The 5 Design Mistakes That Kill Products Before They Launch
Launching something new is exciting, but most products fail long before they hit the market.
I’ve seen it across hardware, software, and AI. The pattern is always the same: small mistakes early on snowball into big, expensive failures later.
Rushing the first 90 days
The early design phase sets the foundation. Skip it and you’ll pay for it with rework, confusion, and a product that feels stitched together.
Treating design as decoration
Design isn’t just how something looks, it’s how it works, feels, and communicates. Teams that tack it on at the end always regret it.
Hiring too junior too early
Early design decisions are high-leverage. A junior designer can be great later, but if they’re steering the ship at the start, the whole product suffers.
Letting the team “vibe code”
When the design isn’t clear, engineers make assumptions. Sometimes it works, but usually it leads to inconsistent, clunky experiences that are hard to fix once baked in.
Ignoring iteration and handoff
Even the best design falls apart without a process for iteration and tight collaboration with engineering. Without it, you get design debt from day one.
The Bottom Line
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