BUILDER NOTES
AI products get blurry when every feature is added
AI makes it easier to build features quickly. That same speed can dilute the original problem, the promise, and the product's reason to exist.
A note on how point solutions drift into platform theater.
Sharp starting point
A clear product begins with one problem and one promise.
Feature temptation
If it can be built, it starts to feel like it should be built.
Diluted value
The problem and the promise become less legible.
Core choice
A strong product decides what to remove.
Because of AI, or thanks to AI, we can now build many products and features quickly. That is exactly why it becomes so tempting to attach more and more features to a single product. We have done it. In some ways, we still do.
An idea that began as simple and sharp becomes increasingly blurry as new features accumulate. The problem gets diluted. The value delivery becomes weaker. Eventually the product becomes one more generic product in a crowded field.
Platformization has a cost
At some point, a startup starts imitating the portfolio of a large company. What began as a clear point solution tries to become a platform.
But the cost is real. Management complexity rises. AI features make mistakes. Quality falls below expectation. Everything needs continuous improvement. Getting to 80 is easy, getting to 90 is hard, and going beyond that is much harder.
The problem is that the hard work does not go into one core function. It gets spread across many parallel functions. The team crosses its cognitive limit and can no longer be deeply involved in the improvement of each feature.
When even judgment is outsourced back to AI, the product tends to converge toward the average capability of AI.
Question
What is the 95-point product we should be building now?
And what should we cut aggressively to reach it? Without this question, building more can make us more ordinary.