The product we built, launched, and killed in six months

Six months of hard work. A slick product UI. A launch campaign with ghosts shooting lasers out of their eyes. Customer testimonials. 26 playbooks. A new homepage hero.

And then we killed it.

Not slowly or gracefully. We ripped Funnel Vision out of the product within weeks—while Josh spent his days personally calling 180 enterprise customers to explain why.

In our latest episode of This Meeting Could've Been a Podcast, Josh and I unpack how we sunset a product we'd just launched and built our entire messaging around. Josh talks founder blind spots, and we both get honest about why some learning curves simply can't be skipped.

What you’ll learn:

• Why giving customers more options made things worse, not better
• How to recognize when a product needs to be killed — not fixed
• What it actually takes to sunset a product fast
• Why talking to customers directly beats a templated email every time
• How brand trust gives you permission to publicly admit you made the wrong move
• The concept of a "tar pit idea"—and why some mistakes are necessary evils

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TOP THREE TAKEAWAYS

Takeaway 1: The way you think customers will use your product isn't always how they actually want to use it

 It's easy to fall in love with your own solution. You've lived with the problem, mapped out the logic, and it all makes perfect sense…to you.

So when customers don't use it the way you expected, the instinct is to push harder—not step back. But sometimes the issue isn't adoption or education. It's that you've built for a problem that doesn't match reality. The way customers actually want to operate is different from the way you assumed they would.

That's a hard pill to swallow—especially when you've invested months into something. But recognizing it early is what lets you course-correct before the gap gets wider.

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Takeaway 2: Brand trust buys you flexibility

Here's a benefit of investing in brand that no one really talks about: when you need to change direction, people give you room to do it.

If your audience knows you as scrappy, authentic, and real—and that's genuinely built into how you show up—there's already a tolerance if things have to shift. They trust that you're making the call for the right reasons, not just scrambling.

Compare that to a stuffy enterprise brand where sunsetting a product means a year of internal approvals, and maybe supporting it for years after you've killed it. That's limiting — and exhausting.

When your brand is built on honesty and moving fast, you can say "Hey, we're trying our best out here" and it lands. Not because people don't care, but because they already believe you.

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Takeaway 3: Some learning curves are necessary evils

There's a concept in startup land that Josh shared with me called a "tar pit idea." It's the one that looks incredible from a distance—so obvious, so logical, you wonder why no one's done it before.

Like a mirage on the horizon. And then you get closer and realize: oh, that's why.

I totally get it—the instinct is to wish you'd seen it coming. That you could've avoided the wasted time, the sunk effort, the awkward conversations. But sometimes running into the tar pit is the only way to understand why it doesn't work.

Would Josh do Funnel Vision again, knowing what he knows now? Yes. Not because the pain was fun, but because the insight on the other side was necessary. Some lessons don't land until you've lived them. And sometimes the wrong path is exactly what gets you to the right one.

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So, was it worth it?

Building something for six months, launching it, and then killing it weeks later isn't exactly the dream. But it's also not the disaster it feels like in the moment.

The reality is, I think most companies will face a version of this at some point. A product that doesn't land. A feature that looked great on paper. A direction that made sense until it didn't.

The difference isn't whether it happens—it's how you respond when it does. Move fast. Talk to your customers. And if you've invested in a brand people trust, lean on it.

Catch the full episode (and subscribe to This Meeting Could’ve Been a Podcast!) on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform.