Cagan's Principles for Physical Products

Do you ever see products or services launched that you look at and think to yourself, ‘who let that out of the design studio?’, or ‘who's the customer for that?’ I do.

Often it’s the basics. Difficult UI/UX, form/function misalignment, performance gaps, unclear market, vague value proposition or positioning. Sometimes it’s clear it was rushed.

In software, Marty Cagan’s product mindset has become gospel. Empowered teams, customer-centric discovery, iteration, and continuous learning. But what happens when we move from bits to atoms? Things get harder.

In physical product development and blended services the same philosophy is important but the constraints are real. A/B testing is hard. Prototyping is costly and slow. Manufacturing lead times and capital requirements can dwarf those in software.

Yet I’d argue Cagan’s principles still apply.

We must push customer validation early, even if it’s with virtual prototypes and end-to-end customer journey simulation.

We must still prioritise empowered teams, but those teams need to have skin in the game and commercial awareness. Be genuinely empowered.

We should still iterate, but iteration cycles may well involve modular components, late-stage customisation, parallel prototyping, and AI-informed data-driven decisions.

The product mindset prevalent in software product management isn’t at odds with physical products, but the realities of production and customer interactions are different. By leaning into this we can focus on delivering products that customers love, just as Cagan intended, only this time it’s hardware.

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