What's your biggest product fear?

Question

Katrina Rodriguez · Accepted Answer

Building something no one uses.

Anthony Richard Thompson · Answer

Fear of irrelevance - building something people don't need or want. The product graveyard is filled with 'solutions' desperately seeking a problem to solve.

Answer

Same fear here. It's super deflating to build something you're excited about only to hear crickets after launch. User research and early validation is so crucial before investing tons of dev time into an idea. I try to gauge interest early via landing pages, mockups, paid ads, etc to test demand before building. Curious what others' strategies are for avoiding the 'crickets' scenario?

Linda T. William · Answer

giving efforts to something that no one uses

Answer

Biggest fear is spending months building something I think is amazing only to launch to crickets. Need to do more customer validation up front to make sure I'm solving a real, painful problem people will actually pay for.

Chandan Jadhav · Answer

@bensongao True that. 
Getting people to know it, see it, use it, is a challenge of its own.
and when we finally do that, even a bit of putting off a user will make us lose a potential sign-up overall.

Chandan Jadhav · Answer

@isaachenrygallagher mostly we use the same strategies that you've mentioned, mockups, research, surveys, not only before starting to work on the product, but also across its life cycle before launch.

Adi · Answer

@katrinarodriguez I agree

Henry H. Jimenez · Answer

making something unusual

Benson Gao · Answer

One issue is that no one uses it, and the other is that incorrect pricing could result in losing users

Answer

@katrinarodriguez 
Strongly agree

Chandan Jadhav · Answer

@katrinarodriguez that's true! we just get confused sometimes that we are building something "us" and end up building something for "me", just gotta keep the perspectives wide covering everyone's shoes.

Answer

Same fear here. Building something that no one ends up using would be crushing after pouring your heart into it. I think the key is validating demand early on and consistently seeking user feedback throughout development to ensure you're solving a real pain point in a compelling way.

Chandan Jadhav · Answer

@anthonyrichardthompson  true that. sometimes people build something, and by the time it's ready, there's no need anymore and it goes to graveyard.

Chandan Jadhav · Answer

@deborah_mckiddy yes! that's a fear we all carry.

What's your biggest product fear?

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