The Everything Feed - All Packet Pushers Pods TL016: When It Comes To Product Design, Don’t Trust Your Gut
Jun 19, 2025
Dan McKinley, an early engineer at Etsy with diverse roles across various companies, discusses the pitfalls of overconfidence in product design. He emphasizes the importance of quickly bringing ideas to external reality to avoid wasted resources. The conversation includes insights on 'shiny object syndrome' and its impact on productivity, as well as the need for a data-driven approach in decision-making. Additionally, he highlights the benefits of engaging support teams in documentation and takes a light-hearted look at the ever-evolving nature of DevOps.
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Overconfidence in Predicting Success
- People consistently overestimate their ability to predict outcomes in products and engineering projects.
- This overconfidence leads to wasted resources on ineffective initiatives.
Etsy Product Flops Story
- Dan McKinley shares repeated experiences at Etsy where major product initiatives failed after significant investment.
- These failures showed the necessity of humility and quickly testing ideas against reality.
Do Math on Product Ideas
- Use simple math to evaluate product ideas early and avoid costly failures.
- Multiplying key metrics can reveal when ideas are unlikely to succeed before heavy investment.