product-bets

Product bets — decide, construct, test, operate

When to use

Any time the question is "should we build this?", "what exactly do we build?", or "how do we keep making good bets week after week". Four procedures, used together or alone: separating the instinct from the idea (before committing), constructing the bet with Proven-Better-New (what to copy, improve, and isolate), testing it as a Minimum Idea State (before building), and running the weekly roadmap operating system (after launch). Core stance: your instinct is right ~95% of the time; your specific idea is right at best ~25% — so fall in love with the instinct and kill ideas cheaply, often, and without grief.

The procedure

1. Separate the instinct from the idea

1. Write both down separately. Instinct = the deep human truth you feel ("getting a taxi should be easier"). Idea = the specific implementation ("order a taxi by SMS"). The instinct survives dead ideas; number the ideas as attempts.
2. Check the body of water before the boat: pick the market first. Criteria: market entry potential (available, not crowded) · proven business (clear path to revenue) · room to innovate (the best are mature markets that are secretly growth markets) · long-term macro tailwinds. "If you choose the right body of water, most boats will float."
3. Apply the B+ test: B+ ideas are good enough to get funding, customers, and hope — and never good enough to be great. Ask: would your smartest friends invest their own money? Are you pursuing this out of desperation? B+ is the enemy of A; kill it before it consumes the quarter.
4. Distrust false positives: smart investors or big partners wanting in is NOT signal. True signal is felt instantly ("f*** yeah", not "this is close").

2. Construct the bet with Proven-Better-New

1. Proven — copy what your target audience already loves, to the pixel. Operational test: "I could rebuild that same interface with the same features, put it in front of the same people, and get the same reaction." Get your PhD in deconstructing the proven products with heat, ideally proven on the same platform for the same audience. You haven't earned the right to change what already works. Best to market beats first to market.
2. Better — only objectively better counts: half the price, no download, one click instead of five — improvements 10 out of 10 users say "yes" to. The classic error: what you think is Better is actually New. Better rarely wins alone except on a platform shift.
3. New — exactly ONE novel element, isolated so it can be tested (and fail) separately without sinking the product. "All New fails" — assume it, so a failure is clean data, not a catastrophe.
4. Placement rules: on a platform shift, ship Proven + Better with no New — the platform IS the New (and it's the single best place to build). In a mature market, you need a genuine New vein to earn trial. Never bet on New without Proven underneath (fool's gold: unrepeatable one-off wins).
5. Guard the other flank: PBN over-applied yields derivative B+ products. Copy to de-risk the base, then pursue actual quality/magic on top — the bar is a product you treasure.