Why Companies Keep Building the Wrong Software Products
And Why That's Good for You
I’ve built multiple companies and watched countless others rise and fall. Over time, I've learned something that most entrepreneurs never figure out. The biggest competitive advantage isn't your technology, your funding, or your brilliant strategy.
It’s understanding that everything funnels through one simple truth— you need to make something that users actually want.
Sound’s simple, right? It’s not. According to a slew of industry research, more than 80% of new products fail.
VISIT MY SUBSTACK WEBSITE FOR MORE FREE ARTICLES
Remember Google Glass? The $1,500 smart glasses tanked because they failed to adequately address a compelling need. Consumers didn't understand what problems a wearable computer would solve for them and even worse, why they needed a $1,500 pair of glasses?
And yes, many of your competitors will make the same fundamental mistake. Because they’re building what they think users should want instead of what they actually want.
Bad for them, good for you.
Secret #1: Customers Don’t Know What They Want
Your competitors conduct surveys, run focus groups, and analyze data. They think they're being customer-focused. What they’re really doing is asking the wrong questions.
They ask users what features they want. What improvements they'd like to see. What would make them switch from another competitor. All reasonable questions. All completely useless.
The problem is that people are terrible at knowing what they want. They can tell you what's broken but they can't envision solution that doesn't exist yet. Henry Ford's famous line applies here—if he'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.
The real insight comes from watching what people do, not what they say. Observe their behavior. Study their workarounds. Look for the things they're trying to accomplish that current solutions make difficult or impossible.
Your competitive advantage isn't having better market research. It's understanding that most market research is fundamentally flawed because it assumes people know what they need.
Secret #2: Stop Solving the Wrong Problems
Every entrepreneur thinks they're solving an important problem. Your competitors have whiteboards covered with pain points, user journeys, and problem statements. But they're focusing on problems that sound important rather than problems that are actually urgent.
There's a massive difference between problems people complain about and problems people will pay to solve.
People complain about lots of things. Traffic. Long lines at the supermarket. Slow internet. Bad customer service. But complaining doesn't equal buying intent. Your competitors are building solutions that fix complaints. Instead, you need to find the problems that keep people awake at night. The things they've already tried to solve dozens of times without success. The ones where they'll say "I'll pay anything to make this go away" instead of "that sounds nice."
I’ve watched too many startups fail because they have a product without a business model. They built something people liked but wouldn't pay for. When someone says your solution is "interesting" or "cool," that's a red flag. When they ask "how much does it cost?" before you've even finished explaining it, you're onto something.
Secret #3: They Launch Too Early or Too Late—Never Just Right
Your competitors are trapped in an impossible timing paradox. Half of them spend years perfecting products that never see real users. The other half rush to market with half-baked solutions that permanently damage their reputation.
The real danger isn't launching too early or too late—it's launching without understanding what "done enough" actually means. Your competitors define "done" based on feature lists or development timelines. You should define it based on user value.
The question isn't "Is our product perfect?" It's "If someone uses our product, can they do something meaningful with it that they couldn't do before?"
Your competitors will spend months debating whether they're ready. Instead of debating, you need to learn. Instead of perfecting, you need to iterate. Instead of planning, you need to adapt.
The market doesn't reward perfect products. It rewards useful ones.
Secret #4: Don’t Scale the Wrong Things
This is where most companies die, even successful ones. They figure out something that works, then immediately try to do more of it.
They scale volume instead of systems. They hire teams instead of building processes. They chase growth instead of understanding what's driving it.
Your competitors think scaling means bigger. You should think of it as better. Every new customer should make your business smarter, not just larger. Every problem should be easier to solve the second time, not just solved faster.
The companies that win don't just grow—they improve with growth. Their customer service gets better as they start to understand the common issues. Their product gets more valuable as they begin to recognize the usage patterns. Their operations get more efficient as they optimize their processes.
The majority of businesses fail because of cash flow problems. And believe me, eventually your competitors will hit this wall because they're burning cash to scale volume instead of building systems that generate sustainable growth.
So do this: While they're hiring more salespeople, you should be figuring out why customers buy and making that process repeatable. While they're expanding to new markets, you should be dominating your current one so completely that expansion becomes inevitable.
Secret #5: Understand What Business You’re In
Ask your competitors what business they're in, and they'll describe their product. A software company. A consulting firm. A retail business. They're defining themselves by what they make instead of what they do for customers.
This is a fatal mistake that blinds them to both opportunities and threats.
Netflix wasn't in the DVD business—they were in the convenience business. Amazon wasn't in the bookstore business—they were in the customer experience business. Uber wasn't in the taxi business—they were in the transportation business.
Understanding what business you're really in changes everything. It determines what you build next, who you compete with, and how you measure success.
Ask what job customers are hiring your solution to do—and whether there are better ways to do that job.
This shift in perspective can be uncomfortable because sometimes it means admitting your product might not be the best long-term solution. But it's also liberating because it opens up possibilities your competitors can't even see.
The Real Competitive Moat
Here's what your competitors will never learn: the strongest competitive advantage isn't about being better at what everyone else is doing. It's about understanding what actually matters when everyone else is focused on what seems to matter.
Making something users want sounds simple, but it's so much harder than most people realize. That's exactly why it's the ultimate competitive moat. Anyone can copy features, pricing strategies, or marketing tactics. But they can't copy genuine user insight.
When your competitors are focused on metrics, features, and funding rounds, you should be focused on user obsession. Not user satisfaction—obsession. The kind where people can't imagine going back to how they did things before.
Once you achieve that, the competition becomes irrelevant. Because you’re no longer fighting for market share. You're creating new markets.
That's the lesson most of your competitors will never learn.
