What's the most important lesson you've learned about building a successful product?

building a successful product? it's an art and a science, a dance between vision and reality. my biggest lesson has been to fall in love with the problem, not the solution. this keeps you nimble, open to pivot when needed. your solution may change, but the problem you're solving remains the anchor. listening is key. users may not always know what they want, but their feedback, their pain points, are nuggets of wisdom. observe, engage, empathize. they're not just users, they're co-creators of your journey. then there's simplicity. in an era of feature glut, less can indeed be more. value isn't about packing in features, but making the user's life easier, better. simplicity isn't just aesthetic, it's functional. finally, remember the human behind the screen. every click, every swipe, is a human seeking to fulfill a need, a desire. don't just build for users, build for people. weave in empathy, emotion, experiences. building a product is like growing a garden. it requires patience, care, and a lot of love. but the bloom, the harvest, is worth every effort. happy gardening!

Tech is your major cost but has no value. Only the product and more broadly your product offer matters for the user. So you should build your tech to be super modular, and be ready to pivot your product offer (messaging + pricing + branding + product ui/frontend) very often until it takes off.

Don't build/test anything without having the user (potential or actual) as the cornerstone of your process. Meaning that you should have an opened communication channel with users at all time. If you don't have that, you should spend all your energy on finding ways to get it.

Everything takes 3x the amount of time in your plan.

I think is the idea to share real value to users. Not just write content because we want to catch emails, not ads because we want the people to click but just the idea of SHARE VALUE. Try to ask your users how you can help them and give them value, give answers to more waste of time or useless information.

Solving a real problem for your customers is the key lesson I've learned. Create something that truly matters to them, and success will come knocking on your door.

i’ve learned that my procrastinating in school has turned into a massive gift in building product. instead of spending months internally coming up with ideas and building… i cram and get an MVP out the door as fast as possible, then listen to the feedback i get… and iterate forward based on it. you’ll end up finding the right solution to your target problem faster that way, rather than spending months on R&D, and wasting money trying to “get it perfect” the first time.

Snehe Nair

I don't have a successful product under my belt just yet but I do have a number of failed products. The only advise I can give is to get it out there as soon as possible and listen. No matter how much of an innovation you think your product will solve it means nothing if there are no customers willing to try it and potentially pay for it (if this is your goal)

Find the killing feature, focus on this and that will drive your growth