Build New or Fix Old?

Marty Cagan argues against setting a fixed percentage split between new product development and improving existing products. Instead, every investment, whether new or improvement, should be treated as a product opportunity that the product team assesses on benefits and costs, with management ensuring the company pursues the best ones. He points out that some of the highest-return opportunities sit inside existing products, especially where usability problems suppress conversion or drive support costs. He attributes the neglect of these fixes to companies assuming their products are already as good as they can be, often reflecting under-investment in design and user experience. The piece matters because it reframes a common portfolio debate into a question of opportunity quality and product craft.

01Key takeaways

• Treat new products and improvements alike as product investments and judge each by its opportunity quality.
• Avoid arbitrary percentage targets for new versus existing product spending.
• Examine existing funnels, such as subscription completion, for usability issues that can yield outsized returns.
• Better design can reduce support staffing costs and improve customer satisfaction and NPS.
• Question assumptions that a product is already as good as it can be or that low conversion is acceptable.
• Invest in design and user experience, and change how products are built, so new products do not inherit the same weaknesses.

02Key sections

Rethinking the allocation question

Cagan says fixed percentage guidelines for new versus existing products miss the point. Teams should focus on investing in the best opportunities regardless of their category.

Ownership of product opportunities

Product teams assess benefits and costs of each opportunity, while management or a product council ensures the company pursues the best ones. Being opportunistic is considered healthy.

Hidden gains in existing products

Usability problems in current products often yield the biggest returns, such as doubling revenue by lifting a subscription completion rate, and are frequently the simplest to solve through prototyping and testing.

Why companies miss these opportunities

Organizations tend to assume their products are already good enough, rationalizing low conversion or high support costs as normal rather than as signs of a weak product.

The root cause: under-investment in design

Weak products are often a symptom of under-investing in design and user experience, and building a new product without changing how it is produced just repeats the problem.

03From the post

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Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.