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You are listening to the You Are Techie podcast,

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episode number 160.

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That's Y O U A R E

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T E C H y.com . I

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can't wait to see you in our membership. Welcome

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to the show. In this episode,

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we're talking about why products

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fail. Okay? I wanna

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step it off by just

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acknowledging the arrogance here. All

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right ? I'm gonna give you some reasons

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why products could potentially fail

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so that you can kind of think of what a digital product

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is and does, and then your piece in

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that. But the

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first reason I will give you is that sometimes

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we just don't know there really

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isn't a good reason, and

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no one is quite sure why. There maybe

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they, maybe there's a guess, maybe there's a hypothesis.

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The first reason I'll give is we don't know why.

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That's a really important one. And then even when

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we think we know, we don't always know.

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So I think what's interesting is

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that in preparing for this podcast, I

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was able to come up with a list of reasons

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why products could fail so quickly. There

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are just so many reasons. These are

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a few. So let's take a look. One

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reason that products fail is that

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it's too soon. So I hear this one

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relatively frequently. So there's

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an idea that's come out and

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the market just wasn't ready for it

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yet. And there are lots

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and lots of examples of

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this, of products that were super interesting.

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I mean, self-driving cars, those have

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been around a long time. They hadn't really caught

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on, okay? That's maybe one example. I

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even wanna say like crypto was

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crypto too early. I mean, it's been around

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longer than we realize . And then

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did it kind of, you know, kind of tank

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a bit and now it's being revived?

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If there's enough money behind it, it'll probably be re revived.

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And then what will it look like? But there are some

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too soon examples there. Lots

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of too soon examples in the finance world,

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because we're not always ready for that

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kind of transition. We kind of are used to

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the way things work. And there are lots of examples of

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that. Now, I think that,

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you know, a lot of you listening are interested in

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ux and some of you are gonna become UX designers.

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I put confusing UX as the title

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of why products Fail. But

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there are so many elements of

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poor UX that can happen, right?

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It could not be thoughtful enough, the

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UX could not be aligned to the users. It could

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seem fine to us, but maybe we've

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designed a product for millennials and it does

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not work the way that they intended to.

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Or even on the other spectrum, maybe the

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retiree crowd, we think we've made

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it really easy and simple to you

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, but it doesn't fit the way they view the world. So

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there's UX that isn't aligned to

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our specific user set, and

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then there's just poor ux, or we didn't think

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things through. Well, people don't

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know how to upgrade. People can't

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purchase the product. I mean, I think about the

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iOS store, and they charge us a

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high percentage that a lot of people have a free download,

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and then you have to create the subscription separately.

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I mean, that's just a terrible experience. And I've

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seen all kinds of ways that people use

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to kind of work around

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that. And even the

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very best that I have seen is still

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not an optimal UX situation.

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So sometimes it's not that we as the UX designer

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or the design team have done anything wrong, but

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it is that there are technical restrictions

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on what we're doing. And then

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this is maybe tied to ux,

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but maybe more product

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strategy. But we don't have the right features. The

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features that are most important to our

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audience are not present or buried or

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not prominent. And so there are

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just all sorts of things that can come

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through in the ux, or the UX

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isn't aligned to the development. So

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features and products

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need to be thought through

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and then executed well. So maybe we

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haven't explained well on the UX piece

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of it, what is going on in

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the backend and what the feature actually is and does,

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and how it functions. Okay?

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Now how about on the development side of

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things? But codebase is not great. There are

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errors. It doesn't work well. The

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architecture is designed

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poorly. The performance is bad.

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It's slow. Maybe it breaks

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a lot of it <laugh> , maybe it doesn't.

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It doesn't function well. There are so

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many aspects on the development

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side of things that can really hinder

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the the product success.

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And sometimes products

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succeed with errors and problems

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in the code. And you

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think, well, how can that be? It's usually

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because the features where they're implemented

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are not significant enough. Or there's

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a workaround that works well enough that can

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happen if there's a great enough need, right?

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So there are so many things that need to align on

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the product side of things, all

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right ? Not enough engagement. So many

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products require engagement,

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and there are different levels of engagement. So

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let me give you a couple of examples.

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So one thing is that for a product to

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be successful, I have to use it frequently. And

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I think about when it's an individual usage

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app. So the Mint Finance app

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on my phone, and I'm gonna interact with

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it if I don't use it with some regularity,

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if I don't engage with it, Lee , let's say

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at least weekly, it's unlikely to be

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a successful product because I'm

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not using it enough, and that's just a single user

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usage. But what if I have something like

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a marketplace? And a

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two-sided marketplace is a pretty common but

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tricky product to bring to market.

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What a two-sided marketplace is a

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product where I have producers

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and consumers. Do you remember that lesson your kids did?

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But it's like I have people offering a product or

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service, and I have people purchasing that product or

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service on that marketplace. And Facebook

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is a marketplace, and you have to have both.

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Now, Facebook did it a little differently.

