How Startups Grow with a Product-Centric Approach
One of the biggest questions for startups is how to stand out in the market. Launching and succeeding with a new product is never easy—especially in spaces already saturated with competing options. If you have ever asked, “What strategy can actually grow a startup?”, this piece is for you.
Here, we look at how a product-centric strategy can drive innovation and market success. We also examine failure cases to show the limits of a product-centric approach and why balancing it with a customer-centric strategy matters.
Customer-centric vs. Product-centric
1. Customer-centric
A customer-centric approach puts customer needs and requirements first. Customer feedback, market research, and user experience are central to product development and service improvements. By actively collecting and reflecting customers’ opinions and offering tailored services, you raise satisfaction.
For example, Amazon increases customer satisfaction with personalized recommendations and fast delivery. Its review system builds trust and feeds insights back into product improvements. This approach helps companies respond flexibly to market shifts and differentiate from competitors.
2. Product-centric
A product-centric approach focuses on the innovation and quality of the product itself—believing that if you build the best product, customers will follow. The emphasis is on technological breakthroughs, distinctive features, and excellent design to lead differentiation and innovation in the market.
Apple is a classic example. With products like iPhone and iPad, Apple leads markets by concentrating on design and technological innovation. This approach can open new markets or create an advantage in existing ones.
Surviving crowded markets: build something 10× better
In saturated markets, incremental improvements are not enough. You need a product that is ten times better than the alternatives.
Consider a familiar example: restaurants. Suppose a new spot opens a little farther away than your usual neighborhood place. Your first visit feels “a bit better” in taste or ambiance. Will you switch? Most customers will not abandon habit and pay the “switching cost” of traveling farther for merely a slight improvement. Unless the food is dramatically better or the atmosphere is truly memorable, they will not go out of their way. As TV host Baek Jong-won often says on Alley Restaurant, “It has to be worth coming all the way here. If it’s just similar, people won’t bother.”
Likewise, to win in a fiercely competitive market, build something 10× better—10× cheaper, 10× faster, 10× more delightful to use, or otherwise vastly superior. Product-led growth at that magnitude is how startups survive.
Product-centric successes: Superhuman & Apple
Superhuman: a 10× faster email client
Superhuman, known for email, is a SaaS company obsessed with building an exceptional product. The email client market is dominated by heavyweights like Gmail and Outlook, yet Superhuman set a new bar with ultra-fast triage, an intuitive UI, and powerful shortcuts. Despite a high price, users rave because the experience is markedly better than incumbents.
Apple’s iPhone: the start of the smartphone revolution
Before iPhone, smartphones existed—Nokia devices, PDAs, and more—but complex UIs and limited functionality held them back. While feature lists were not wildly different, Apple changed the paradigm with an intuitive touch interface, refined design, and the extensibility of the App Store. Demand for smartphones was clear, but no product had integrated music, calling, and the internet into a single, elegant experience. By obsessing over a 10× better user experience, Apple prevailed in a crowded market.
Product-centric failures: Apple & Dyson
A product-centric strategy does not always succeed. Focusing on innovation alone can blind you to market realities and actual customer needs.
Apple Lisa: the limits of a product-centric bet
In 1983 Apple launched the Lisa (short for Local Integrated Software Architecture). It was groundbreaking—the first to introduce a GUI with mouse-and-icon interaction that made computers easier to use. Yet it failed commercially.
Lisa revealed the limits of product-centric thinking. Apple emphasized innovative technology while underestimating real-world constraints. The price—US $9,995 at the time—put it out of reach for most consumers. Complex system architecture dulled performance, and software compatibility posed problems. Although aimed at enterprises, the high cost and limited software support dampened interest. Users did not perceive enough value to justify the expense, leading to poor sales. Apple invested heavily in development and marketing but failed to meet customer needs—and took a major loss.
Dyson Zone air-purifying headphones: questionable need
In 2022 Dyson unveiled the Dyson Zone—noise-canceling headphones combined with a personal air purifier. The concept promised clean air via a visor while you listened to music, shielding users from city noise and pollution. Despite the bold idea and pre-launch buzz, market reaction disappointed.
The device’s bulk and weight hurt portability and comfort. Many felt self-conscious wearing such a conspicuous product outdoors. A high price further narrowed appeal. And questions arose about whether it excelled as both a purifier and a headphone. The product showcased Dyson’s innovative engineering and design, but it fell short on everyday usefulness and real consumer demand. Innovation alone did not persuade the market.
These failures highlight a key lesson: innovation must be validated against customer reality. Technical excellence and creative ideas matter, but they must align with what customers actually need and will use.
Customer-based product-centric growth
Knowing precisely what customers want is the heart of product development. Whether you lean product-centric or customer-centric, you will not build a successful product—or a viable company—without deeply understanding customer needs and desires. As the failure cases show, relying on a single strategy is risky. Pursue innovation, and check whether it fits customer realities and market conditions.
A customer-based product-centric strategy does both: it seeks innovation while vigorously incorporating customer needs and feedback to sharpen product direction and quality. By listening to customers, you surface strengths and weaknesses, learn what to improve, and decide which features to add or remove. If users struggle with a particular function, you fix it and improve UX, which raises satisfaction, repeat use, and loyalty.
This approach also enables agile responses to market change. Customer needs and preferences evolve; detecting shifts quickly and reflecting them in the product keeps you ahead. Ultimately, you maximize product value by harmonizing innovation with customer demand. What matters is the value customers actually feel—that is what drives success.
For startups that must quickly understand needs and ship innovative products, a customer-based product-centric approach is effective because it delivers both innovation and customer satisfaction, supporting sustainable growth.
How MOBA grows with a customer-based product-centric approach
MOBA is a SaaS startup in the competitive work-management space, building the Arch Calendar that combines a to-do list with a calendar. We aim to create an excellent product with uncompromising quality and elegant UX so customers can work more productively.
While we believe in product-led growth driven by great products, from the first idea onward we have spent the past year meeting with roughly 500 customers to think deeply about what they truly want. Under the banner of “we must build an outstanding product,” we go beyond passively accepting requests—we focus development on features customers need (including ones they may not yet know to ask for). That is why we do not fixate on simple A/B tests or raw numbers alone. Instead, we verify needs through user interviews, strive to build something 10× better than existing products, and stay close to customers as we grow with a customer-based product-centric strategy.
We listen frequently not just because we value “great products,” but because only products that deliver real customer value keep startups alive. Even Steve Jobs had many product misfires, including Lisa. Refusing to be trapped in a single mode and aiming for customer-based, product-centric growth reflects our commitment to building truly innovative products that customers need.