Ep. 160 - Why Products Fail

Let's take a look at why products fail. You might be thinking that because you're new you're new, you’d design products that are less successful. Plenty of Industry professionals fail to do even the most basic customer research, create ux that is confusing and fail to execute effective development. Products fail for many reasons. Let's dive into the most common in this episode so you know what to avoid to create your successful product.

Episode Transcript

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episode number 160.

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Welcome to the show.
In this episode, we're talkingabout why products fail.

(01:31):
Okay?
I wanna step it off by justacknowledging the arrogance
here.
All right?
I'm gonna give you some reasonswhy products could potentially
fail so that you can kind ofthink of what a digital product
is and does, and then your piecein that.
But the first reason I will giveyou is that sometimes we just

(01:52):
don't know there really isn't agood reason, and no one is quite
sure why.
There maybe they, maybe there'sa guess, maybe there's a
hypothesis.
The first reason I'll give is wedon't know why.
That's a really important one.
And then even when we think weknow, we don't always know.
So I think what's interesting isthat in preparing for this
podcast, I was able to come upwith a list of reasons why

(02:15):
products could fail so quickly.
There are just so many reasons.
These are a few.
So let's take a look.
One reason that products fail isthat it's too soon.
So I hear this one relativelyfrequently.
So there's an idea that's comeout and the market just wasn't
ready for it yet.
And there are lots and lots ofexamples of this, of products

(02:39):
that were super interesting.
I mean, self-driving cars, thosehave been around a long time.
They hadn't really caught on,okay?
That's maybe one example.
I even wanna say like crypto wascrypto too early.
I mean, it's been around longerthan we realize.
And then did it kind of, youknow, kind of tank a bit and now
it's being revived?

(03:00):
If there's enough money behindit, it'll probably be re
revived.
And then what will it look like?
But there are some too soonexamples there.
Lots of too soon examples in thefinance world, because we're not
always ready for that kind oftransition.
We kind of are used to the waythings work.
And there are lots of examplesof that.
Now, I think that, you know, alot of you listening are
interested in ux and some of youare gonna become UX designers.

(03:23):
I put confusing UX as the titleof why products Fail.
But there are so many elementsof poor UX that can happen,
right?
It could not be thoughtfulenough, the UX could not be
aligned to the users.
It could seem fine to us, butmaybe we've designed a product
for millennials and it does notwork the way that they intended
to.

(03:43):
Or even on the other spectrum,maybe the retiree crowd, we
think we've made it really easyand simple to you, but it
doesn't fit the way they viewthe world.
So there's UX that isn't alignedto our specific user set, and
then there's just poor ux, or wedidn't think things through.
Well, people don't know how toupgrade.
People can't purchase theproduct.

(04:04):
I mean, I think about the iOSstore, and they charge us a high
percentage that a lot of peoplehave a free download, and then
you have to create thesubscription separately.
I mean, that's just a terribleexperience.
And I've seen all kinds of waysthat people use to kind of work
around that.
And even the very best that Ihave seen is still not an

(04:25):
optimal UX situation.
So sometimes it's not that we asthe UX designer or the design
team have done anything wrong,but it is that there are
technical restrictions on whatwe're doing.
And then this is maybe tied toux, but maybe more product
strategy.
But we don't have the rightfeatures.
The features that are mostimportant to our audience are

(04:47):
not present or buried or notprominent.
And so there are just all sortsof things that can come through
in the ux, or the UX isn'taligned to the development.
So features and products need tobe thought through and then
executed well.
So maybe we haven't explainedwell on the UX piece of it, what

(05:07):
is going on in the backend andwhat the feature actually is and
does, and how it functions.
Okay?
Now how about on the developmentside of things?
But codebase is not great.
There are errors.
It doesn't work well.
The architecture is designedpoorly.
The performance is bad.
It's slow.
Maybe it breaks a lot of it, maybe it doesn't.

(05:29):
It doesn't function well.
There are so many aspects on thedevelopment side of things that
can really hinder the theproduct success.
And sometimes products succeedwith errors and problems in the
code.
And you think, well, how canthat be?
It's usually because thefeatures where they're

(05:49):
implemented are not significantenough.
Or there's a workaround thatworks well enough that can
happen if there's a great enoughneed, right?
So there are so many things thatneed to align on the product
side of things, all right?
Not enough engagement.
So many products requireengagement, and there are
different levels of engagement.
So let me give you a couple ofexamples.

(06:11):
So one thing is that for aproduct to be successful, I have
to use it frequently.
And I think about when it's anindividual usage app.
So the Mint Finance app on myphone, and I'm gonna interact
with it if I don't use it withsome regularity, if I don't
engage with it, Lee, let's sayat least weekly, it's unlikely
to be a successful productbecause I'm not using it enough,

(06:33):
and that's just a single userusage.
But what if I have somethinglike a marketplace?
And a two-sided marketplace is apretty common but tricky product
to bring to market.
What a two-sided marketplace isa product where I have producers
and consumers.
Do you remember that lesson yourkids did?
But it's like I have peopleoffering a product or service,
and I have people purchasingthat product or service on that

(06:55):
marketplace.
And Facebook is a marketplace,and you have to have both.
Now, Facebook did it a littledifferently.
They just said, here, be users,have a bunch of, do a bunch of
posts interact with each other,and then we'll add the ads
component of it, right?
And the same thing on Amazon,like we'll provide the books
until we get sellers on here.

