product thinking is not a teamsport

yesterday, i met an entrepreneur with good credentials (ex-apollo, springleaf, etc.) who wanted to jam about a product idea he’d been exploring. in the meeting, it became clear that he wanted to spend a lot of time thinking about this space before even thinking about execution.

he doesn’t know how to use vibe-coding platforms, but he built a prototype in freaking excel — sample UI, buttons and it’s just crazy amount of work.

this is one of the most consistent patterns i’ve seen with good product people and entrepreneurs: they spend a lot of time refining the idea before they ever go to their engineering or design teams for execution.

of course they talk to execution teams early to understand what’s possible and what’s not, but not for any groundbreaking product direction.

this skill is going to be tremendously valuable in the ai era: the ability to bulletproof ideas before going to execution. otherwise, you end up building a low-resolution product that might solve a problem or two, but can’t support deep vertical integration.