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They just said , here, be users, have

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a bunch of, do a bunch of posts interact with each

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other, and then we'll add the ads

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component of it, right? And the

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same thing on Amazon, like we'll provide the books

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until we get sellers on

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here. And then as we get sellers, now we have two side

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marketplace. So there are different ways to do it . Like poshmart,

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we have to have sellers, and we have

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to have buyers, and we have to have not

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equal amounts, but enough engagement

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on either side where it actually becomes

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something that people want to sell

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on and people want to buy on. And so that engagement

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becomes even more important. It's not just, oh, I

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have to go on here and engage

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with it, but it's also, if

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I don't have enough engagement on either

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side of those, then it doesn't work.

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It's very much a flywheel type of situation.

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And so the engagement there is different.

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It's not just per user interacting with

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the app, but it's users interacting with

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each other in the way that the app

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kind of lays out. Okay?

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And then all of these technical

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side of things. And now there's just marketing

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and marketing's really very

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broad and can touch on a lot of different

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things. So let me just give you a few examples

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of marketing problems. Why a product could fail. It

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doesn't properly solve the problem. So

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that is a really important piece of user

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research and customer discovery

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that you can be attempting

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to solve the problem, but not solving the

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exact right problem, not solving the true

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pain, then the product will fail.

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Now, you could be solving a problem,

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but the problem isn't painful enough that

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someone will pay for it. Someone will actually use

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an app, they'll pay for it with their time

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and or their money. And so that's another

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reason is that, yeah, it's a problem, but

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it's not like the biggest problem that I have. So

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that's a reason. And then poor product

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market fit is kind of what I'm

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talking about. That with

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product market fit, you have to have an audience. You have

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to have to have a target audience who actually

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uses the product in a

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way that solves a painful problem for

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them, and that they are willing to pay

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for that in some way, or

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with some type of transaction or third party

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. That's really what you're looking for. So most

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marketing problems come down to product market fit.

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However, not all of

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them do, because you also have to have

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the right messaging. You have to educate

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people the right way and explain to them how

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your product solves the

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problem that they are experiencing.

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Okay? So here are a

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few more reasons why products fail wars,

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global pandemics, but

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basically environmental factors that you have no

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control over, right?

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If you started a restaurant

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business in March of 2020,

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that did not go well for you, that

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did not, unless you were able to iterate

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and move online, then that did not

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go well. Even if you started a digital app

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that allowed people to schedule

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things in person, it likely

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didn't go well for you unless you had a workaround. So

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there are environmental factors

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and wars and pandemics we've had recently.

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So it feels like we can encapsulate

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those. When I started working bright terrorist

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attacks, I mean, that would probably fall under war.

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But essentially, there are these macro

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things that happen in our world that

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affect products and affect the

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way that products come to be. So you can do

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everything right, is kind of my point. You can have product

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market fit, you have great marketing, you have great

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UX that actually your users can use it.

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The development side, the app works

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really well, everything is going well. And then there can

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be environmental factors that you

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didn't plan for that really impact

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the success of the product. And then I wanna

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wrap up with just reminding you how we started

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. And oftentimes we don't know exactly which

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one. I mean, we can kind of

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guess, you know, like, Hey, I didn't quite get product market

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fit. Or I mean, if it's marketing

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and then it's messaging, you'll probably solve that. Keep

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iterating until I get the right messaging. One I didn't

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touch on, you run out of funding. Okay?

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So if somebody's working on

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this on the side and they're gonna keep working

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on it no matter what, that's one thing. But sometimes

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the people working on it, you know, they have a runway

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of money that they're going to use. And when that runs

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out, that's the time that runs out. And that's it. So,

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so you can also, products can fail because

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you just, you didn't have enough time and

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runway to get it to be successful.

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But wrapping up with

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no one knows. Even if you

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think you can pinpoint a piece

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of that, there's usually

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a couple of question marks. Well, you

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know, the development, we didn't have this feature that could have

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been helpful, or the UX could have been a little better

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here, or we could have a little better marketing. It's

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usually some combination, not one

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thing. So keep that

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in mind that it's really hard for any

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one human or group of humans to correctly

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identify exactly why a product has gone wrong.

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But I do think that why products

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fail, that concept is really important

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to take a look at from all angles. So number

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one, one, you understand that it's not all on you. You

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can't control every piece of that. And

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then number two, that when we're

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solving these challenges, keeping an open

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mind of all the ways that it can go

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wrong can help us to solve them

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and to create a product that is really

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successful. And finally , just to wrap it up here, I

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think it's important to note that many products

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do fail, many more fail than are

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successful. So even if you worked

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on a product that didn't succeed in

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the marketplace, that's still valuable

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experience and valuable learnings that

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you can take from that and apply to

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your next product. So as you're moving

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forward in your learning and your growth, keep

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in mind that products can fail for a number of reasons.

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And it's all about your

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learnings and how you can grow from that

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to create the next products that is

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super successful. Thank you so much

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for being with me here today. I hope you

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enjoyed my products fail. I'll see you next time.

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Y O U A R E T

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E C H y.com . I'll

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see you next time .