What Makes a Great Product?

More Features Must Mean a Better Product, Right?

Back in college, I had a group project where we had to build a software application together.

Like a lot of students, we wanted to make our project look impressive. So every time we thought of something that we could add, we added it.

We kept thinking about more features, more things the user could do, and more things we could put into the application.

Before we knew it, the project had become much more complicated than we originally expected.

We still managed to finish it on time, so at the time I thought we had done a pretty good job.

Then our professor graded it.

He didn't seem impressed. He thought the project was too complicated and had too many unnecessary features.

We ended up getting a pretty bad grade.

At the time, I didn't really understand why. We had worked hard, added a lot of features, and managed to finish everything on time.

Looking back now, I think I understand what he was trying to tell us.

Then I Found My Old Casio

That was a long time ago, and I've learned quite a lot since then.

Recently, I found my old Casio F-91W under my bed. I had lost it about five years ago, so I honestly didn't expect it to still be working.

But I picked it up, checked the time, and it was still running. It was only about eight minutes behind after all those years.

Finding it brought back a lot of memories, but this time I looked at the watch a little differently.

When I was younger, it was just a watch to me. Now that I've spent more time building products, I started thinking about what a great product it actually is.

It is cheap, simple, and does exactly what it is supposed to do.

It doesn't need an app. It doesn't need an internet connection. It doesn't need a fancy screen or a dozen different features.

It just tells me the time.

And it keeps doing it.

It Isn't Just the Casio

The Casio isn't the only product that made me think this way.

A lot of the Japanese products I own have the same feeling to me. They usually aren't trying to do everything. They do a limited number of things, but they do those things really well.

I have also had an iPhone SE from 2020 for years, and it is still working fine. The screen has a few small lines on it now, but overall the phone still does everything I need it to do.

I don't think I have ever kept a phone for this long before.

When I use products like these, I don't spend much time thinking about them. They just work. I use them, they do what I expect, and I move on with my day.

And I think that is something I really appreciate about a product.

It doesn't always need to impress me.

Sometimes, it just needs to work.

Then I Started Building Products

As I started building my own products, I found myself thinking about this more and more.

When I built QRCodeChicken, I didn't want to make an everything app for QR codes. I didn't want to add every feature I could think of just to make the product look bigger.

I wanted it to be simple.

Someone should be able to open the website and immediately understand what it is. They should know what to do without having to read a manual or spend time figuring out how the interface works.

So instead of trying to make the fanciest QR code generator, I tried to make a simple one that just works.

That doesn't mean QRCodeChicken is perfect. There are always things I can improve and features I could add.

But I have become much more careful about adding something just because I can.

Before adding a new feature, I want to ask myself whether it actually makes the product better for the person using it.

I Don't Want to Build Everything

That college project taught me something that I didn't really understand at the time.

Adding more features doesn't automatically make a product better. Sometimes it just makes the product harder to understand and harder to use.

I think I used to look at a product and ask, "What else can we put into it?"

Now I ask a different question.

"What is this product actually supposed to do?"

Once I know that, I want to focus on making that thing as good as I can.

I don't want to build an app that does everything.

I want to build one thing that people understand immediately, enjoy using, and can rely on.

What Makes a Great Product?

I don't think a great product is necessarily the one with the most features or the most impressive technology behind it.

I think a great product knows what it is, understands what people need from it, and does that thing really well.

It doesn't need to constantly impress you. It just needs to work when you need it.

Maybe that's why I still like that old Casio watch.

It has been sitting under my bed for five years, and when I found it again, it was still doing the one thing it was made to do.

And that is the kind of product I want to build.