Building Products That Matter

## The Gap Between Building and Building Right There's a vast difference between building something and building something people actually want. I've learned this lesson the hard way—multiple times. When I started my first product, I spent months perfecting features nobody asked for. I was building in a vacuum, convinced that my vision was enough. Spoiler: it wasn't. ## Talk to Users First The single most valuable thing you can do before writing a line of code is talk to your potential users. Not surveys. Not analytics. Actual conversations. Here's what I learned: 1. **Users lie unintentionally** - They'll tell you they want something, but their behavior says otherwise. Watch what they do, not just what they say. 2. **Pain points are gold** - When someone describes a problem with genuine frustration, you've found something worth solving. 3. **Simple beats complex** - The features you're most excited about are often the ones users don't care about. ## Ship Fast, Learn Faster The longer you wait to ship, the longer you delay learning. Every day your product isn't in front of real users is a day of missed feedback. ``` Ship → Learn → Iterate → Repeat ``` This cycle is the heartbeat of product development. The faster it beats, the faster you improve. ## What "Done" Really Means Perfect is the enemy of shipped. Version 1 should solve one problem well. That's it. Everything else can come later—if users actually want it. The best products I've shipped started embarrassingly simple. The worst stayed in development hell, growing features that never saw the light of day. ## Takeaways - Talk to users before building - Ship the smallest useful thing first - Let user feedback guide your roadmap - Perfect is the enemy of shipped Building products that matter isn't about having the best idea. It's about finding problems worth solving and iterating until you've solved them well.