Why Founders Ask the Wrong Question When Evaluating Their Software

A software development perspective published on DEV Community argues that founders routinely misjudge product readiness by asking 'does it work?' rather than 'what happens when it doesn't?' Non-technical founders, having only experienced polished, already-debugged software, are rarely equipped to anticipate edge cases and failure states during development. Developers note that the visible demo typically represents the straightforward 80% of build effort, while the critical 20% covers error handling, failed transactions, and unexpected user behavior. Real users deviate from intended workflows almost immediately, doing things like double-clicking submit buttons or losing connectivity mid-upload. According to the piece, products that stall early often do so not because the core feature breaks, but because the failure paths were never properly built or tested.