaway? Their natural behavior in the wild reveals patterns that no focus group could uncover.

The Claude Chronicles

Fast forward to today, and Anthropic's writing style feature reads like a successful laboratory experiment scaled for mass production. While I don't know their internal product development process, it's easy to imagine the pattern: observe how experimental users turn flexible tools into specialized solutions, then refine those discoveries into features for everyone.

What began as user experiments in Projects—creating different writing styles through custom instructions—has evolved into an elegant solution for everyone. It's like watching a garage invention become a household tool.

Hiding in Plain Sight

So what’s the so what? Experimental users aren’t just early adopters; they’re unofficial researchers and development partners.

The next time you launch a feature with intentionally blurry boundaries, don’t just sit back—observe closely. In their creative solutions lies the blueprint for your next breakthrough.

As for me, I’m off to retire some writing style Projects that are no longer needed.