Great products are not defined by feature volume, but by product thinking. This means focusing on real problems, guided by a clear vision, strong alignment, and disciplined prioritization.
Key takeaways
- A clear product vision acts as a decision filter for every feature.
- Users do not want features – they want solutions to real problems.
- Prioritization should focus on impact, not volume or speed.
- Every feature must align with user needs, business goals, and measurable value.
- Strong team alignment turns strategy into consistent product decisions.
If you aren’t solving a burning customer problem or meeting a vital business need, your new feature will just sit under a “three-dot” menu, waiting to be killed.
Mimacom
In the tech product world, we often measure success by the volume of features. We focus on crafting elegant, intuitive sets to help customers work faster or with more joy. The logic seems sound: if you push enough features to market, surely some will work.
But in a world of KPIs and measurability, we often forget that features are just tools, means to an end for solving customer and business problems. If a new feature isn’t solving a burning pain point, it will just sit under a “three-dot” menu, waiting to be sundowned.
To build a truly successful product, you need a strong foundation: a clear vision, well-defined problems, and a thoughtful strategy for prioritization. Once you have those, the rest is just fun problems to solve. Let’s dive deeper.
A vision to guide every decision
Every great product I worked on has a vision that is well thought through and clear. I’d also like to mention, when I say “vision”, I am not talking about the corporate vision: their plan for world domination, or the 5-year plan you’re spoon-fed by management, or whatever.
What I am talking about is the core value that your product provides. It generally answers the following question: “Why should your customer choose your product?” Call it the vision, the goal, the aim, the main motivation; as long as it answers the question, it doesn’t matter.
Let me give you an example. In my current project, we are developing an end-to-end event booking platform for a customer in the luxury automotive industry. And our vision is crafting a platform that delivers a seamless, luxury experience that mirrors the excellence of the vehicles themselves. This vision is our North Star, helping us make the decisions that would showcase the brand’s prestige and satisfy user expectations.
When your vision is crafting a platform that delivers a seamless, luxury experience that mirrors the excellence of the vehicles themselves, every button, every toggle, and every word must be justified. A clear vision enables us to have meaningful discussions within the team and the power to say no to redundant features. But most importantly, it allows us to focus on the things that truly add value.
Thanks to this power, when we sit in our refinement sessions, instead of asking, “Can we build this?” we ask questions like: “Does this bring us closer to our goals?, Which goals are we aiming at with this feature? Are there a meaningful number of requests for this feature?”
These questions not only guide us to a destination but also allow us to have an oh-so-important filter; a filter that every single feature must pass, and if they don’t pass, they don’t ship.
Are you solving the right problems?
Anyone who uses a digital product knows that, as users, we don’t seek features; we seek solutions.
Take Uber as an example. The core value of the product isn’t “a taxi app with a map”; rather, it’s providing reliable, safe, and on-demand transportation. When it first came out, it provided solutions to very specific anxieties: Is the cab actually coming? How much will it cost? Do I even have enough cash? Will the driver refuse to take me where I need to go?
It still solves these issues. During the growth of the company, UberEats was launched, which aligns with the same core value. Instead of the customer, the food was being transported. But at some point, from my personal point of view, their vision changed; the products they shipped did not serve the core value that I, as a customer, initially signed up for. I mean, why would I browse events or book jazz concerts through Uber?
Let’s look at another example from my own experience; in my current project, customers use their free time to come to events, expecting the same luxury that the brand offers with the vehicles. Naturally, the event organizers and I take this aspect very seriously. In order to deliver the same luxury, we focus on the real problems: providing easy, frictionless bookings for guests, and allowing event organizers to set up their events on our platform as simply as possible.
On the event organization platform side, we are also hyper-aware that our product is only a small part of an organizer’s job. The big chunk of their work happens in the physical world: planning and creating amazing experiences, managing venues, catering, etc. By solving the “digital” part of the setup efficiently, we aim to give our organizers back the most valuable resource they have: their time, which is best used to organize luxurious experiences and interact with customers.
For that reason, if we build a complex feature that makes an organizer’s life harder, we aren’t solving a problem; we’re creating one.
Prioritization: Precision over pace
After guidance and the right problems comes the focus. In digital product development, a heavy backlog is often perceived as a burden, a weight of unfinished work. My hot take is that a large backlog is actually a sign of health.
As I see it, if a backlog is generated internally, it indicates the team’s contribution and dedication to the product. It indicates that there is constant thinking, exploring, and looking for ways to make things better. If generated externally, it shows shareholder trust.
The challenge, however, isn’t having lots of ideas, but rather deciding which idea is going to be built within all the restrictions.
In my team, every feature we build must pass the following three-step check:
- Address a clear user request/pain point: Do our users actually want this? Will this actually fix something broken or frustrating for the user?
- Align with our vision and business objectives: Does it get us closer to our goals? Which goals?
- Provide measurable value: Can we prove that this made the user’s life better or the business stronger?
In the end, efficiency isn’t about doing many things fast; it’s about doing fewer things that matter.
The secret sauce: The team
So far, we’ve discussed the mechanics: vision, problem-solving, and strategy. These are the foundation, but the foundation alone doesn’t make a building. You need the architects and builders who believe in the plan.
A vision tells you where to go, but a great team is the only thing that can actually get you there. Our secret isn't that we have the best software or the most data; it’s the alignment that allows a team to move as one. When a team truly owns the vision, two things happen that no document can replicate:
- The "certainty" to challenge ideas, even if it may mean heavy discussions on the drawing board
- The empathy to feel our users' pain as our own.
In fact, much of our clarity comes from the fact that we are our own customers. When we attend events and encounter a confusing registration form or a lack of clear info, we don’t just move on; we take those personal frustrations back to the table. We turn them into meaningful discussions to ensure our customers never have to experience them. This is what it means to think in "products" rather than "features." You can have the most beautiful buttons in the world, but if they don’t solve a real problem, no one will press them.
We even have a running gag that we are "the greatest team to ever exist." It doesn’t come from a place of overconfidence; we know amazing people are doing great work everywhere. It comes from the feeling of working with a purpose. By focusing on the broader experience with a clear vision, through solving the correct problems, we ensure our platform doesn’t just meet expectations, it exceeds them, delivering an experience worthy of a luxury brand.
Overall, what separates a "good" product from a "great" one is the strength of the foundation, and a team that embraces that foundation and builds something meaningful upon it.
