Which is more important? People or product?
This is a recurring question I’ve heard over the years, and people usually have very strong opinions. My take is that people are more important — that if you have a team aligned on purpose, values, execution, and operating principles, you can do just about anything.
But, I’ve always been a bit uncomfortable with such a universal opinion, mainly because there are plenty of product successes created by a bunch of toxic people.
So my mental model is a bit more nuanced. First, I see three pillars: people, product, and purpose. And second, my model is dynamic, focusing on “what happens”, not “what’s better”.
My model is a triangle of purpose, people (individuals and culture), and product.
All sides of the triangle are needed for enduring impact. Without one side, the triangle ultimately collapses as various pressures come to bear.
The following three examples are idealized because nothing really exists in a vacuum. A weak product, for example, is almost always related to a weak purpose, a weak people environment, or both. The value of these examples is in exploring the impact of each side in isolation.
There is high impact from a product with strong pull, high resilience from a clear and compelling purpose, but ultimately high burnout from a poor people environment. The strong belief, coupled with actual impact, taps into higher levels of calling that energize people, but they ultimately collapse from the distractions of bad behavior and operational friction. These types of organizations can be successful if they cultivate a steady stream of new true believers in the purpose and product.
There is high impact from a product with strong pull, high creativity and energy from the people, but ultimately reduced longevity if the team does not find clear purpose. Strong creativity and innovation coupled with tangible impact inspires people to continue to advance the product, but without clear purpose, the efforts are diluted by the team’s inability to apply force in a consistent direction. As a result, the product will bloat and ultimately succumb to competition or substitution. These types of organizations can be successful if both the solution space (feature set) and problem space (audience pain) are narrow, constraining purpose by context (like a niche product no-one else wants to build).
There is high resilience from purpose, high creativity and energy from the people, but low impact from a weak product. In this case, the people are strongly motivated and structurally supported to thrive but are just not effective in producing an impactful product. The team is missing one or more critical skills needed to transform ideas into action, and very little is improved for the audience the team has gathered to help. Ultimately, people will leave this organization because purpose has not materialized. These teams can endure if there is a continuous stream of capital and a steady stream of new talent where hope springs eternal but long-term success is questionable.
In practice, these extremes don’t exist — the 10 out of 10 team delivering a 1 out of 10 product. Rather, every team has all sides of the triangle in flux all the time. One of the primary jobs of leaders, then, is to constantly address whichever side of the triangle is weakest. In my experience, the triangle is built over time, often with two steps forward and one step back. But if you’re persistent, that triangle eventually becomes robust on all sides, with purpose, product, and people all reinforcing each other.