Instead of inventing new features, Prepared identified its most lucrative expansion opportunity by seeing users' painful workarounds. They noticed 911 dispatchers manually copy-pasting foreign language texts into Google Translate—a clear signal of a high-value problem they could solve directly.

A month before launch, Figma's whiteboarding tool, FigJam, felt undifferentiated. In a high-stakes meeting with the team and board, they pivoted strategy to focus entirely on making it 'fun.' This led to features like cursor high-fives that gave the product its soul and market distinction.

Intentionally create open-ended, flexible products. Observe how power users "abuse" them for unintended purposes. This "latent demand" reveals valuable, pre-validated opportunities for new features or products, as seen with Facebook's Marketplace and Dating features.

Early user research showed designers did not want a collaborative, multiplayer tool. However, Figma's web-based architecture made a single-player experience technically terrible (e.g., tabs constantly reloading). They were forced by the technology to build multiplayer functionality, which ultimately became their key differentiator, proving the platform's needs can override initial user requests.

Users often develop multi-product workarounds for issues they don't even recognize as solvable problems. Identifying these subconscious behaviors reveals significant innovation opportunities that users themselves cannot articulate.

Contrary to conventional startup advice, Figma's founders began with a fascination for a technology (WebGL) and then searched for a problem to solve. This technology-first approach, a hammer looking for a nail, led them to explore various failed ideas like face-swapping before eventually landing on collaborative design tools.

Canva's success wasn't from targeting competitors but from identifying a real market gap through their first niche product (a yearbook tool). When users asked to use the tool for newsletters, it validated a larger, unsolved pain point that Canva then focused on exclusively.

When FigJam felt soulless a month before launch, the team made a controversial decision to differentiate it by making it fun. This seemed frivolous but was strategically crucial for encouraging participation and creative expression in brainstorming sessions, especially during the remote-work era.

To grow an established product, introduce new formats (e.g., Instagram Stories, Google AI Mode) as separate but integrated experiences. This allows you to tap into new user behaviors without disrupting the expectations and mental models users have for the core product, avoiding confusion and accelerating adoption.