Do not index
Do not index
There's a phenomenon in finance called "rush to quality."
During uncertain times, investors flee risky assets and pile into safe ones.
Government bonds. Blue-chip stocks. Gold.
I think we're about to see this happen in the product world:
Right now, building products is incredibly easy.
AI tools, no-code platforms, open source everything. The barriers have never been lower.
This means we're entering a massive wave of new products.
There will be too many options. Too much noise. Too much choice paralysis.
When choice becomes chaos
Imagine trying to pick a project management tool today. There are literally hundreds. Notion, Monday, Asana, ClickUp, Linear, Height, Todoist, Trello... the list goes on forever.
Now multiply that by every software category. Email tools. Design tools. Analytics tools. CRM tools.
We're drowning in alternatives.
And the times after AI have been chaotic.
In chaotic environments, people get scared.
When people get scared, they don't experiment.
They don't take risks on unknown products.
They rush to quality.
They go with the biggest, most established, most trusted option.
"Nobody gets fired for buying IBM" - this old saying might become more relevant than ever.
What this means for builders:
In a very chaotic environment, bigger players can get even bigger.
Smaller players might not stand a chance.
The established brands will capture most of the "flight to safety" users.
The unknown startups will fight over scraps.
This is different from what I usually share about scrappy startups beating big companies.
Don't get me wrong, I still believe the future belongs to makers.
But I find it interesting to explore a different point of view.
Your survival strategy
If this trend happens, there are three ways to position yourself:
1 - Work with someone who already has established trust capital.
2 - Partner with an influencer or established brand.
3 - Borrow their credibility while you build your own.
And there are 2 general advice for builders:
1 - Build a personal brand more aggressively than ever.
In a world of infinite alternatives, people buy from people they trust. Your reputation becomes your moat.
2 - Make absolutely sure your product works perfectly.
This sounds basic, but it's not. When users have 20 alternatives for your use case, a single friction point or bug in the onboarding can make them switch immediately.
“Good enough” products are now not good enough.
And that’s how we’re building products.
Talented makers partner with me — this gives the product credibility, distribution, and trust.
I run the growth and distribution, and we together drive the product features and directions.
Creates a perfect win-win scenario for both of us, and the customers. But works only if quality is there.
Outrank.so has seen great success so far.
I’ve explained my entire process here:
Are we there yet?
I'm not certain we're going through this rush to quality right now. But the signs are pointing in that direction.
The product landscape is getting more chaotic by the day. Users are getting overwhelmed by choices.
ChatGPT seems to take advantage of it; the more models are shipped, the more confusion, the more people fall back to the default: ChatGPT.
Trust is becoming the ultimate differentiator.
The days of "build it and they will come" are ending.
The new game is "build trust and they will stay."
Focus on:
- Partnering with trusted voices
- Building your personal brand
- Making your product high quality, remove friction
- Creating genuine relationships with users
Because in a world of infinite alternatives, trust might be the only moat that matters.
Hit reply and tell me - are you seeing this "rush to quality" in your industry yet? 👇🏻
Tweet of the week
Are you doing hard things?
I will see you next week!
Until then,
Keep building (and earning trust)
Tibo 💻
P.S. This might sound pessimistic, but I see it as an opportunity. While everyone's building more products, you can focus on building more trust.
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