

The Product Death Cycle: Why it happens, and how to break out of it - andrew_null
http://andrewchen.co/this-is-the-product-death-cycle-why-it-happens-and-how-to-break-out-of-it/

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smhenderson
Pretty obvious on reading but so easy to forget when you're designing a new
product.

We go through this where I work with finished goods. If we don't get traction
on a product immediately we start to get all kinds of suggestions from Sales
Reps on what their big customer wants. In the end we end up with a list of
features "we should add/support" that's 50 miles long. Plus invariably some
feature request conflicts with another so even if we were willing to take all
the feedback and run with it we won't ever be able to make everyone happy.

Despite this though it seems like every few years we repeat the process all
over again on some new prototype.

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HenryTheHorse
This problem becomes even more complex and expensive in the enterprise world.

Asking users (or IT) for features will only lead to "can I send an email from
this screen?"or something non-trivial involving architectural changes.

