Why First Principles Are Underrated in Everyday Product Decisions
Most product decisions don’t fail because of execution. They fail because of assumptions — the kind that slip in quietly, get repeated often, and eventually become default.
In fast-moving teams, we optimise for momentum: timelines, launches, incremental improvements. And in the process, we often inherit ways of thinking — about users, flows, pricing, edge cases — without revisiting whether the fundamentals still hold.
That’s where first principles matter. Not as a theoretical concept, but as a tool to clear the fog.
First principles aren’t about big bets. They’re about clarity.
People assume first principles thinking is only for solving hard problems or building something new. In reality, it’s more useful in the day-to-day — especially when things seem obvious.
It’s a practice of asking:
What are we assuming here?
What has to be true for this to work?
Are we solving the right layer of the problem?
That small pause in thinking often avoids weeks of rework downstream.
Defaults aren’t neutral — they compound.
Over time, teams build muscle memory: how we scope features, handle edge cases, define “done”. Many of those defaults were created under different contexts — but we rarely stop to re-evaluate them.
That’s where issues creep in:
We solve UX problems that are actually awareness gaps.
We ship features that mimic competitors but don’t serve our user journeys.
We prioritise speed over clarity — and end up with faster cycles of shallow iteration.
When you work from first principles, you don't automatically reject the default. You just revalidate it. And that alone improves the quality of decisions.
It shows up in small ways:
In writing PRDs, it helps avoid over-scoping by forcing us to separate core from nice-to-have.
In growth discussions, it cuts through noise by asking: what problem are we really solving with this new lever?
In customer support workflows, it forces clarity on who the user is at that moment — not in a persona deck, but in the real context.
These aren’t big, philosophical changes. But they reduce drift. They bring focus back to fundamentals.
A simple practice:
When making any decision — especially fast ones — just ask:
“What assumptions are baked into this?”
You don’t need a workshop. You just need a moment of clarity.
And that moment often saves you from solving the wrong problem well.
This isn’t about overthinking. It’s about intentionality.
And in high-velocity teams, intentionality is often the first thing sacrificed.
Start there. Not with frameworks, not with tools — just with a habit of asking better questions.
It compounds.