Most products fail because teams try to invent too much

The Proven. Better. New framework explained.

Idea 02 of 07

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Introduction

Product teams like to believe that great products begin with an original idea. That belief causes a lot of bad products.

Most teams do not fail because they lack ideas. They fail because they change too many things at once. They redesign the workflow, invent new user habits, add new features, choose a new business model, and then try to explain the whole thing to a market that never asked for it.

When the product fails, nobody knows why.

Was the idea wrong? Was the user flow weak? Was the product hard to understand? Did the team build the wrong feature? Did users dislike the price? Or did they simply not care?

This is the problem that Mark Pincus tried to solve with the Proven, Better, New framework.

He developed the idea at Zynga after his experience with Tribe.net, where the team tried to rethink too many parts of the product. Pincus later described the result as “death by 1,000 compromises.”

The lesson was simple: innovation works better when you limit it.

A strong product does not need to be new in every way. It needs a proven base, an obvious improvement, and one clear area of risk.

Start With Proven

The first part of the framework is Proven.

Proven means starting with a product pattern, feature, habit, or mechanic that users already understand and value.

This is where many product teams struggle. They think using an existing pattern shows a lack of imagination. They want to create a new navigation model, a new interaction method, a new pricing structure, and a new category at the same time.

That is usually ego, not product thinking.

Users do not reward teams for inventing a new way to complete a basic task. They reward products that help them complete the task with less effort.

A product team should not ask, “How can we make this look original?”

It should first ask, “What already works, and why?”

That means studying successful products in detail. Look at the screens, the steps, the prompts, the rewards, the feedback, the defaults, and the way users move from one action to the next.

The point is not to copy the design without thought. The point is to understand the choices that have already survived contact with users.

Zynga Poker did not try to reinvent poker. It used table layouts and game rules that players already knew. That gave users a familiar base and allowed Zynga to focus on the parts that could improve growth and use.

This approach also improves testing. When the basic experience already works, the team can judge the new idea on its own merit. When the basics are weak, every test gives unclear results.

Better Must Be Obvious

The second part is Better.

Better does not mean different. It does not mean more advanced. It does not mean adding more features.

Better means users can see the gain at once.

The product may be faster, cheaper, simpler, easier to access, or more pleasant to use. The key is that the improvement does not need a long pitch.

Removing a forced download is better. Cutting ten steps to three is better. Making the product free can be better. Improving speed by a clear amount is better. A cleaner interface can be better if it helps users complete the task with less effort.

Product teams often lie to themselves at this stage.

They call a new idea “better” because they like it. They assume users will see the same value. But unless the gain is clear and broad, it is not Better. It is New.

That difference matters because New carries far more risk.

Slack offers a useful example. Workplace chat already existed. HipChat had many of the same core functions. Slack did not win because it invented team messaging. It made the experience more polished, easier to adopt, and more pleasant for a wider set of users.

The base was proven. The gain was clear.

New Is Where Products Usually Break

The third part is New.

New is the part of the product that has not been tested with that audience, use case, or market.

It is also the part most likely to fail.

Pincus used the phrase “All New Fails.” The point was not that every new idea will fail. The point was that teams should treat new ideas as guilty until proven useful.

That is the opposite of how many teams work.

Most teams fall in love with the New part. They spend most of their time discussing it, naming it, designing it, and defending it. They treat the proven parts as boring and the new part as the source of all value.

In practice, the new part often creates confusion, weak demand, or added effort for the user.

The right way to test New is to isolate it.

Keep the rest of the product familiar and reliable. Then change one major thing. This gives the team a clear result.

If the test fails, the team knows the new idea failed. If the product changes five things at once, failure teaches nothing.

The anonymous social app tbh used a proven model: anonymous social sharing. Its new idea was to make the experience positive by using pre-written polls instead of open text.

The team did not invent a new social network from the ground up. It changed one key rule.

That is controlled innovation.

Platform Shifts Make Proven Ideas Valuable Again

This framework matters even more during a large platform shift.

When the web grew, many successful companies moved proven offline services online. When mobile grew, companies rebuilt proven web products for phones. They did not need a new human need. The new platform changed access, use, and reach.

AI has created the same type of opening.

A lot of founders think an AI product must introduce a new category, a new work model, and a new user habit. That is not true.

In many cases, the best AI product will take a proven workflow and make it much faster, cheaper, or easier.

The AI model already provides the New element.
The product itself may only need Proven and Better.

This is why many simple AI products can beat more ambitious ones. They do not ask users to learn a new way of working. They improve a task the user already performs.

The hard part is not adding AI. The hard part is choosing a task where AI creates a clear gain.

Originality is overrated

Product teams often reject this framework because they do not want to look like they copied someone else.

This concern has some value. A company should not steal protected work, mislead users, or build a weak clone with no edge.

But many teams take this concern too far. They refuse to use proven patterns because they want every part of the product to feel original.

That is a poor use of time.

A checkout flow does not need to be original. A settings page does not need to be original. A sign-up flow does not need to be original. These parts need to work.

The team should spend its limited skill and time on the few parts where a new idea may create a real advantage.

This is what strong product builders do. They study what works, adopt it where it makes sense, improve it where users feel pain, and innovate only where the gain can justify the risk.

The Real Job of a Product Team

The job of a product team is not to maximise novelty.

It is to reduce uncertainty.

Proven reduces the risk that the core experience will fail.

Better gives users a reason to switch.

New creates the chance for a strong edge.

The order matters.

Most weak products start with New and try to patch the basics later. Strong products start with Proven, create an obvious Better, and then test New in a narrow way.

The final formula is simple:

Proven reduces risk. Better creates preference. New creates an advantage.

The hard part is not coming up with ideas.

The hard part is knowing which ideas not to build.

What’s your take?