Product Design

The epic (sad) story of why businesses and software products fail so often

March 29, 2026By steve@plexgraf.com

False-economies-cause-business-and-product-failures

When it comes to viable software (and hardware) product design, most people in business don't understand 'the problem' , let alone the 'solution space'

Whether it's executives or mid-level product managers in big software companies or founders in small venture-backed start-ups, most people in business don't understand 'the problem' , let alone the 'solution space'.

So I commissioned a thought-piece by the best research bot I know... gave it lots of input. I told it about:

Dismal examples in product design where executives ruined team efforts
How software companies are incredibly penny wise and pound foolish - killing ROI
I also gave the AI an example of braindead executives spending $80k on a $100k product feature when ~$120k would have worked miracles
Just +20% effort (not just dollars... effort) for better design and engineering brings ~10X the business value, ROI and viable customer base
I told it how I like Toyota process, kaizen, lean UX and Allan Kelly as remedies

Here's the report:

Software Product Failures: Short-Termism vs Investment (PDF)

Success Story: Cost-effective AI models answer data analytics, business intelligence and data science questions

See the results of a 2-year research project to use AI inference and NLP interfaces to answer complex data analytics and data science queries.

Understanding the looming AI Infosec Crisis - Is it too late?

Anthropic's Carlini ends his talk with a line worth taking seriously: “These next couple of months will really be some of the most important couple of months for security.” He is not being dramatic. He is pointing out the shape of our impending doom while also saying... let's not give up just yet.

From Citizens (a data center RFP)For Citizens (a green campus)

Our mission is to give communities a fair deal when data centers come to town and become a permanent aspect of the local landscape.

GreenPlex is a green living, playing, working campus built to answer the needs of the Citizens, a campus the community specifies. Organizationally, GreenPlex is comprised of formal partnerships between universities, communities, facilities developers, virtual energy providers, collaboration engineers and AI experts.

Let’s collaborate! Please get in touch:

jmay@greenplex.aiJohn May · 703-624-2719

The question isn’t whether communities should say yes or no to data centers. The question is why wait for data center developers to tell us what we’re getting.

The GreenPlex campus seen across the lake — a maker space and lab, a controlled-environment produce farm, green data centers on the ridge, and a community and business center