How to Build Exceptional Products

Founders, are you building product correctly? As founders, it’s easy to get pulled into thinking about how our products might look in a slick promotional video, imagining all the ways they could "wow" an audience. But here’s the reality: sustainable success is rooted in solving real problems, not just creating marketable moments. A flashy demo might generate short-term buzz, but what keeps users coming back is a product that fits their lworkflows and goals. If we’re building for the customer, our focus has to shift from "How will this feature look?" to "How will this feature help?" Here are a few actionable steps for founders to make sure their product development stays grounded in customer value: 1. Talk to Your Users Regularly: This sounds obvious, but it’s surprising how often it’s overlooked. Get into the habit of scheduling regular conversations with both loyal customers and recent adopters. Ask open-ended questions that let you uncover not just what users want but why they want it. 2. Focus on Solving Pain Points, Not Adding Bells and Whistles: It’s tempting to add features because they seem cool or have a high "wow factor" in demos. But before committing, ask yourself: does this feature directly address a specific pain point? Is it making the product better or just flashier? 3. Design with Iteration in Mind: Building a product isn’t about getting it perfect the first time; it’s about continual improvement. Make sure your team has room to iterate, experiment, and adjust based on feedback—don’t lock them into something just because it looked good in a marketing draft. 4. Measure Success Through Customer Retention, Not Just Acquisition: A flashy feature may attract first-time users, but a product that truly solves problems will keep them coming back. Focus your KPIs and metrics on retention and user satisfaction, not just on the top of the funnel. 5. Think Like Your User, Not Just Like a Founder: It’s easy to fall in love with your own ideas, but users ultimately decide whether your product thrives. Ground yourself in their perspective: what’s essential to them, what frustrates them, and how your product can make a meaningful difference. At the end of the day, the best marketing doesn’t come from a video—it comes from a product that meets needs so well that users feel compelled to share it. Build for impact, not for optics.

Most people fail in business because they don't know how to build a product. I've started 15 companies and built a ton of products along the way. Here's how to maximize the chance of success for your first product: 1. Prioritize Product Knowledge Understanding your product intimately is a game-changer for your success. And I’m not just talking about features. Understand your: • Market • Unique selling points • Customer pain points Immerse yourself in your product’s universe. That’s how you build a winner. 2. Iterate This approach is your secret weapon for building a successful product. • Release a minimum viable product to get valuable feedback • Adapt your product based on users’ feedback • Make continuous improvements Remember: perfection is the enemy of good. Get something out there. 3. Focus on your customer Your customers should be the heart of your product development process. Get crystal clear on your customers’: • Needs • Preferences • Pain points Involve their feedback in the development cycle. You want to create a product that speaks to them. And to do that, you need to speak their language. 4. Focus on Solving a Problem Successful products solve urgent problems. Groundbreaking, right? But you would be surprised how many ignore this. Ensure you: • Pinpoint a problem faced by your target audience • Find more effective solutions than existing solutions You're not just building a product. You're solving a problem. 5. Build a Strong Team A great team is the engine that drives successful product development. Look for diverse skill sets: • UX • Design • Marketing • Engineering Foster a cohesive environment and encourage contribution. The best entrepreneurs know great products without teams don’t exist. 6. Embrace Failure as Learning Failure is the foundation upon which success is built. • Examine the reasons behind failures • Identify lessons from setbacks • Use these insights for future development endeavors Don't let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game. 7. Create an Effective Go-to-Market Strategy Your product’s journey to success begins with a solid go-to-market strategy. Consider: • Pricing • Distribution channels • Marketing campaigns • Competitive positioning Create a comprehensive plan that aligns with your target market Then implement the strategy meticulously. Those were my tips for getting your first product to market. Want more content like this? Hit that follow and 🛎️ to get notified when I post. #productlaunch #entrepreneurship

How to build a market-leading product? Here's the simple secret sauce. Shut up and listen to your users. 🤐 The best part of my day at Lighthouz AI is shadowing our end users - the AP & AR teams at logistics companies. I don’t pitch. I don’t explain. I just watch. I just listen. I observe how they actually use our platform — not how we think they do. They click, they struggle, they breeze through parts, they get stuck, they curse features I once thought were “brilliant.” They tell me exactly what’s not working. What they HATE. What they find ANNOYING. No sugarcoating. And here’s the key: * I never defend * Because the moment you defend, they will start holding back. And when users filter themselves, you lose the truth. So I listen. I take notes — a lot of notes. Often five pages in 30 minutes. Then we get to work. We push fixes fast. Sometimes within minutes. The users notice. They feel heard. They trust us. They are excited for the next session. And that’s how you win. You don’t guess. You don’t assume. You build with your users — not just for them. Do it daily, and the market-leading product builds itself.

