106: The curse of knowledge vs the big ball of chaos

How do you know what to build when you're surrounded by opinions, uncertainty, and the seductive chaos of a big idea? In this episode, we tackle a listener’s question about testing product ideas, avoiding overbuild, and learning fast—without fooling yourself. Along the way, we revisit an obscure PlayStation metaphor, share painful lessons from financial services UX, and lay out a practical path to avoid launching yet another bloated Figma-instead-of-Illustrator mistake.

• Why most "customer interviews" are secretly fear-dressed-as-research
• The difference between designing with someone vs for someone
• How to spot when your idea is turning into a Katamari Damacy chaos ball
• The simple mental shift that helps avoid product bloat
• What the “hard test, easy life” mantra looks like in practice
• Why your slick UX might be hiding a terrifying mess
• A 48-hour rule to force real-world contact before you overthink it

References:

• Multiverse Mapping, our framework for co-evolving ideas with real-world signals https://multiversemapping.com/
• David Ogilvy “People don’t think what they feel, don’t say what they think, and don’t do what they say.”
• Katamari Damacy – surreal PlayStation game where you roll a ball that picks up stuff and grows absurdly large [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katamari_Damacy]
• Figma vs Adobe Illustrator, as a metaphor for building lightweight, use-first tools vs bloated, fully featured ones
• Curse of Knowledge, the cognitive bias where experts struggle to imagine what it’s like not to know something
• Noah Kagan’s 48-hour challenge – get a paying customer within 48 hours of an idea. From Million Dollar Weekend https://noahkagan.com/mdwbook/
• Hard Test, Easy Life https://triggerstrategy.substack.com/p/stop-polishing-turd-products-with
• Innovation Tactics Pip Deck https://pipdecks.com/products/innovation-tactics
• Safe-to-fail probes – idea from Dave Snowden https://cynefin.io/wiki/Safe_to_fail_probes

Find out more about our work at crownandreach.com/

Find out more about us and our work at crownandreach.com

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