Lessons on building product sense, navigating AI, optimizing the first mile, and making it through the messy middle | Scott Belsky (Adobe, Behance)

Yeah, you know, I've had this conversation quite a few times over the years with founders and friends who were running a company going sideways or or or worse. And have had this question, should I continue or not? I always have the same answer. I basically say, How much conviction do you have in the solution you're building? I know in the beginning, before you knew all you know now, you had tons of conviction. That's what caused you to leave your job. Now knowing all you know, do you have more or less conviction in the problem and and the solution you're building? And I'll tell you, like I get different answers. You know, some people are like, Oh, Scott, I mean, I have more conviction. Like all that I've learned, all the validation I've received from customers, we just haven't figured it out yet. It's driving me crazy. We've tried three times and it's still like each product fails, but I have more conviction than ever before. And for those people, I'm like, you know what, you're just in the messy middle.

Stick with it. You know, this is this is uh par for the course. But You know, oftentimes I'll hear uh honestly, if I knew now what I if I knew then what I know now, I would not have done this. Like holy shit. I I'm like, then quit. Like your life is short. You have a great team. Pivot, do something completely different. If you've lost conviction, you should not be doing What you're doing in the world of entrepreneurship Welcome to Lenny's Podcast, where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-won experiences building and growing today's most successful products.

Today my guest is Scott Belski. Scott is an absolute product legend. He's a former founder starting a company called Be Hance. That he sold to Adobe? Where he worked up the ranks to chief product officer.

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