Great products are built when you don’t listen to users! But when you listen to PEOPLE. We call them "users," but those people have lives, goals, and frustrations outside of just interacting with our product. A user might say "I need a faster checkout process”. But a person might say "I want to spend less time online shopping and more time with my family." Understanding the deeper motivation can help us design solutions that address the core issue. This means going beyond traditional user research and actively listening to the people we are trying to help. What problems are they trying to solve? What are they hoping to ultimately accomplish?   What frustrations are we inadvertently creating for them? The key takeaway? Listen beyond user actions to understand the deeper human needs and aspirations. Create products that don't just get used, but that make a positive difference in people's lives.

For a long time, great products were built around two thresholds, and Mark Barrocas from SharkNinja articulated this perfectly when we spoke on FOMO Sapiens. The first is the threshold of acceptability: The product has to work. It cannot annoy you. It cannot feel broken, cheap, or frustrating. This is table stakes. Miss this, and nothing else matters. The second is the threshold of excellence: This is where customers get excited. The vacuum pulls up dirt you did not know was there. The blender that turns ice into snow. This is the “wow” moment that earns loyalty. But in the last few years, a third threshold has quietly taken over: The threshold of viral. Today, products are not just designed to be used; they are designed to be seen, filmed, shared, and reacted to. LED lights that signal something is happening, visual feedback that looks good on camera, moments engineered for social proof, not just performance... This is not accidental; it is a response to modern FOMO: People do not just want a good product, they want reassurance that they chose the right product, and increasingly, that reassurance comes from seeing others react to it online. Here is the tension worth paying attention to: when the viral threshold starts to dominate, it can quietly distort priorities. Teams may optimize for shareability before substance, for spectacle before durability. The best companies do not choose between these thresholds. They sequence them: acceptable first, excellent next, viral only if it reinforces the real value. Otherwise, you are not building a product; you are building a moment. So here is the real question: in your work, are you designing for lasting excellence, or for short-term validation dressed up as innovation? Revisit the episode: https://lnkd.in/eNP4Wscw

Most companies prioritize features based on customer problems alone. But the best product companies—Apple, Amazon, Stripe, and others—do something fundamentally different. They practice "product shaping." The traditional approach: Identify customer problems → Prioritize by importance → Build solutions → Hope they work well The shaping approach: Identify customer problems → Prototype rough solutions → Prioritize based on both problem importance AND solution quality This changes everything. Instead of betting your roadmap on abstract problems, you're betting on concrete solutions you can actually evaluate. Take Apple's famous multi-touch story: Jony Ive's team spent years prototyping a touch interface for tablets in the lab. When Steve Jobs saw it, he realized it would be better for phones. They shelved the tablet, prioritized the iPhone, and changed the world. That's product shaping at its finest. So why doesn't everyone do this? Simple: Running a prototyping lab that builds dozens of concepts that never ship is expensive. Most companies can't justify the cost. But AI prototyping is changing the game completely. What once required months of engineering time and significant budget can now be explored in hours or days. Teams can rapidly shape solutions, test concepts, and make roadmap decisions based on real prototypes instead of wishful thinking. The barrier to product shaping is disappearing. And the companies that embrace this shift will build better products, faster than ever before. Are you shaping solutions before you prioritize them?

