Product matching and technology versatility - why are products and technology always contradictory?

In the past two years, I have met many friends who came from a technical background to start a business. Many of them have problems with user growth and user dependence.

To sum up, the reason is that they pursue versatility in making products just like technology.

Products must pursue matching.

Products and technologies have different characteristics, leading to two completely different ways of thinking.

Technology’s pursuit of versatility is endless. You cannot modify the code or even the entire architecture on a large scale just because of a small change in the product, business, or requirements. Therefore, it is necessary to pursue universality in technology.

The pursuit of product matching is also endless.

Match to user.

Matching of needs.

Match the scene.

Match to the problem.

…

Mismatch means there are no users, users don’t need it, users don’t need it, users don’t want it, users don’t like it…

Just like Americano, latte, and cappuccino, they are all coffee. There are even various kinds of coffee such as vanilla latte, matcha latte, iced Americano, etc.

We can't make a cup of coffee for a user who likes and wants a vanilla latte.

Therefore, if you use general technical thinking to make products, there will be big problems.

In actual work, most conflicts between product managers and developers are also conflicts between two kinds of thinking. One is pursuing matching, and the other is pursuing universality. That's nothing. Even if we are afraid of making products, we should also pursue universality.

In the circle of product managers, there is often a topic, that is, whether you need to understand technology to make products.

Regarding this issue, I have always felt that it is necessary to understand some technology. The most important reason is that from understanding technology, you can learn a lot about how to solve problems. These are very important for making products.

However, never apply the versatility of technical thinking to making products.