Cash Nashery

Cash Nashery: Why Overbuilt Products Fail Internationally

Most product launches don’t stumble because the idea was bad. They stumble because they were designed to impress executives, not serve customers. Cash Nashery has seen this pattern repeat in boardrooms and markets across the U.S., Asia, and Europe. As Executive Vice President of Engineering and Quality at Known Group, he has been on the front lines of launches that soared and others that sank. After watching too many promising products crash on impact, he has pinpointed the simple but costly mistake companies keep making.

Fixing Common Product Development Mistakes

Here’s the problem Cash Nashery keeps seeing everywhere he looks. “Teams start designing before they’ve completed a true, unbiased Voice of the Customer,” he says. “We end up building what we prefer, not what customers truly need.” It happens because companies get caught up in the excitement of their own ideas. They skip the unglamorous work of deeply understanding the customer, and that backwards approach leads to expensive failures. Teams spend months building features that sound impressive in presentations but don’t solve real problems in the market. Nashery’s advice is simple: fix the order. Do the customer work first, then design. It sounds obvious, but in the rush to create, most companies can’t resist jumping straight into the fun part.

Setting the Frame: True Voice of the Customer and Jobs To Be Done

Getting real customer feedback takes more effort than most teams are willing to put in. Cash Nashery doesn’t settle for surface-level research. “Start with an unbiased Voice of the Customer. Define the real use case and the exact job the customer is trying to get done,” he explains. That means talking separately to every group involved, from the buyers who approve the purchase, to the end users who live with the product every day, to the maintenance staff who have to keep it running.

The most valuable insights often come from problems people have stopped talking about. “Look for latent pain points, issues customers have learned to live with and no longer mention,” Nashery says. Over time, people adapt to broken systems and stop voicing the frustrations that slow them down. Spotting the quiet workarounds is key: shadow spreadsheets, extra steps, rework, unofficial tools, safety hacks, and time sinks. They all drain money and productivity, but they remain invisible unless you go looking for them. Markets also change faster than most product development cycles, which creates another trap. “Design for the next few years of the customer’s reality, not last year’s spec,” Nashery warns. What worked six months ago may already be obsolete by the time your product reaches the market.

Do Not Over-Engineer and Do Not “Dumb Down”

Most teams make one of two big mistakes when they’re building products for new markets. Some pile on features that nobody asked for. Others take their existing product and strip out everything expensive to make a “budget version.” Both approaches miss the point completely. “Customers want solutions built for their environment from the ground up, reliable, simple, serviceable, and priced right,” Nashery explains. He’s seen fancy systems get destroyed by competitors with half the features and a quarter of the price. Why? Because “those extra features had no impact on daily outcomes.” Customers don’t care about clever engineering if it doesn’t help them get their job done. The winning approach focuses on what actually matters. “Build to the critical few outcomes customers truly value, not to internal wish lists,” he says. Figure out what job people are trying to complete, then build for that specific need.

Align Value with Local Decision Pillars and Life Cycle

Different markets care about different things when they’re making buying decisions. This trips up a lot of American companies who assume everyone thinks similarly to their domestic customers. “Decision pillars outside the U.S. can differ,” Nashery points out. “Some organizations place a heavy weight on local serviceability, supplier stability, workforce impact, and capability building alongside profit and market share.” Sometimes these differences are dramatic. “In parts of China and Russia, I’ve witnessed companies prioritize job creation and local capability over profits,” he notes. If you’re pitching pure ROI to someone who cares more about supporting local jobs, you’re going to lose every time.

Co-Creation and Agile Adaptation, Plus a Local Brand Lever

Speed matters, but most companies slow themselves down by working in isolation. He brings local partners into the process early. “Bring regional partners into specifications before you prototype, and keep a continuous Voice of the Customer loop through pilots and after launch,” he recommends. This approach cut one program’s timeline by about twelve months while making the final product better. Sometimes the fastest way to win is to buy your way in. “A fast path to scale is acquiring a respected local brand, keeping its talent, co-developing what the market needs, then adding your engineering, quality systems, and IP,” Nashery explains. You get local credibility and knowledge while adding your technical capabilities.

Building more features doesn’t make products better. “Overbuilt doesn’t mean better; it means misaligned,” Nashery concludes. The companies that win start with real customer needs, design for local realities, and stay flexible enough to adapt when markets shift. It’s not complicated, but it requires discipline that most teams don’t have.

Connect with Cash Nashery on LinkedIn to explore more insights on global product strategy.
 

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