Tobias van Schneider

Hi, I'm Tobias, a German designer living in New York. I'm the author of this blog, nice to meet you!

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7 Jun 2016 • 4 min read

The Product Midlife Crisis

In the product world we often like to talk about something called product market fit (PMF). Product market fit usually stands at the very beginning and is considered the most important thing when building a new product. It's an abstract definition of course. Simply put it means that

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2 Jun 2016 • 6 min read

Does depression drive creativity?

Somewhere between van Gogh cutting his ear off and Virginia Woolf walking into a river, we got the idea that true artists are tortured artists.

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30 May 2016 • 6 min read

How to get over public speaking

In the last two years (this was written in 2016) I've stood on many stages around the world giving 30+ talks in more than 25 cities. I'm only counting the talks within the last 2-3 years, because those are the only ones I gave in English, my second language. That doesn't make me an expert, but there

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9 May 2016 • 3 min read

Work/Life Balance Is Bullsh*t

Every time someone asks me that question I struggle with a straight answer. Then start one of my usual rants about why you just can't ask this kind of question in the first place. For me the concept of work/life balance is bullshit. The fact that we

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3 May 2016 • 2 min read

It’s Been One Year!

That's a huge achievement for me, considering that I was pretty afraid of writing just two years ago. I always considered myself a designer, not a writer - Up until now! The majority of my articles were written at airports, planes or somewhere in between. I had to learn

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26 Apr 2016 • 7 min read

No Sugar, No Carbs

For the past three months I've been busy with implementing the principles of the "Slow Carb Diet" into my life.

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25 Apr 2016 • 4 min read

Be useful

Two simple words that are so easy to forget. Every day when I wake up I try to remind myself of just that: Be useful.

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19 Apr 2016 • 3 min read

The Broken Window Theory In Product Design

The original theory states that maintaining urban environments to prevent small crimes such as vandalism or public drinking will help to create an atmosphere of order. And most importantly, will prevent more serious crimes to happen. Let me give you a specific example of New York City not all that

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12 Apr 2016 • 3 min read

Why I Try to Avoid a Daily Schedule

If you're following me on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/vanschneider/] you mostly likely have seen a couple pictures from my Iceland trip already. If not, make sure to follow me because there are many great ones coming. (Iceland is just too easy to take great pictures of)

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4 Apr 2016 • 3 min read

Victims of the sunk cost fallacy

As I sat down today deciding what to write, I kept refining a specific article I wanted to share with you. It took me most of my evening but I just couldn't get excited about the piece. It just wasn't good.