Why Most Product Ideas Sound Great Until You Put Them in the Hands of Users
- Tushar
- Dec 8
- 5 min read
Every founder, PM, or early builder knows this feeling: you come up with an idea. It sounds clean. Logical. Convincing. Even exciting.
You share it with a friend, they nod.
You pitch it to a colleague, they agree. You write a quick problem statement, it makes complete sense.
And then you put the idea in front of a real user… and suddenly nothing behaves the way you expected. They skip the feature you thought would be the star. They get stuck on something you assumed was obvious. They make decisions that feel “illogical.” They respond with a lukewarm yes, or worse, complete indifference.
It’s in this moment that most ideas die. Not because the idea was bad. But because the idea was only tested against your worldview not theirs.
After building and scaling my own business, and later working with 500+ users as a product manager, I realized a brutal truth:
Every idea is perfect inside your head. It collapses the moment it enters the real world.
This blog explains why that happens and how to prevent it.
Table of Contents
The Real Lesson: Ideas Don’t Fail. Assumptions Do
The Core Reason: You Think in Logic, Users Think in Life
Founders and PMs think in structured reasoning:
“If this problem exists…”
“And if this feature solves it…”
“Then users should adopt it…”
But users don’t follow this chain. Users think in:
routines
habits
convenience
emotions
shortcuts
subconscious fears
risk vs. comfort
You build solutions in a controlled environment. They live in a chaotic one. This gap is the birthplace of failed ideas.
Case 1:The Home Management App That Looked Perfect on Paper
A founder approached me with a genuinely smart idea: an app to manage household tasks - groceries, repairs, payments, reminders, all in one placeholder. The logic was strong:
clear user need
recurring use
predictable workflows
potential for habit formation
Everything made sense. Until we tested the idea with real users, here’s what actually happened:
Users didn’t want one more app.
They already handled these tasks through WhatsApp, local vendors, reminders, or simple routines.
The “all-in-one” value felt heavy, not helpful.
People didn’t want to centralize tasks — they wanted to reduce friction.
The product asked them to change behaviour, not enhance it.
The idea sounded great. The user reality said something else. What we learned:
If your product requires users to behave differently from how they naturally operate, the idea will fail - no matter how elegant it sounds.
Case 2: My D2C attempt that made perfect sense… until it didn’t
When I ran Sangeeta Enterprises, moving from e-retail marketplaces to a full D2C website felt like the obvious next step. The logic:
No marketplace commission
More control
Higher margins
Direct customer relationship
Almost every founder dreams of this transition. But when we actually built it, the truth surfaced:
Traffic didn’t stick
Acquisition became expensive
Repeat usage didn’t scale
Users didn’t want another place to buy standard products
Competing with Amazon’s trust was nearly impossible without massive marketing spend
The idea was airtight on paper. But users hadn’t asked for this. They didn’t care enough to change their buying behaviour. What I learned:
Ideas that make sense financially often fail emotionally. Users don’t adopt because you want better margins. They adopt only if their life becomes meaningfully better.
Why Ideas Sound Great, Until Users hold them
1. We solve the problem we think exists, not the one users feel exists
Founders treat “problem statements” like facts. Users treat them like opinions.
Your framing:
“Users struggle with X.”
User reality: They don’t struggle enough to change their behavior.
2. You design ideal workflows, but users live messy lives
In your mind, everything flows neatly: A → B → C → D. But in the real world, users jump from:
WhatsApp → insulin reminder → cab booked → child crying → random call → back to step A.
Real-life interrupts your perfect flow.
3. The brain chooses familiarity over improvement
Even if your solution is better, users prefer:
the tool they already know
the habit they’re used to
the method that doesn’t require thinking
The cost of change is often greater than the benefit of improvement.
4. Users don’t articulate their real motivations
They rarely say:
“I’m scared of trying new apps.”
“I don’t trust unknown brands.”
“I’m overwhelmed, so I don’t want another decision to make.”
Instead they say:
“Seems nice.”
“Maybe useful.”
“Let me think.”
These responses kill more ideas than explicit rejection.
The Only Way to Know If Your Idea Works: Put It in the Hands of Users Before You Build It
Here’s the part most founders skip:
You should NOT wait until you have an MVP.
A 20-minute conversation with a real user can save you 3–6 months of waste.
Here’s the exact mechanism I’ve used for years, which helped validate - ecommerce product lines, shipping solutions, fintech onboarding flows, completely new 0→1 products and recently, Sumvaad.
The 5-Step Deep Reality Check for Any Product Idea
This is not a framework made up for fancy PM content. This is the method that has worked repeatedly in my career.
STEP 1: Discover the Real Motivation
Ask users why they do what they do today. Not what they want from a new solution. Try to understand their:
fears
frictions
comfort zones
shortcuts
triggers
motivations
Until you know what holds their world together, you can’t introduce a new element into it.
STEP 2: Observe the Actual Behaviour
Users will say one thing and do another. Example: In my ecommerce business, users said they compared listings carefully. But actual logs showed they bought impulsively based on:
images
ratings
delivery time
People talk in logic but behave in instinct.
STEP 3: Identify the Behavioural Threshold
Ask: “Is this problem painful enough for them to act?”, If not, the idea dies here. Most ideas fail because the problem is real but not urgent.
STEP 4: Test With the Smallest Possible Proxy
Before building:
show the workflow
show a fake landing page
let them react to the promise
give them a clickable mock
simulate the experience manually
You’ll see exactly where the idea breaks.
STEP 5: Ask One Final Question That Reveals Everything
“What would you do tomorrow if this product didn’t exist?”, if their answer is:
“I’ll continue what I already do” → you don’t have a strong idea yet.
“I’ll struggle / lose time / waste money” → your idea is worth evolving.
“I’ll try to find another solution myself” → you’ve hit a high-value problem.
This single question is my strongest predictor of whether a product should exist.
The Real Lesson: Ideas Don’t Fail. Assumptions Do.
A product idea is just a hypothesis. You validate it through reality, not reasoning. What separates great PMs and founders from everyone else is not creativity. It’s the discipline to test their imagination against human behaviour. Your idea doesn’t need:
fancy frameworks
jargon
motivational validation
biased enthusiasm
10 user personas
It needs one thing, a real user insight.
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