Do Less

Too often, founders look to move to the next feature before the first is finished.

“I love 95% of what I’ve seen today but I want to talk about the other 5%,” I said to a founder recently after his product demo. I could see him grimace and brace himself. He had just rolled out a new version of his app with several new modules, each including several new features. In reality, I actually loved 5% of his app. But if he just scrapped the other 95% of it, I’d be pretty darn happy.

I advise a lot of founders and product managers on their business/product ideas. Very seldom do they ask for the advice that I end up giving them. Typically, they want to show off their products and then talk about the future state. Maybe they want feedback on go-to-market or the longterm vision. I typically love where they ultimately want to go with the product. But I simultaneously hate their short-term product execution.

Why? Because they need to do less. The good news - I tell them - is that their problem isn’t terribly hard to fix. They just need to hide some stuff and invest their next few releases to cleaning up the first problem they originally wanted to solve.

One of my favorite movie scenes is from “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”. Paul Rudd is teaching Jason Segal to surf. He employs an ultra-laid back beach bum persona in teaching Segal to not overthink the sport. Of course, when Segal fully relaxes, Rudd informs him it’s not enough. Comedy ensues.

For products just starting out, there’s often this energy to build more of the complete product experience (long term vision) sooner. This is a mistake. I advise folks start with one big problem and then iterate. If you can solve one meaningful problem, you can find a market. When you find even a few users in that market, test the crap out of the idea. And refine. And refine again. Too often, I find that makers want to check boxes and deliver more features. I always advise: Are you sure you’re done with the first feature?

Users are people and people are busy. People have short attention spans. People are looking for a reason to ditch your product. For that reason, first impressions matter a lot. First impressions matter more than you think they do. I used one app recently that was missing a favicon (the icon that shows up in the browser tab). Who cares, right? It’s not part of the app functionality. It does matter actually. I hadn’t even looked at the actual application and my first impression was that the team had cut corners. Now, I’d be expecting other mistakes. More important, adding a favicon is a five minute task. A user’s first five minutes within the app is like the first 48 hours of a criminal investigation (from what I’m told). It can make or break the outcome. If the app isn’t hyper-intuitive to get me started - and ideally inform me what success looks like - I will lose interest. Most users will lose interest, especially with an unpaid app that they’re only testing.

I met with another founder who demonstrated an absolutely amazing product that I’d not only start using that day but would tell my friends to try. It still needed some UX love, but it was close enough for me. Then he showed me more. A lot more. He showed me more features in other areas of the product. He showed me a chatGPT integration. He showed me integrations (that I didn’t need). He showed me problems his app would solve that spanned multiple user personas (across business functions). I was lost. Eventually, I became so tired from the demo, I forgot about the original feature that I had been excited about. Do less.

I advise founders to finish off one problem before turning to the next. That way, when they’re ready to market their app, they can rest assured that it’s been tested and ready for public consumption. As long as you aren’t in a race against time (due to cash burn or competitive pressure), why spread your suppliers (development resources) thin by solving multiple problems at a “so so” level. As an early user, I don’t expect perfection, but I do expect focus until the problem is sufficiently solved in a way that makes me feel comfortable investing more time in the app experience.

Obsess over one problem. Do less things. You’ll gain more love.