The real test of a product is the tired person using it on a cracked phone with one bar of signal.
There is a version of design that happens in presentations. Everything is shown on a large screen, in perfect light, with sample data that fits neatly into every box. Everyone in the room is rested and paying attention.
And then there is the version of design that people actually experience.
Being early feels a lot like being wrong. The hard part is surviving the long middle.
Opinions formed in an hour are rarely worth holding for a year.
Money is very good at one job: buying the freedom to say no. It needs clear instructions to do it.
Competition gets the blame. Cash timing, founder bandwidth and drift do most of the damage.