Product Blindness: Why You Don’t Need To Build Everything

Steven Ritchie
versett
Published in
2 min readJun 15, 2017

I am an eSports fan, specifically when it comes to Call of Duty (CoD) and Overwatch. Whenever there is a CoD World League tournament, I spend almost the entire weekend watching. I enjoy watching it at home on the couch, but I often wonder how much better it would be to be at an event. The crowd always seems great, and you miss a lot of the experience.

I knew eSports bars existed in larger metro areas like New York, but didn’t know of anything within Calgary, where I live. Immediately, I started brainstorming potential venue options, how I might rent out a space for a ‘viewing event’ for the weekend, and how I might advertise to get attendees.

After a while I stopped and realized that if I actually started this event, I would have no time to watch. I didn’t want to build it, I just wanted it to exist so I could attend.

Working as a product person, I have noticed a tendency to jump to the “I’ll just build my own” conclusion whenever we experience a problem.

New technologies and our own skillsets enable us to quickly build our own solution in many instances, disregarding the time it may take to develop such a product. While there is nothing wrong with building your own solution, there is also a lot of work that goes into turning your own personal solution into a full-fledged product. In a moment of product blindness, we discount the value of our own time for our desire to build something. We are so used to building things as a result of a Jobs To Be Done conversation, that we assume building is the only way to “hire a product”.

The next time you have a problem, force yourself to look for existing solutions and to test them out. Not only could you save yourself countless hours, but do you really have to be the creator of everything you use or need? Make time to experience other products with an unbiased mindset; take off your product hat and see if it solves the problem you’re experiencing as a consumer.

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versett
versett

Published in versett

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Steven Ritchie
Steven Ritchie

Written by Steven Ritchie

Product Strategist @VersettInc. Indie iOS Developer. Built Destructomath and Noisie with @dylnmasn

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