Stop innovating on the wrong things

Executive overview

Making something people want is a miracle. The odds of pulling off five miracles at once are close to zero.

Reserve innovation for the product. Use established best practices everywhere else.

Founders waste scarce "miracle juice" by innovating on corporate structure, tech stacks, and pricing — none of which customers care about.

Common anti-patterns to avoid

• Unusual incorporation structures (Wyoming LLC, nonprofit/for-profit hybrids) are voluntary red flags
• Contrarian side-bets — proving startup advice wrong, betting on niche ecosystems — distract from the core problem
• Idiosyncratic programming languages or tech stacks add risk for the sake of fun, not customer value
• Innovating on pricing confuses customers who are ready to buy; charge the way your category already charges
• Redesigning UI conventions (cursor behaviour, button interactions) creates friction without benefit

Why this mistake happens

• Founders underestimate how hard building a wanted product actually is
• "Innovation" advice imported from the branding/fashion world doesn't transfer to software
• In software, successful companies typically copied 80%+ of conventions and differentiated on 20%
• Some choices (unusual tech stacks) are optimised for founder fun, not customer success

The right mental model

• Ask: does this choice help my customer, or does it just satisfy me?
• If a bet has nothing to do with solving the customer's problem, cut it
• Save the experiments — new programming languages, unusual hiring, exotic structures — for startup number two