Successful Developers and Digital Writers Follow These 3 Principles to Build Great Products

Technical proficiency isn’t the most important thing about building products.

Hey there!

Welcome to Bit by Bit, a newsletter where I share content on building software, writing online, and levelling yourself up.

This week: what we can learn about building great products from developers and digital writers.

Let’s dive in.

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Technical proficiency isn’t the most important thing about building products.

Great developers and writers can program and write well, respectively. But they also understand that there are more important things to deliver high-quality products.

Here are 3 principles you can learn from developers and digital writers to do just that.

1. They focus on the end user

A product is only as good as the experience it delivers to the end user.

I love the process of writing code. It’s incredibly satisfying to enter a flow state, solve complex challenges, and deliver clean, readable code.

But I also know that code is a means to an end.

Who cares how nicely my code reads if it doesn’t solve a problem or help the end user?

Digital writers understand this, too.

You can write the fanciest, most clever, or well-written sentences.

But what if those words don’t evoke any emotions in the reader? Or provide tangible value?

Then they’re useless.

The best developers and writers I know ruthlessly prioritize shipping valuable work to the end user.

2. They know the value of rapid feedback loops

We now know that we need to focus on our users.

How do we do that?

One way is to gather feedback from them as often as possible. Tight feedback loops are critical to improving the product.

As a developer, it’s important to ship features quickly so that you can understand how users use your application.

• What are their pain points?

• Is the user experience solid?

• Have they found any frustrating bugs?

The same line of thinking applies to good writing:

• What content resonates with my reader?

• What problems do my readers have?

• Why did this post bomb?

As a writer, it’s useful to write frequently on a social platform (X, LinkedIn, Medium, etc.) to figure out what’s working and what isn’t.

You’ll improve much faster and deliver useful, quality pieces more often.

Ship. Get feedback. Adjust along the way.

3. They’re not afraid to learn and explore new ideas to improve their craft

To consistently build high-quality products, you need to embrace lifelong learning.

I’m always researching new technologies and workflows that will improve my work as a software developer. All to ship better software to users.

Successful digital writers don’t fear AI replacing their jobs. They embrace AI-assisted writing practices and leverage AI to improve their work.

You have to be wary of shiny object syndrome. Too many new tools pop up each day for you to cut through all of the noise.

But you do need to stay up-to-date in fast-moving industries to ship amazing products.

Don’t get complacent or comfortable with what you know.

Keep learning and growing to deliver better products for your users.