Great Products Are Multidimensional

When you're a developer, it's common to over-rely on the building phase — just as it's common among marketers to try to sprinkle their genius on a product that doesn't solve a real problem. But great products are never the result of focusing on a single dimension of the problem they're solving.

A great product requires an exceptional team, a breakthrough idea, great engineering, world-class marketing, and robust financing. Great products emerge when all of these areas of expertise work together to solve a real problem. So building a great product isn't about optimizing one side of the puzzle — it's about making every aspect as great as possible.

No, I'm not suggesting you optimize everything all the time. Building a product is a long-term process, and each stage of its lifecycle requires different levels of those ingredients (dimensions) to be blended.

For example, at the initial stage you must almost always focus on solving the problem and validating your idea — before you spend millions of your marketing budget on a product that hasn't found its Product-Market Fit (PMF). And once you've validated PMF and built a substantial product, you must show people that you have a solution to their problem, and why you're better at solving it than anyone else — that's marketing's moment.

Exactly how to do this blending is the responsibility of the leader, and it must align with the greater vision they hold for the product.