I’ve been thinking a lot about taste lately.
Linus Torvalds has strong opinions about taste in programming.
He often talks about bad taste — and, in his world, that’s not an insult.
When Linus calls something “bad taste,” he usually means code that’s too clever for its own good — unnecessarily abstract, or elegant at the cost of clarity.
He criticizes approaches that hide logic behind layers of “purity,” like removing an element from a singly linked list with a one-liner, instead of handling the special cases explicitly.
To him, bad taste code is the kind that says, “This might look ugly, but at least you can understand it.”
It’s direct. Honest. Maintainable.
And it’s exactly what makes Linux and Git so resilient.
But products aren’t kernels.
We’re not compiling the Linux source tree; we’re trying to make something humans want to touch.
And that’s where I part ways with Linus.
While building your SaaS, taste isn’t a luxury — it’s survival.
Most apps today taste like treated water with excessive amount of Chlorine.
Perfectly drinkable, but it's not neutral or favorable.
I don’t want to build treated water.
I want to build something that tastes — like spring water, lemon, mint, or even whiskey.
Something that makes you feel something right away.
Someone might say it has a "soul". Same thing.
That’s what I’ve been chasing with Indie10k — not a generic productivity tool, but a product that has a vibe.
One you can’t quite explain, but can sense in every click.
Linus is right about one thing:
Taste can make things fragile.
When you code with vibe — when you make every microinteraction expressive — it’s easy to over-design.
You risk creating something unmaintainable.
So build your SaaS on good taste in feel — rhythm, pacing, restraint, delight.
Start with feeling/asking, not features.
What should a user feel in the first 10 seconds?
Calm? Energized? Proud? Everything else follows.
Make the journey dead simple.
AI loves verbosity; taste loves clarity.
Don’t let a flow feel like a prompt — let it feel like a walk in fresh air.
Replace “Complete” with “Crush it.”
Users don’t want to finish tasks; they want to claim victory.
Reward momentum, not just completion.
Polish until invisible.
A tasteful product doesn’t brag about design.
It disappears into the user’s rhythm — everything just flows.
Never outsource taste.
You can hire for design, copy, marketing —
but taste is founder energy. It’s the refusal to ship something that doesn’t “feel right.”
I used to think “taste” was subjective.
Now I see it’s just care made visible.
Code has correctness.
Product has taste.
And both, done right, are forms of truth.
When you look at your own SaaS, do you feel it has a good taste?