# Get to the Core of the Thing
**作者**: Shreyas Doshi
**日期**: 2026-05-16T16:37:33.000Z
**来源**: [https://x.com/shreyas/status/2055689118248763561](https://x.com/shreyas/status/2055689118248763561)
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A founder I advise asked me last week: “Should we go wide or should we go deep?”
She runs an AI startup. Two big incumbents had just announced they were entering her space. The team was anxious about this. Hence their question: do we expand the surface area of the product, or sharpen what we already have?
It’s a perfectly rational question. It’s also the wrong question.
Here is what I told the founder: reframe that question. Completely. Get rid of it.
Because the moment you ask “wide or deep” in a room full of smart people, the next 40 minutes will be spent debating “wide or deep”. Someone will pull up a doc. Someone will reference what Stripe did. Someone will share a sexy framework (“well, according to the Kano model…”). Someone will impress everyone with an evocative sports analogy. Someone will say, smugly, “well, it depends”.
And at the end of it, you will feel like you had a strategic conversation. You did not. You have wasted your time because your entire framing was wrong.
In every product conversation, the framing decides the discussion. People rise to whatever level of abstraction the question opens up. Board conversations especially. But it’s the same with executive staff conversations and team conversations.
The reason is simple: at that altitude, everyone gets to sound smart.
Wide vs. deep.
Platform vs. point solution.
Horizontal vs. vertical.
Should we reduce CAC or should we increase LTV.
These framings are universally seductive because they make everyone in the room feel clever and sound smart, without requiring deep knowledge of your customers or creativity. You get the social status and the brownie points while avoiding the actually hard thinking of what are your specific bets on specific features.
The truth is one level down. Always.
The real question is not “wide or deep.” The real question is: what is going to work? What feature is going to resonate? What capability will get this person, the one whose call you took yesterday, whose frustration you can still hear, to actually buy, and to actually stay with your product?
That is the question worth your time.
I know how this sounds. It sounds like product 101. It is product 101. And it is unsatisfying, because it forces you to give up the comfort of strategic-sounding language and stand in front of a much harder question, which is: do you actually know what your customers need, can you conceive real differentiation in the face of stiff competition, and can you build that differentiation creatively (and quickly)?
If the answer is yes, the wide/deep debate becomes entirely unnecessary. You’ll go a little wide where it serves the bet. A little deep where it serves the bet. The shape of your product follows from the specific bets driven by keen customer insight and market understanding. It does not follow from an hour-long discussion (or God forbid: a day-long L-team strategy offsite) on wide/deep, CAC/LTV, platform/point, etc. etc.
If the answer is no, if you can’t articulate the specific features that would matter, then no framework, sports metaphor, latest podcast anecdote, or Anthropic case study will save you. Deciding to go “deep” on the wrong thing because someone in the room used a great-sounding analogy (“we want to be Lovable for the construction supply chain”) is just a slow, painful way to be wrong in product work.
So whenever someone hands you a binary at altitude dressed up in clever business-speak, whether it’s wide vs. deep, or CAC vs. LTV, or any of the others, your job is to refuse it. Get to the core of the thing. Then talk about that.
Everything else is theater.
## 相关链接
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- [@shreyas](https://x.com/shreyas)
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- [12:37 AM · May 17, 2026](https://x.com/shreyas/status/2055689118248763561)
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*导出时间: 2026/5/17 21:24:50*
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## 中文翻译
# 事物的核心
**作者**: Shreyas Doshi
**日期**: 2026-05-16T16:37:33.000Z
**来源**: [https://x.com/shreyas/status/2055689118248763561](https://x.com/shreyas/status/2055689118248763561)
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上周,我辅导的一位创业者问我:“我们应该广度优先还是深度优先?”
她经营着一家 AI 初创公司。两家行业巨头刚刚宣布进军她的领域。团队对此感到焦虑。因此他们提出了这个问题:我们要扩大产品的覆盖面,还是打磨现有的产品?
这是一个完全合乎逻辑的问题。但这也是一个错误的问题。
我是这样告诉那位创始人的:重构这个问题。彻底重构。把它抛诸脑后。
因为当你在满屋子聪明人面前提出“做广还是做深”时,接下来的 40 分钟都会用来辩论“做广还是做深”。有人会打开文档。有人会引用 Stripe 的做法。有人会分享一个时髦的框架(“嗯,根据 Kano 模型……”)。有人会用一个令人回味的体育类比让大家印象深刻。有人会自鸣得意地说:“嗯,这要看情况。”
最后,你会觉得你们进行了一场战略对话。其实并没有。你浪费了时间,因为你的整个思考框架就是错的。
在每一次产品讨论中,框架决定了讨论的方向。人们会上升到问题所开启的抽象层面。尤其是董事会讨论。高管层会议和团队讨论也是如此。
原因很简单:在那个高度,每个人听起来都很聪明。
广度 vs 深度。
平台 vs 点解决方案。
横向 vs 纵向。
我们应该降低 CAC(获客成本)还是提高 LTV(客户终身价值)。
这些框架具有普遍的诱惑力,因为它们能让房间里的每个人都感觉聪明、听起来专业,而不需要深入了解客户或发挥创造力。你获得了社会地位和赞赏分,却避开了真正艰难的思考:你对特定功能的具体赌注是什么?
真相永远在更下一层。
真正的问题不是“做广还是做深”。真正的问题是:什么才会奏效?哪个功能能引起共鸣?哪种能力能让这个人——那个昨天给你打电话、你还能听出他满腹牢骚的人——真正购买,并真正留存下来?
这才是值得你花时间探讨的问题。
我知道这听起来像什么。这听起来像产品入门。这确实是产品入门。这让人难以接受,因为它迫使你放弃那些听起来很有战略感的语言带来的舒适感,去面对一个更难的问题:你真的知道客户需要什么吗?你能在激烈的竞争中构想出真正的差异化吗?你能创造性地(并快速地)构建出这种差异化吗?
如果答案是肯定的,那么关于广度/深度的辩论就完全没有必要了。在符合赌注的地方,你会稍微广一点;在符合赌注的地方,你会稍微深一点。产品的形态源于由敏锐的客户洞察和市场理解驱动的具体赌注。它不是源于关于广度/深度、CAC/LTV、平台/单点等长达一小时的讨论(或者是天晓得为期一天的管理团队战略闭门会)。
如果答案是否定的,如果你无法阐明哪些具体功能才是重要的,那么没有任何框架、体育隐喻、最新的播客轶事或 Anthropic 的案例研究能救得了你。仅仅因为房间里的人用了一个听起来很棒的类比(“我们要成为建筑供应链领域的‘Lovable’”)就决定在错误的事情上“深耕”,那只是在产品工作中走向失败的一种缓慢而痛苦的方式。
所以,每当有人给你一个披着巧妙商业术语外衣的高维二元对立问题时,无论是广度还是深度、CAC 还是 LTV,还是其他任何对立,你的任务就是拒绝它。直击事物的核心。然后谈论核心。
其他一切都是表演。
## 相关链接
- [Shreyas Doshi](https://x.com/shreyas)
- [@shreyas](https://x.com/shreyas)
- [114K](https://x.com/shreyas/status/2055689118248763561/analytics)
- [升级至 Premium](https://x.com/i/premium_sign_up)
- [12:37 AM · May 17, 2026](https://x.com/shreyas/status/2055689118248763561)
- [114.3K 次观看](https://x.com/shreyas/status/2055689118248763561/analytics)
- [查看引用](https://x.com/shreyas/status/2055689118248763561/quotes)
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*导出时间: 2026/5/17 21:24:50*