What are some mistakes that one should avoid so as to not kill their products?

The biggest sins I’ve seen people do: 1. Not doing proper research 2. Not talking to target audience 3. Ignoring reality and building the product based on “I like it this way” 4. Not following the money (because money = appreciation of value, sometimes it’s not obvious at the start what’s the best way to monetise your product and often your customers will show you what it is themselves) 5. Getting the pricing wrong 6. Doing things “the right way” (startups are almost always messy anyway) 7. Solving the wrong problems at the wrong time 8. When providing the feedback to the team/analysing performance – focusing exclusively on the bad things OR exclusively on the good ones. 9. Not providing feedback to the team at all and keeping them in dark on how you’re doing 10. Over-engineering for problems you don’t have yet. Overall, the thing is — if you have a product-market fit and got the timing right, it’s going to be really hard to kill your product. If you don’t – your startup is going to be allergic to tap water.

It's hard to hit a home run out of the gate. Particularly if you are a small team or one man show with limited resources. Don't get discourage with bad reviews or feedback. Keep improving and moving forward everyday.

Not having strategy: why are we doing this, where we want to go and what’s the plan. It seems simple but many products lack it and they are headed to disaster ☄️

Ignoring feedback from your customers, especially in the early stage

You don't want to overcorrect based on just one or two points of customer feedback. Remember your ICP and keep your larger vision and goals in mind otherwise you might end up building a product in different conflicting directions.

I think the most essential is to research the market before launching a product. Without knowing your target audience and their needs, you risk creating a product that nobody wants.

Overthinking about Features

Good question. There is no definite answer as many things that may be construed as solid advice, may not apply under certain circumstances. For instance, sometimes it is better to be the first on the market with a specific feature even if not refined, in order to build awareness on your competitive advantage instead of over engineering and perfecting this feature. In any case, I humbly believe that you should always create a product that solves an actual problem (hence generating demand for it). User feedback is of critical important. However discernment is required as there is a danger to add features (and delay launch) or fundamentally change the product on the basis on opinions. Build an efficient and clean UI/UI. You do not want to release something with a steep learning curve. Intuitive menus are very important. Marketing support. Always build customer personas to whom you are going to sale, conduct market analysis, identify forums, communities etc, build supporters (as those will generate value by providing real feedback and market the product themselves). Mass marketing campaign on irrelevant forums, websites etc may not bring the desired result and burn your budget early on. And many other things already mentioned by esteemed producthunters already

Don't try to be everything to everyone. Find your audience / ICP and build for them so you can find product market fit ASAP.

Actually validating your idea first :)

Mistake: Just launching a product without building an audience!

Mistake: building the product without launching. Always try to perfect endlessly. The product must be built through the cust dev and its capability must be valued by the market

On the tech side: 1) Don’t under engineer your product – starting a project without a good technical foundation will eventually lead to the demise of your product and require a complete re-write (e.g. can’t scale, can’t translate, unstable, insecure, etc.) 2) Don’t over engineer your product either ;) – listening purely to academics who come up with the “ideal” architectures but who never had skin in the game – i.e. never built and ran a company against real world inputs will equally mean that you will simply never get your product off the ground because your team will be bogged down with theoretical constructs that are designed to solve problems you will likely never encounter. Start with the assumption that there is no perfect architecture and understand what is important for your business vs. what is not. Don’t make compromises, instead find original shortcuts and solutions that are uniquely suited to you. On the business side: Way too many to list! But #1 for me is – never try to do a massive release of a complex product all at once. It will certainly fail. Expose features to clients and get them battle hardened as you go.

Hmmm, a nice question…

If you're looking at technical products, it is critical to have good documentation practice. You'll thank yourself for it in the future. In other areas, look to launch your MVP fast. Build fast -> Fail fast -> Pivot