Creating and managing value in the age of AI
Happy 2026!
As the year begins, I’ve been reflecting on a question I keep coming back to in my work:
Why do so many well-built products struggle to create real, lasting value?
Not because teams aren’t smart.
Not because the tech isn’t good.
And increasingly, not because execution is poor.
More often, it’s because teams lack a clear way to reason about value itself is how it shows up, how it compounds, and how it quietly breaks.
Over the years, across consumer and B2B products, I’ve found that you can often tell within 10–15 minutes whether a product is likely to struggle or succeed — if you know what to look for. There are a few structural signals that show up very early, long before metrics or dashboards do.
I’ve been refining this way of thinking for a while, and I’m sharing it in a short, lightweight Lightning Session on Maven:
“How can you tell if a product will fail in 15 minutes?”
This isn’t a heavy framework or a theory class. It’s a practical way to:
think more clearly about what “value” actually means
spot early red flags in acquisition, retention, and differentiation
avoid confusing novelty or features with real usefulness
build a more structured intuition for evaluating product ideas
My goal is simple:
You should walk away with a clearer mental model you can use the very next time you look at a product, a roadmap, or an idea, whether you’re building, reviewing, or investing.
If this sounds useful, you can RSVP here:
👉 https://maven.com/p/8ba0b0/how-you-can-tell-if-a-product-will-fail-in-15-mins?utm_medium=ll_share_link&utm_source=instructor
It’ll be a short, interactive, and thoughtful session : light in tone, but hopefully rich in insight.