A B2B PM's confessions: building B-end products from 0 to 1

Eight years of B2B products, from e-commerce backends to enterprise ERPs — more pits stepped in than I can count. These are the things I most want to tell newcomers.

Research: don't believe what users say, watch what they do

B-end users' words and actions diverge. “I need Excel export” often really means “I need reconciliation.” Solutions matter more than features.

Design: efficiency first, don't over-design

B-end users want efficiency. Ugly-but-usable beats beautiful-and-slow; over-design raises learning costs and breeds resistance.

Versioning: stable majors, fast minors

Release major versions carefully with long stabilization windows; iterate fast on minors while keeping backward compatibility.

Customer success beats product

B2B competitiveness lives in implementation and service. Good customer success keeps clients paying; bad customer success kills products after sale.