(07:16):
And then as we get sellers, nowwe have two side marketplace.
So there are different ways todo it.
Like poshmart, we have to havesellers, and we have to have
buyers, and we have to have notequal amounts, but enough
engagement on either side whereit actually becomes something
that people want to sell on andpeople want to buy on.
And so that engagement becomeseven more important.
It's not just, oh, I have to goon here and engage with it, but

(07:40):
it's also, if I don't haveenough engagement on either side
of those, then it doesn't work.
It's very much a flywheel typeof situation.
And so the engagement there isdifferent.
It's not just per userinteracting with the app, but
it's users interacting with eachother in the way that the app
kind of lays out.
Okay?
And then all of these technicalside of things.

(08:02):
And now there's just marketingand marketing's really very
broad and can touch on a lot ofdifferent things.
So let me just give you a fewexamples of marketing problems.
Why a product could fail.
It doesn't properly solve theproblem.
So that is a really importantpiece of user research and
customer discovery that you canbe attempting to solve the

(08:24):
problem, but not solving theexact right problem, not solving
the true pain, then the productwill fail.
Now, you could be solving aproblem, but the problem isn't
painful enough that someone willpay for it.
Someone will actually use anapp, they'll pay for it with
their time and or their money.
And so that's another reason isthat, yeah, it's a problem, but
it's not like the biggestproblem that I have.

(08:45):
So that's a reason.
And then poor product market fitis kind of what I'm talking
about.
That with product market fit,you have to have an audience.
You have to have to have atarget audience who actually
uses the product in a way thatsolves a painful problem for
them, and that they are willingto pay for that in some way, or

(09:06):
with some type of transaction orthird party.
That's really what you'relooking for.
So most marketing problems comedown to product market fit.
However, not all of them do,because you also have to have
the right messaging.
You have to educate people theright way and explain to them
how your product solves theproblem that they are
experiencing.

(09:26):
Okay?
So here are a few more reasonswhy products fail wars, global
pandemics, but basicallyenvironmental factors that you
have no control over, right?
If you started a restaurantbusiness in March of 2020, that
did not go well for you, thatdid not, unless you were able to

(09:48):
iterate and move online, thenthat did not go well.
Even if you started a digitalapp that allowed people to
schedule things in person, itlikely didn't go well for you
unless you had a workaround.
So there are environmentalfactors and wars and pandemics
we've had recently.
So it feels like we canencapsulate those.
When I started working brightterrorist attacks, I mean, that

(10:09):
would probably fall under war.
But essentially, there are thesemacro things that happen in our
world that affect products andaffect the way that products
come to be.
So you can do everything right,is kind of my point.
You can have product market fit,you have great marketing, you
have great UX that actually yourusers can use it.
The development side, the appworks really well, everything is

(10:30):
going well.
And then there can beenvironmental factors that you
didn't plan for that reallyimpact the success of the
product.
And then I wanna wrap up withjust reminding you how we
started.
And oftentimes we don't knowexactly which one.
I mean, we can kind of guess,you know, like, Hey, I didn't
quite get product market fit.
Or I mean, if it's marketing andthen it's messaging, you'll
probably solve that.

(10:51):
Keep iterating until I get theright messaging.
One I didn't touch on, you runout of funding.
Okay?
So if somebody's working on thison the side and they're gonna
keep working on it no matterwhat, that's one thing.
But sometimes the people workingon it, you know, they have a
runway of money that they'regoing to use.
And when that runs out, that'sthe time that runs out.
And that's it.
So, so you can also, productscan fail because you just, you

(11:11):
didn't have enough time andrunway to get it to be
successful.
But wrapping up with no oneknows.
Even if you think you canpinpoint a piece of that,
there's usually a couple ofquestion marks.
Well, you know, the development,we didn't have this feature that
could have been helpful, or theUX could have been a little

(11:32):
better here, or we could have alittle better marketing.
It's usually some combination,not one thing.
So keep that in mind that it'sreally hard for any one human or
group of humans to correctlyidentify exactly why a product
has gone wrong.
But I do think that why productsfail, that concept is really
important to take a look at fromall angles.

(11:52):
So number one, one, youunderstand that it's not all on
you.
You can't control every piece ofthat.
And then number two, that whenwe're solving these challenges,
keeping an open mind of all theways that it can go wrong can
help us to solve them and tocreate a product that is really
successful.
And finally, just to wrap it uphere, I think it's important to
note that many products do fail,many more fail than are

(12:14):
successful.
So even if you worked on aproduct that didn't succeed in
the marketplace, that's stillvaluable experience and valuable
learnings that you can take fromthat and apply to your next
product.
So as you're moving forward inyour learning and your growth,
keep in mind that products canfail for a number of reasons.
And it's all about yourlearnings and how you can grow

(12:38):
from that to create the nextproducts that is super
successful.
Thank you so much for being withme here today.
I hope you enjoyed my productsfail.
I'll see you next time.
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(12:59):
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