To build a complex real-world business, the founding team did every job themselves. This hands-on experience provided critical insights that algorithms or data analysis alone could never uncover, such as knowing not to assign a driver if food isn't ready.

Standard validation isn't enough for mission-critical products. Go beyond lab testing and 'triple validate' in the wild. This means simulating extreme conditions: poor connectivity, difficult physical environments (cold, sun glare), and users under stress or who haven't been trained. Focus on breaking the product, not just confirming the happy path.

During product discovery, Amazon teams ask, "What would be our worst possible news headline?" This pre-mortem practice forces the team to identify and confront potential weak points, blind spots, and negative outcomes upfront. It's a powerful tool for looking around corners and ensuring all bases are covered before committing to build.

At DoorDash, disagreements between smart people are not resolved by who writes the best document or has the most seniority. Instead, their "bias for action" value means they ship something—even a hacked-together prototype—to get real-world data and let the market settle the debate.

Treat product data as a reflection of human behavior. At DoorDash, realizing the order status page had 3x more views than the homepage revealed intense user anxiety ("hanger"). This insight, derived from a data outlier, directly led to the creation of live order tracking.

Brainstorming cannot reveal the true friction in your customer experience. Following JetBlue's example, leaders must regularly become their own customers. This practice uncovers how high-level decisions inadvertently create flaws in the customer journey that are invisible from the boardroom.

The most powerful innovations often come from solving your own irritations. Instead of accepting that something 'sucks' (like conferences or food delivery), playfully brainstorm a version that wouldn't suck. This gap between the current poor experience and your ideal one is where the opportunity lies.

Dogfooding isn't enough. Founders should use every feature of their product weekly to develop a subjective feel for quality. Combine this with objective metrics like the percentage of unhappy customers and the engineering velocity for adding new features.

Instead of traditional market research tools, scrape Google Maps data. Analyze business listings, review volume, and sentiment to find niches with high customer demand but low satisfaction, signaling a clear market gap for a new or improved service.