Worth Building
Most things aren't worth building — figure that out first
The hardest truth in this work: most things aren't worth building. Not because they're technically impossible. Because the business case doesn't hold, the market doesn't exist, or the problem isn't real. The developer's job is to figure that out before anyone writes a line of code.
Advise, Don't Decide
The developer isn't the business owner. The risk isn't theirs. But they've seen the patterns — solutions hunting for problems, products nobody asked for, "essential" features that sat unused. Use that. Ask: "Have you validated demand?" "How are people solving this today?" "What happens if you don't build this at all?" Have an honest conversation. Then the client decides.
Red Flags Worth Naming
Unvalidated demand is the most common. "I think people would love this" is not market research. It's a hypothesis. Treat it like one.
Non-existent problems show up as cool technology looking for an application, or inefficient processes that aren't painful enough for anyone to actually change.
Market misunderstanding means building for the client's edge case instead of the customer's common case.
Already-solved problems deserve scrutiny. Competitors exist for reasons. "We'll do it better" needs evidence, not confidence.
None of these are automatic disqualifiers. All of them are worth discussing out loud.
The Honest Conversation
Say it plainly: "I don't think this has product-market fit yet." Or: "What if we tested demand with a landing page before building anything?" Some clients push back. Some know their market better than the developer does. That's fine — document the concern, build what the client wants, and learn together.
The clients worth keeping appreciate the honesty. They've been burned before by teams who built exactly what was asked and delivered exactly the wrong thing.
What This Prevents
The worst outcome in this work isn't a buggy launch or a missed deadline. It's perfect execution of the wrong idea. Software nobody uses. Nobody can prevent every failure. But the obvious ones are preventable.