Delight your customers

As the cost of writing software approaches zero, most digital products will become commoditized.

If anyone can build anything, the functional moat - the thing your product does better - gets harder and harder to defend.

So where does differentiation go? Let’s look outside software for some inspiration.

Think about your favorite restaurant. There are probably dozens of places serving the same cuisine, at the same price, within walking distance. Why do you go back to that one? Is it the food? The vibe? Or is it the fact that the owner remembers you, and once dropped a free appetizer on your table for no reason at all?

Think about your favorite soft drink. Is it the taste? The way it looks? The way it feels in your hand? The sound of the can opening after a long, stressful work day? Somehow a Coca-Cola became tasting “happiness” along the way.

Think about your bank. Their interest rate is the same as everywhere else. Could the reason for sticking with them be the support rep who answered in 30 seconds when your wallet was stolen, and actually seemed to care?

These customer delight moments make your product memorable. They create something much more durable than a feature advantage: preference.

Preference is harder to build than a product. But once you have it, it’s also much stickier.

This is what I think the design premium in software is really about - it’s why people choose Linear over Jira, Notion over Confluence, Airbnb over Vrbo. The functional gap often isn’t that large. The felt experience is.

As software commoditizes, the companies that win won’t just be the ones with the best features. They’ll be the ones that made you feel something - and kept making you feel it.

Delight drives preference. Preference drives retention. Retention drives everything else.

Design for customer delight. Market for customer delight.