A quick story from a past project that stuck with me.

I once worked with a founder whose product just wasn’t working- and everyone on the team quietly knew it. The idea was solid, but the UX was confusing and the foundation was shaky.

When I joined, instead of stepping back to fix the root problems, I kept being asked to “just tweak this screen” or “make that part look nicer.” Tiny patches on a product that clearly needed a full rehaul.

The hardest part wasn’t the design- it was trying to explain that piecemeal fixes don’t save a broken experience. If the core is weak, no amount of polishing will make the product succeed.