lean into your strengths resonated

I think so too but coming from physical product development, my life has been never to show anything publicly until its finished or released. But now in the driver seat - I'm like " i can't show this until I'm ready to launch this for actual sale, because its now something I'm legitimately trying to build." SO I think I need to have patents filed and trademark at least filed before I even post the concept. I'm trying to rid myself of this approach - its so different for software/its just faster/less friction to build and release - maybe this is partly because there's not a lot of capital expended to build digital product vs physical product. But perhaps not any less impactful - perhaps more in some cases is the software. It feels less stressful to release apps because you can just update it and now with vibecoding its even faster. But with products, I think when its out there you can't change form factors once its released, even just as a rendering otherwise someone else begins to copy it and start to sell it to compete with you. Perhaps, I'm realizing people are going to do whatever they want to do anyway so just get the thing out and take it from there is a better philosophy. At least it would be someway to gauge demand, but if another person comes out with the same thing then I have no ownership legally to the product, then have to just settle to open-source

@Brad Codd Thank you Brad - sage advice. This helps guide on how to approach software development. Were your companies software or hardware based? Really appreciate your honesty and hearing about your experience. When it comes to hardware - another concern I have is having launching with no patent and then a competitor develops a copycat - files for patent and turns around threatens to sue me for selling it. I think I will have to do the trademark and provisional at least, that's what the patent attorney I spoke to said. The AI revolution and vibecoding definitely has shifted my philosophy / principles of development and what that means for ownership of the product or the idea, perhaps this is why for some, open-source isn't a matter of giving up or capital issues but being first to market and building a following for the product matters more. its even worse for software since a website or app can be cloned in a day and go live to the entire world. I maybe shouldn't be as fearful with a physical product as actual hardware creation/assembly/shipping of the product provides some airgap before a direct clone can be made. But contrarily I'm seeing weird things happen in tech where product concepts (visuals) and high level prototypes are being released directly to the public and funded before production / fully baked. For example neo by 1x https://www.1x.tech/ this video explains some of the radical change that's happening in the physical product realm - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j31dmodZ-5c&t=442s Just definitely seeing a shift of software SOP bleed into hardware. Product testing and user validation/satisfaction is all that matters and that gap is even greater in physical product. (I'm sort of answering my own concerns while writing this, but yea its a wild time to be alive...)

Looking forward to test driving