Less is more

When I started building my product, I had one rule for myself: focus on the core feature first, ship it, and figure the rest out later.

For the first couple of weeks, that rule held. I stayed disciplined. But somewhere around week two or three, a different voice took over: what if I added this too? And that? And this other thing users might like? One feature turned into three, then five. I told myself I didn't care what I was building. I just cared about finishing it, shipping it, and eventually making money from it.

Quality wasn't part of the process. Speed was.

Then I actually started using my own product.

And that's when it hit me. Feature after feature, I kept running into rough edges: clunky flows, half-finished polish, things that technically worked but felt wrong. None of it matched the product I had pictured in my head. I wasn't using my product anymore. I finally lost motivation to build and develop it.

The strange part is that I hadn't noticed any of this while I was building. I was too close to it. Deep in building mode, all I could see was progress: another feature checked off, another step toward launch. Quality is invisible when you're the one writing the code and racing the clock. It only becomes visible once you step back and use the thing like a stranger would.

That's when "less is more" stopped being a cliché and became a rule I actually believe in.

Now, when I build something, I ask a different question. Not "what else can I add?" but "what can I remove, so what's left actually works well?" A product with three features that feel solid will always beat a product with ten features that feel unfinished. Users don't remember how much you built. They remember how it felt to use it.

If you're a product builder chasing more, more, more: pause. Open your own product. Use it the way a first-time visitor would. If something feels off to you, it will feel off to them too, and no amount of extra features will fix that.

Build less. Build it well. Less is more.