My thoughts on picking winning products

While I am primarily an engineer, both at school and work, I am also incredibly passionate about business, especially in the intersection between engineering innovation and business cases. When I am not designing eVTOLs, building projects, doing hw, or doing process engineering at US Synthetic, I am working on side businesses or studying business books.

In this post, I will spew some of my thoughts about picking sucessful products. I would like to point out that I don’t claim anything in this post to be never seen before, but rather my perspective based on my education and experiences, both formal and informal.

Optimizing for SOM + TAM, not just for TAM

Everyone knows that Total Addressable Market (TAM) alone is not a good metric for evaluating the viability of an industry as a business opportunity. If I told someone unfamiliar with business metrics that I had a business idea in a $3-4 trillion per year industry, they might be impressed. But once I tell you that this idea is a resturaunt, it might sound like less tantalizing of an investment opportunity. The serviceable addressable market (SOM) needs to be considered as well. It’s relatively common knowledge that resturaunts are a terrible investment. Less than 40% of resturaunts survive more than a decade, and unlike tech startups, which also have a low sucess rate, the upside is not nearly as high. Less than 0.01% of resturaunts ever reach national / global scale like McDonalds or Subway.

The smartphone industry, by comparison, has an estimated TAM of $500 billion, which is about 1/7th of the size of the resturaunt industry. Apple has about half of the revenue of this industry, and a company valuation of about $5 trillion. Resturaunt wise on the other hand, McDonalds has less than 2% of the resturaunt industry revenue, and despite being the most iconic name in the food insutry, is “only” worth $165 billion.

While McDonalds obviously is heavily inovlved in real estate and Apple is involved in things other than smartphones, making it not a perfect 1 to 1 comparison, the principle is still there.

I’d much rather be Apple, dominating in a smaller market (with a high SOM) rather than McDonalds, in a giant TAM but with a smaller SOM.

I learned this lesson for myself selling soccer jerseys online. During the world cup and immedietly after, jerseys were (and still are) very popular. I decided to start selling them myself.

I listed a bunch of different products. Some retro jerseys, some modern jerseys, some of current super popular players like Lamine Yamal, others more niche such as Ferran Torres. What I found was that my popular player jerseys could barely sell at the prices I wanted. My competitors, working with the same suppliers as me, were selling them at razor thin margins, and I didn’t want to sell that low. My niche jerseys on the other hand, such as retro Japan jerseys or long sleeve versions, sold faster and at higher prices. The TAM of retro jerseys was less than 2026 Lamine Yamal jerseys, but my SOM was more favorable. I truly learned that the riches are in the niches

You can’t ask a fish how to catch a fish

Another key lesson about business is that customer insights are critical, but otentimes customers don’t even know what they want. Sometimes what customers might conciously or verbally say they want is not actually what they respond to.

This goes back to the analogy “You can’t ask a fish how to catch a fish. You have to ask the fisherman”. It’s important to recognize that oftentimes the target audience’s stated preferences need to be taken with a grain of salt. There are a few reasons for this, such as embarassment to admit true preferences or simply not being able to envision the possibilities until they are presented with a product they haven’t even thought of.

Instead of blindly relying on feedback like surveys, focus groups and prototyping are also extremley valuable for discovering the true underlying preferences of customers. I think a great example of this is the auto-industry, which is the industry I want to go into as a busniess/engineer crossover.

Many people think they know what they want. Reliability, good gas mileage, good price, maybe something that looks decent. But are those ACTUALLY the only factors that customers use to decide if they will buy a vehicle or not? Of course not.

I myself am a good example of this. I am a very frugal person. I currently drive a truck, (A 2018 Ford F-150 Raptor), that has terrible gas mileage. I got married last December to someone with a 2024 Ford Bronco, which also has terrible gas mileage. I had said that we should sell one of them in order to get something like a Toyota Prius, and have one good gas mileage car to save money.

Fast forward a few months, and it seemed to be the logical time to part with my one of our cars for that Prius. After all, gas was getting expensive and our two off road capable gas guzzlers just don’t make logical sense. However when I thought about actually being the one to get rid of my truck, it pained me. I’m a truck guy with the Raptor, not a Prius driver. My wife feels the same way about her Bronco. What I had said I cared about, purely optimizing for gas/ dollar savings, is not what I respond to as a consumer when it comes down to it.

