@nt

one mistake i keep seeing product builders make is conflating their big vision with the path to get there - or the here and now. today i spoke with a founder who pitched me the ultimate "big if true" idea (a large, network-effect-driven app store kind of thing). then he simply told me i should hop on the beta and start building on top of it. when i pushed back, he said, "everything is going to move to this paradigm within 5 years - now is the time to front-run it." and sure, in 5 years that might very well be true. but right now, there’s zero incentive to use that "big vision" product - all the value only exists in a world where it’s already successful with 100k+ users. the whole _point_ of building product is sequencing thousands of steps to reach that moment where it’s a no-brainer for the Nth person to use. and most of the time, it looks nothing like the product built for the 1st, 10th, or 100th user.

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