The fastest way I’ve wasted weeks building
One mistake I keep catching myself making:
I treat clarity like something that comes after building.
I’ll ship a version, add a few features, polish the flow… and only then ask:
“Wait who is this actually for?”
What I’ve learned the hard way:
- confusion doesn’t show up as complaints.
- It shows up as silence.
- No strong opinions.
- No pushback.
- No urgency.
- Just polite “this looks cool” energy.
Now I try to pause earlier and ask:
- Who would be genuinely annoyed if this disappeared tomorrow?
- What are they doing right now to solve this without me?
- What would make them switch even if it’s imperfect?
If I can’t answer those without guessing, I stop building.
Cutting early feels slow.
Building the wrong thing is slower.
Curious what’s the earliest signal you trust before committing weeks to an idea?
"Confusion doesn't show up as complaints. It shows up as silence." This hit hard. The polite "looks cool" energy is the worst kind of feedback because it feels like validation when it's actually avoidance.
Your three questions are gold - especially "What are they doing right now to solve this without me?" That forces you to acknowledge the reality: if they're not desperately hacking together a solution, the problem isn't urgent enough. If they're not complaining about their current workaround, you're building a painkiller for a pain that doesn't exist.
The earliest signal I trust: when someone shows you their broken workflow unprompted. Not when you ask "what problems do you have?" but when they're complaining to a colleague and you overhear it. That's real pain.
But there's another layer to this - even when you nail the problem and build the right thing, you can still waste weeks if users can't figure out how to use it fast enough. I've seen products die not because they solved the wrong problem, but because the "wait, how does this work?" gap was too wide.
That's why we built Demogod (demogod.me) - AI voice agents that guide users through interactive product demos in real-time. You can build the perfect solution for the perfect problem, but if users bounce before experiencing the value, you've still wasted weeks. Instant understanding >>> delayed clarity.
Your cutting early principle + instant user clarity = less wasted time on both ends. Great post!
This is such a sharp articulation of it. Silence as a signal is underrated “looks cool” really is the most misleading feedback when there’s no follow-through behind it.
I especially like your point about unprompted pain. The moment someone shows a broken workflow without being asked is very different from answering a survey question. That’s usually when the problem is real enough to matter.
And you’re right about the second failure mode too even when the problem is right, the value gap can quietly kill momentum. Solving the right pain but making it hard to experience that relief fast is still expensive.
Cutting early + shortening the “aha” distance feels like a powerful combo. Appreciate you adding this layer it completes the picture really well.