Another great example of disregarding stated preferences from your customers is Apple removing the headphone jack with the release of the iPhone 7. When that happened, everyone I know complained. No one wanted the headphone jack removed. After all, it made everyone’s headphones obselete, and was starting to force everyone into the more expensive wireless options, such as the airpods which launched a few months later.

Little did everyone realize at the time that the change, although an unpopular announcement, would be fantastic. Firstly, removing the headphone jack also enabled the iPhone 7 to become the first water resistant iPhone, which is a major lifesaver for everyone. Secondly, when it comes down to it, today, in 2026, I do not miss wired headphones. The freedom of wirelss is so worth it to me, and if it wasn’t for Apple knowing what there customers would ACTUALLY want, rather than what they said they want, we might all still be using 3.5mm headphones, and Apple would have missed out on billions in revenue.

Ultimately, the customer is at the center of everything that a business does, so I am not saying that I completley disregard customers stated opinions. But rather that stated preferences are a piece of the puzzle, not the end all be all.

So what do I see in a winning product?

I’ve talked about what NOT to be (in a crowded industry, too reliant on stated customer demands). But the important thing is to pick a winning product, not to just say no to everything. After all, every product has reasons it might not work. But how do I personally see the best path to giving myself/my companies’ the best chance of striking a winner?

Firstly, some baseline. Founder market fit is often just as if not more important than product market fit. Winning companies and inventions almost always have founders that understand the need. Usually they are experts or professionals in the industry they will innovate in. Other times they are customers themselves, such as the founders of Air BnB, who didn’t have enough money to pay rent but had extra space, so they offered confrence attendees a cheaper place to crash compared to a hotel, giving them an Air matress and pop tarts. Hence the Air Bed and Breakfast.

Next, identifying utility. Every product, even something as seemingly “useless” as a Labubu, serves a utlity. Products need to either be a tool to get things done, or a vehicle to an emotion. Status, relaxation, fun, connection, whatever. I think any winning product starts by solidly defining what problem it can solve for people. It is worth noting that it is far easier and a more consistently winning recipe to solve a problem people know they have rather than make cool technology and HOPE that people want it. Example: Gutter cleaners are profitable while Boston Dynamics is not. Boston Dynamics has incredible tech but it does not yet actually fufill a need that people are willing to pay for.

I think the next key is to build some prototypes, mockups, or MVPs (minimum viable product) to present to customers. The key here is to not drag your feet too long. This phase will surely not produce your final product. However business (and life) rewards those who just do things. You do not need to cross every t and dot every i before you can experiment. Sucessful companies / products are ones that just go (at least at the start). This building phase is incredibly fun and exciting as an engineer.

Next, I think it is important to gather market data. This means talking to customers. YC famously says “write code and talk to users” sometimes going as far as to say anything else is not real work. I think bringing some concepts to people and asking if they would pay for it (or at least a form of it) is a great place to start.

Afterwards comes the roller coaster of iteration. When I made a seed planter for Bolivian farmers, our first mock draft was not something they wanted. Then they told us some features they wanted such as the ability to both push and pull it. Lo and behold, after all those iterations, we brought it to them and they all said they actually didn’t care about pulling it anymore and just wanted to push it. This is normal, and goes back to my point about filtering requests from customers. Ultimately, any winning product will go through way more iterations than expected. The teams that win are the ones that fall in love with the process

Ultimately, when I think about winning products I think about the following

1. Find a problem
   • The best products rarely come from someone sitting down and trying to think of a product. Build something as you and those you know encounter a problem organically
2. Solidify the understanding of the problem
   • How big is this issue?
   • How expensive of an issue is it to solve?
   • What are people currently doing to solve it? Or are they?
   • Who needs this?
3. Brainstorm
   • Think of as many ideas as possible
4. Prototype
   • Just build stuff
   • Don’t spend too much time on any one idea because it won’t be perfect
5. Gather feedback
   • Show your products and prototypes to potential customers
6. Filter that feedback and iterate
   • Improve improve and improve
7. Keep going
   • Never stop improving. If Apple called it good after the iPhone 1, they would not remain the kings of smartphones today. The steps need to be looped and continously improved upon