We need a product that our customers love, yet also works for our business. — Marty Cagan

We need a product that our customers love, yet also works for our business.

Author: Marty Cagan

Insight: Most companies eventually face this tension: the thing customers actually want often feels expensive or complicated to build. The easier path is to optimize for one side—either chase every customer request and bleed money, or build what's profitable and hope people buy it anyway. But Cagan's point is that both conditions matter equally. A product people love but can't sustain is just as doomed as a profitable product nobody wants. What makes this tricky in practice is that "works for our business" isn't code for "maximizes profit." It means sustainable—something the company can keep investing in, improving, and standing behind. And "love" doesn't mean perfection; it means customers feel the product solves a real problem better than alternatives. When both exist, something invisible happens: customers stick around, tell others about it, and the business actually survives long enough to matter. The counterintuitive part? Many teams think they have to choose. They don't. The real work isn't splitting the difference—it's asking harder questions about what customers actually need (not what they say they want) and what your business can genuinely deliver. That overlap is smaller than you think, but it's where real products live.