I often hear enthusiastic co-workers say, “we should build a …” What they want to build varies, though there are recurring themes, for instance an online learning platform. Whenever this happens, I always ask two questions, which they have often not considered.

The first question is “how can we do this better than everyone else?” The idea is almost never something completely new. There’s usually someone, often multiple someones, building that product in that space already. If there isn’t something about us or our strategy that will make our product better, what’s the point? It’s easy to use market position to push a mediocre, also-ran product. That doesn’t mean it’s a good investment. Why do I want to steer someone to my lesser product instead of something superior that already exists? It’s not good for the customer, and it’s not how I want to spend my life.

The second question is “what do we stop working on to build this?” Ignoring the first question, usually the problem is not finding useful things to build. People are generally smart enough to mostly avoid things that are a complete waste of time. What they’re not as naturally good at is working on the things that are most valuable to work on. We have finite time, energy, and money, and we almost never have people sitting around doing nothing. Building one thing means not building something else. What is that something else? It’s easy to advocate for something when you don’t perceive a cost.

These aren’t fun questions to ask. In the negative case, they’re an unpleasant reality check that shuts down the idea. In the positive case, there are good answers to these questions that justify following through on the idea. Usually it’s somewhere in the middle: the idea dies, but the questions prompt thoughtful reflection and maybe even some learning. That’ll do.