Product Over Technology
Andy Smith
I’ve spent my entire life working with technology. Studying it, building it, growing it. When evaluating any project, I instinctively reach for the technology lens first. How well is the code written? Does the architecture allow for future growth? What frameworks are being used?
When developing my own projects, I always focused on technology first. I design elegant architecture, set up auto-deployment to Kubernetes, ensure data security, scalability, and disaster recovery. I always have monitoring in place.
But I’m missing the main thing: sales. Because my project isn’t about business. It’s about technology. I’m just a kid who never finished playing with blocks or construction sets. I find it interesting to build a system not to make money, but to say: “Look at this sandcastle I made, isn’t it beautiful?” and then walk away to start the next “project.”
This realization was as unexpected for me as it seems obvious in hindsight.
I think this is a very common problem among engineers who spent years working as employees. “Business isn’t my thing, there are other people for that,” they think. But wait. Isn’t your life your own business? Are you really willing to hand over the right to manage your life, to take responsibility for the outcome, to someone else? Because when those people make mistakes, you’re the one who suffers, not them.
It’s time to take responsibility. It’s time to decide that we’re doing business first and building second. What matters is why we’re doing this; the how is secondary. It’s time to focus on the product, on markets, on economics, psychology, sociology, and other aspects of business. Formulate hypotheses and test them instead of waiting for permission from someone. What’s the product concept? Who will pay money, and for what? Why would they pay for our product instead of another?
Everything else? A team of AI agents will handle that.