I don't mean this in a mean way at all but when I read this my mind mostly goes to wondering if the energy spent on marketing and building yet another product we've seen thousands of iterations of would be better spent on trying to think of things that produce genuine value. (Another chart app? Again I don't mean to be insulting at all but it doesn't seem to solve much that hasn't been solved already.) Maybe engineers should be learning how to sit in an empty quiet room for hours and just brainstorm ideas until they hit on something that would really be useful since once you come up with it implementing it can usually be done in a week.
My favorite manager, who went on to co-found Zeta[1], told me once that ideas that can be thought of have already been executed to near-perfection by the thousands of entrepreneurs that came before me. That I'll have to (build -> sell -> pivot) x n to gain an insight that will help me create something uniquely useful.
