__lucas

Lessons Learned:

• Too often competitive analysis drives product requirements in startups.
• This can lead engineering to build the maximum feature set rather than minimum feature set.
• You need to get outside the building and figure out what features matter to most customers.
• No feature lists without facts.

— from Death by Analysis by Steve Blank

Would add to this in that it’s about building tools, not features. Sloppily implemented features that exist only because they’re on a punch sheet and not because they’re solving a core problem your product addresses will always end tragically. (most likely, rm -rf <feature-name>/).  Read the whole post though.  It’s quite excellent.