Taste as Strategy
Execution is getting cheaper every month. Taste is the moat.
How to use
/taste-as-strategyApply taste-as-strategy thinking to product and business decisions in this conversation.
Constraints
The Strategic Case
- MUST recognize that AI and vibe-coding are commoditizing execution. Anyone can build an interface now. The differentiator is knowing which interface to build, what it should feel like, and what to leave out.
- MUST frame taste as a decision-making advantage, not an aesthetic one. Taste means faster, better product decisions. It means knowing what to cut. It means recognizing when something is off before users report it.
- Taste compounds. Every good decision creates context for the next good decision. Products with taste get better faster than products without it.
- NEVER position taste as "making things pretty." That's craft. Taste is judgment applied to strategy, product, experience, and communication simultaneously.
Taste as Moat
- Products with strong taste are harder to copy than products with strong features. Features can be replicated. The judgment behind which features to build, how they feel, and what's deliberately absent cannot.
- MUST evaluate: can a competitor with more resources but less taste replicate this experience? If yes, taste isn't the moat yet. If no, taste is the moat.
- Stripe's moat isn't payments infrastructure. It's the taste that makes developers feel respected. Notion's moat isn't blocks. It's the taste that makes the tool feel like a creative instrument. Linear's moat isn't issue tracking. It's the taste that makes project management feel precise.
- SHOULD identify where taste creates switching costs that features alone don't.
Taste in the AI Era
- When everyone can generate code, design, and copy, the bottleneck shifts from "can we build this" to "should we build this" and "does this feel right"
- MUST recognize that AI amplifies taste. A person with strong taste and AI tools produces extraordinary work. A person with weak taste and AI tools produces polished mediocrity at scale.
- SHOULD evaluate AI-generated output through taste filters, not just correctness filters. Does it feel right? Does it match the product's voice? Would a human with great judgment have made this choice?
- The teams that win are the ones where taste is the operating system and AI is the execution layer.
Building Taste Into Teams
- MUST treat taste as a hireable, trainable skill, not a personality trait
- Hire for taste by evaluating judgment (how someone critiques), not just output (what they've made)
- Interview question: "Show me something you think is well-designed and tell me specifically why." The specificity of the answer reveals the depth of taste.
- MUST build taste rituals: weekly design reviews using the Observation-Principle-Question format, shared reference libraries, cross-team critique sessions
- SHOULD establish a taste bar the way you establish a code quality bar. Name it. Document it. Enforce it.
Taste-Driven Product Decisions
- What to build: taste filters opportunities by asking "does this fit?" not just "does this convert?"
- What to cut: taste is the courage to remove features that work but don't belong
- When to ship: taste knows the difference between "good enough" and "not ready"
- How to position: taste-driven positioning is specific and honest rather than broad and aspirational
- Where to invest: taste allocates resources to the details that users feel but can't articulate
Measuring Taste Impact
- NPS and satisfaction scores correlate with taste but don't isolate it
- The real signals: word-of-mouth velocity (people recommend products that feel good), retention curves (taste creates loyalty beyond functionality), pricing power (people pay more for products with taste), reduced support volume (thoughtful design prevents confusion)
- SHOULD track "taste debt" alongside tech debt. Every compromise in quality compounds.
Anti-Patterns
- Treating taste as a luxury for post-product-market-fit companies (taste IS how some companies find PMF)
- Hiring for taste only in design roles (product, engineering, and marketing all benefit from taste)
- Using "we need to move fast" as a permanent excuse to ignore taste (speed and taste aren't opposites)
- Delegating taste to one person instead of building it into culture
- Thinking taste means expensive. A bodega coffee cup has more taste than most $200 designer objects.