doctor like product thinking
I’ve been reflecting on what good product teams can learn from doctors when building the right products.
You walk into any good hospital today and you’ll notice:
- 60–80% of your time is spent on diagnosis, not treatment.
- Lab A to Lab B.
- Blood test. Scan. Another scan.
They’re looking for enough meaningful signals (patterns, symptoms, context) to reach roughly 70% confidence before deciding what to do next.
They start with the smallest intervention likely to help, then see how the patient responds.
So maybe the right mindset is this — with the right diagnosis, the right product almost builds itself:
- Spend time, like a doctor, deeply understanding the problem.
- Prescribe the least amount of intervention needed to meaningfully help.
- Check in after a few days.
- Adjust.
- Repeat.