There’s a sentence that sounds harmless in pitch meetings but should make investors, operators, and even co-founders sit up a little straighter: “We’ll fine-tune it later.”
On the surface, it sounds pragmatic. Agile, even. Ship fast, learn, iterate. That’s how modern startups are built, right? But more often than founders like to admit, “we’ll fine-tune later” isn’t about iteration, it’s about postponing differentiation.
The uncomfortable truth is this: differentiation rarely
appears magically after launch. If it’s not present in the initial insight, the
underlying advantage, or the way value is delivered, it’s unlikely to emerge
just because the product has more users or a prettier UI. What founders often
mean is, “We haven’t made the hard choices yet.”
Early-stage teams overestimate the future for a simple
reason: optimism is baked into entrepreneurship. When you’re building, every
problem feels solvable with time, capital, and a few smart hires. But markets
don’t wait politely while you “fine-tune.” If your product enters the world as
a slightly cheaper, slightly faster, or slightly nicer version of something
that already exists, competitors don’t need to copy you, they can simply ignore
you. And customers will too.
The red flag isn’t iteration itself. Iteration is healthy.
The red flag is when differentiation is treated as a feature instead of a
foundation. When founders believe branding, pricing tweaks, or minor workflow
changes will eventually turn a commodity into something defensible, they’re
mistaking polish for strategy.
A real-world example of this played out with Quibi.
The problem they set out to solve sounded compelling: people want high-quality
video content, but optimized for mobile and short attention spans. The
execution, however, leaned heavily on “we’ll refine the experience once
users arrive.” Episodes were short, the production value was massive, and
the marketing spend was enormous, but the differentiation was fuzzy. Was it
YouTube with celebrities? Netflix in ten-minute chunks? TikTok for Hollywood?
When users didn’t stick, the team tried to fine-tune:
changing sharing features, adjusting content formats, rethinking distribution.
But the core issue wasn’t the tuning. It was that the value proposition was
never sharply distinct enough to form a habit. The resolution came too late and
too tactically. Quibi shut down within months, a high-profile reminder that you
can’t iterate your way into a reason for existing.
Contrast that with companies that had clarity early, even if
their products were rough. Airbnb wasn’t just “a place to book rooms online.”
It was about belonging anywhere, unlocking supply no hotel chain could
own. Stripe wasn’t just “payments made easier.” It was infrastructure for
developers who wanted to build businesses without touching a bank. These
companies absolutely fine-tuned later, but they did so around a core advantage
that was already real.
Founders who say “we’ll differentiate later” are often
unknowingly saying something else: we’re afraid to narrow the market, say no
to users, or commit to a specific worldview. Differentiation feels risky
because it excludes. But exclusion is the point. It’s how products become
memorable, defensible, and hard to replace.
If you’re building something new, the better question isn’t how
will we fine-tune this later? It’s why would someone be genuinely upset
if this didn’t exist? If the answer depends on future tweaks, future
branding, or future scale, that’s not a roadmap, that’s a hope.
And hope, while necessary, is not a strategy.
#Startups #Founders #ProductStrategy #VentureCapital
#Entrepreneurship #Tech #ProductMarketFit