Tradeoffs are the engine of progress. When you get good at them, you stop chasing perfection and start moving forward in meaningful ways.
Let me start with what a tradeoff is, because I find a lot of product managers talk about them without really understanding what they’re wrestling with.
A tradeoff is a choice you make when you can’t have everything you want at once.
It’s saying, “I can have it this way, or that way, or not at all.” That’s it. The key thing to understand is that trade-offs in product development aren’t about settling or compromising in a negative sense – they’re about making progress by figuring out what matters most and what you’re willing to give up to get it.
The hardest part with this, though, is that people struggle with tradeoffs because they see them as losing something important. That leads to decision paralysis.
You get stuck in “I want it all” mode and you can’t move forward. I see this all the time with product teams. They’re so busy trying to make everyone happy that they end up making no one happy.
Why tradeoffs are so hard
Making tradeoffs means confronting what you value most and what you can live without. It forces you to be honest about your priorities and accept that perfection is a trap. Plus, tradeoffs stack up—one choice leads to another, and suddenly you’re juggling multiple tensions at once.
Without clarity, it’s easy to get overwhelmed or make decisions that don’t help you make progress.
The difficult part of the story for me, at least when I was growing up doing this work, is I was always taught to focus on one or the other. What would happen is I’d never have enough money to satisfy the other. But here’s what I’ve learned: when you’re building products, especially in the B2B space, you need to satisfy both sides.
Most conflicts happen between the customer and the consumer – the parent wants this, the kid wants that, suddenly there’s a conflict between the two.
If I designed toys that parents want, kids usually wouldn’t play with them. And if I designed the toys that kids wanted, parents would never buy them. That’s the tradeoff. You can’t ignore it.
The overlap is where the magic happens
Part of it is understanding the tradeoffs you need to make between the consumer and the customer. That’s the real essence. If you give what the parent wants and give what the kid wants separately, you realize it’s not going to work. You have to find the overlap – and that’s the most important aspect.
Look at something like SunChips. The parent might not let their kid eat a bag of Chips Ahoy, but SunChips might be good enough. It gets the nutrition the parent wants, it tastes good enough for the kid. But it’s not Chips Ahoy. That’s the tradeoff in action. Nobody’s elated, but both parties are satisfied enough to make progress.
The way I think about satisfaction is about people making progress.
There are many products where people are elated and satisfied, but in more cases there are people who are not elated but they’re happy enough that it’s helped them make the progress they want. I always think of a good half step is better than a crappy whole step.
Take QuickBooks. Nobody really loves QuickBooks, yet it helps them make progress. That’s the tradeoff: it’s not perfect, but it’s good enough to solve the problem people have.
How to spot when you’re stuck in tradeoff paralysis
Here’s what I see when teams are struggling with tradeoffs but don’t know it yet.
Your roadmap meetings go in circles. You keep revisiting the same decisions. Someone always says, “But what if we just added…” and suddenly you’re designing for edge cases instead of the core job.
Another sign: you’re selling it, but people don’t use it. Or people really want it, but nobody’s willing to buy it. You’re wrestling with both sides of this thing, but you can’t figure out where to start.
That’s because you haven’t identified where the tradeoff tension lives.
The conversation I have with teams is this: “Where are you struggling?” They’ll either say they’re struggling with sales or they’re struggling with usage. That tells you everything. If it’s usage, you need to figure out the struggling moments for the consumer. If it’s sales, you need to understand what’s stopping the customer from pulling the cash out.
Here’s the language I use to help teams navigate this: “Who’s got the energy to make progress here?” Because in the sales process, there are people who can stop the sale, but there are very few people who make the sale happen. You might have to satisfy objections, but just satisfying objections isn’t going to get you bought.
When you’re in a meeting and someone says, “We need this feature for everyone,” ask: “Which side of the tradeoff are we solving for – the buyer or the user?”
Then ask: “What are we willing to give up to make that happen?” That question stops the “I want it all” thinking cold. It forces people to be honest about priorities.
Making better trade-offs in product development
Here’s how to frame tradeoffs better in your product work: Frame them as choices, not compromises.
Help people see tradeoffs as “I can have it this way or that way,” not “I have to settle.” That makes decision-making easier because it clarifies options instead of muddying them. When you frame it as a choice, you’re giving people agency. When you frame it as settling, you’re taking it away.
Understand tradeoffs from the customer’s perspective. It’s not just about what you want to build or deliver, but what your customers are willing to give up to get what they want.
Look at Salesforce. It’s usually bought by a VP of Sales who needs to make the process visible and collect data. But the consumer – the salesperson – needs a place to put their sales calls without duplicating work.
Those are two different jobs. As a producer of that product, you have to know that and know where the tradeoffs are on both sides. You can’t make it all one way or all the other way. You have to find the middle where both are satisfied.
Make tradeoffs visible early and often. Don’t wait until launch to wrestle with them. Identify the key tensions early in development so you can test assumptions and learn what works before you invest too much. The more you can help people understand the progress they’re trying to make and the fit you bring to the table, the more satisfaction there’s going to be. Read more on tradeoffs in product development.
Summary
Some of the best companies help people negotiate the tradeoffs between customer and consumer. That’s why they’re more successful; because they can help satisfy both a little better than satisfying one side 100% and ignoring the other.
Tradeoffs aren’t the enemy. They’re how you figure out what matters and what you can let go.
When you get good at them, you stop chasing perfection and start moving forward in meaningful ways. That’s when real progress happens.