If something grows as it’s used, make sure you know in which direction
Disproof
Documented understanding of the lifecycle of your product portfolio
Consequences
Betting on the wrong thing because initial metrics are promising:
The long-term use of a product changes and could degrade its effectiveness
Some content-based products work great when there’s a low quantity of content, but become entirely unworkable with noise
Or when the work a user generates becomes unworkable, e.g. notion or to-do lists
You planned the next year assuming you’d retain but everyone leaves as stuff gets clogged up. You’re stretched thin and die
Abandoning real winners too early:
Some products only become successful when used often, or when network effects take hold, or when users generate enough content, or when marketplaces get populated
Habit trackers, anything reliant on showing users longitudinal improvements
Anything requiring internalised skill to use well (despite what some artistes believe, it’s OK for some things to not be easy to use on day one, especially if the user’s motivations for getting good are high and the cost of dumbing the product down is greater than making it complex)
You pivot into something less valuable and risk the company
Possibly acquiring the wrong types of users that are not valuable and costly to serve, stretching the org and potentially killing it
Causes
Genuine skill issues in joined-up long-term thinking and cohort analysis
Measurement tool underinvestment due to misguided cost-saving
Time pressure exacerbating blindness to the blindness
Approaches
The point is not to always wait 6 months to see if your product is working, but to stop and consider what kind of structural situation you’re in