Understanding product strategy is foundational to building products that truly deliver value. But I often see teams confuse strategy with roadmaps or a list of features. Strategy isn’t about dictating ‘what’ to build—it’s about building a framework to help the organization decide what to build. Why does this matter? Without a solid product strategy, even the most innovative ideas can lose focus. A strong strategy ensures that every decision your team makes is intentional, helping you navigate complex markets, meet customer demands, and drive meaningful business outcomes. One approach I love for building and refining product strategy is the Product Kata (based on Toyota Kata)—a method that focuses on planning, executing, learning, and iterating to keep your strategy dynamic and adaptive. The Product Kata is built around five essential steps: 1️⃣ Understand the vision: Define what success looks like. Where are you trying to go? This is where you would understand the strategy level above you, make sure it is crystal clear, and identify your business and customer goals. 2️⃣ Assess the current state: Where are you now? Identify gaps and areas that need improvement to move closer to your vision and strategy. This is where we research and gather data to make an informed hypothesis. 3️⃣ Set your next goal: This goal is set from our informed hypothesis, and breaks down the strategy into smaller, achievable goals in the near term. 4️⃣ Experiment and learn: Test your hypotheses with small, targeted experiments. Collect real-world data to understand what works and what doesn’t. 5️⃣ Reflect and iterate: Review the results, compare them to your current state now that you’ve attempted to solve the problem, and adapt based on what you’ve learned. Adjust your goals as you learn new information. What I love about this method is that it prevents strategy from being static. Instead of setting your direction in stone, you’re constantly learning, adjusting, and evolving as you go. A well-executed product strategy bridges the gap between business outcomes and customer value. It keeps teams aligned, focused, and ready to seize opportunities in a rapidly changing landscape. If you’re ready to master this and create strategies that drive results, our Product Strategy course covers this in depth. You’ll learn frameworks like the Product Kata and how to align your team around strategies that deliver real business and customer impact. How do you keep your strategy adaptable and aligned with your vision? I’d love to hear how your team approaches this—share your thoughts in the comments! #productinstitute #productstrategy #productmanagement #leadership #teamalignment #businessgoals #customerfocus #productleaders

If you don't create a product people want, you'll never build a successful company. Here's how to build a product your customers are desperate for: When Quest launched, there were already 1,600 other bars on the market. And yet, we grew by 57,000% in our first three years alone. You can always crush the competition if you’re better at solving a problem the world is desperate for. Here’s how: Identify A Known Problem You need to solve a problem that the marketplace knows they have. Trying to convince people to change their behavior or recognize a need for your product will always fail. If you don’t solve a known problem, you don’t have a business. Map Your Product-Market Fit Track your customer acquisition cost (CAC) and net promoter score (NPS).  Your CAC needs to be low, and your NPS needs to be high. People should want to tell other people about your product. You’ll never achieve product-market fit without it. Document Customer Behaviors At Quest, we understood a simple truth: People were going to eat junk food. We didn't try to make people eat chicken and broccoli. Instead, we made healthy food taste like junk food. This way, people could choose based on taste. Leverage Existing Behavior Think about your product through the lens of solving known problems while leveraging existing behaviors. Humans consistently desire speed, convenience, and ease. That's why the horse and carriage became the car— it solved problems people already had. Track & Monitor Marketplace Changes If you're not staying on top of exactly what's happening, your company will die. New people enter. New technologies emerge. The economy shifts. You need to make the necessary adjustments to continue to sell well. Back in the 1960s, companies stayed in the S&P 500 for 62 years. That number is now just 16 years and is still declining. Step into the shoes of the person you're serving and give them what they want. If you can do that, you stand a chance of maintaining relevance.

Worthy Read: Build Products That Solve Real Problems With This Lightweight JTBD Framework by Sunita Mohanty "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!" - Theodore Levitt Learn how to build products that actually solve real problems using the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework. This guide shows you how to: 🎯 Create a clear JTBD statement that captures user motivations 📋 Follow a 4-step process to understand your users: - Define your audience - Do market research - Talk to users - Prioritize jobs to tackle 💡 See real examples from companies like Discord, Peloton, and Segment 🔄 Incorporate JTBD into your product development: - Idea generation - Feature prioritization - Value prop testing - Go-to-market planning - Customer feedback analysis Check out the article to get templates and detailed guidance on implementing JTBD in your product organization: https://buff.ly/NFPj9W7 ❓ What's the most important thing you look for when deciding to use a new product? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Most startups fail because they build features no one asked for. As an engineer-turned-founder, the hardest lesson I’ve learned is deciding what NOT to build. Here’s how to build products users actually want (and love): 1️⃣ Solve one clear pain first - Identify your users’ biggest frustration—solve this first. - Resist complexity until you’ve nailed your core solution. 2️⃣ Ship quickly, iterate even faster - Small, frequent launches > internal debates. - Real user feedback beats internal assumptions every single time. 3️⃣ Measure actual behavior, not intentions - Track real engagement—not just what users say they want. - Your users vote clearly through actions, not words. Great products start simple, then grow intentionally. #ProductManagement #Engineering #Startups #BuildInPublic #Founders