We spent months perfecting an elegant microservice stack before shipping a single feature. Meanwhile, would‑be customers had already moved on. Our obsession with the “best” tech blinded us to the fastest path to learning.
By the time we launched, we discovered there was little appetite for the problem we solved. Without real product‑market fit, even flawless code could not create demand.
Closing the company was the hardest chapter: teammates relied on our paychecks. Writing the shutdown emails drove home a lesson no architecture diagram can teach:
businesses aren't just code and servers—they're people and livelihoods.
Today, I prototype first, fail fast, validate with users, and remember that speed to insight beats perfection. And if a product must end, communicate early and help people land softly.