Don't Fall In Love With The Product

I saw Matt Birchler write about not falling in love with products, and I was reminded of something Mark Evans wrote a couple of years ago. The advice is aimed at people building things: don't get attached to what you're making, get attached to the problem you're trying to solve. It's the difference between creating something people actually need versus creating something you think is clever.

I think about this constantly in my day job. As a designer and product lead, it's easy to fall into the trap of building features because they're technically interesting or because they showcase what's possible. The hard part is stepping back and asking whether any of it actually solves a real problem for real people. You can build the most elegant solution in the world, but if nobody needs it, you've just wasted everyone's time.

The distinction people make is between painkillers and vitamins. Painkillers solve an immediate, urgent problem. You take them because something hurts and you need it to stop. Vitamins are nice to have. They might improve things over time, but nobody's desperate for them. When you're building something, you want to be a painkiller. You want to solve a problem that's causing people actual pain right now.

I built Micro Social because there was a specific problem with how people interact with Micro.blog. The service is great, but the social side needed work. That wasn't about me wanting to build an app. It was about recognising something that frustrated users and trying to fix it. The product came second to the problem.

This is where a lot of projects go wrong. People get excited about what they're building and lose sight of why they're building it. They add features because they can, not because anyone asked for them. They polish things that don't matter while ignoring the fundamental issues. The product becomes about showcasing capability rather than solving problems, and users can tell the difference immediately.

Jonny Ive said what we build reflects us as humans. The things we create say something about what we value and how we see the world. But that reflection only matters if what we're building actually serves people. If you're just building to build, all it reflects is your own ego. The craft has to be in service of something beyond itself.

The challenge is staying focused on the problem when you're deep in the work. It's easy to convince yourself that the feature you're excited about is what users need. It's harder to kill things you've spent time on because they don't actually solve anything. Good product work means constantly asking whether what you're building is a painkiller or a vitamin, and being honest when the answer is the latter.

I try to approach everything I build with this in mind. What's the actual problem? Who has this problem? How much does it hurt them? If I can't answer those questions clearly, I shouldn't be building anything yet. The product is just the vehicle for solving the problem. Fall in love with the problem, build what's needed to fix it, and get out of the way.Claude is AI and can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.