We built the wrong thing first. Then we built this.

Small teams have a superpower: everyone knows everything. The customer calls, the competitor moves, the half-formed idea from yesterday's standup. Decisions are fast because the full picture is in the room. Then you grow, and that superpower disappears.

We know, because we lived it. We started the way most founders do: we built a product and hit the wall. Adoption was slow, the fit was not there, we had to pivot.

To test the next ideas faster than we could build them, Steve built a machine. We called it Not Worth Building. It read the internet for what customers were actually saying about an idea, found the competitors, checked the positioning, did everything you do before you commit engineers. Most of our ideas did not survive it.

After enough conversations with other founders, we noticed the obvious: the machine was the better product. Not Worth Building became Quack Stack.

Working with teams who make product decisions every day, not just once at the start, turned it into what it is now: a disciplined way to decide what to build, with the evidence attached and the why kept. We use it every day to build it.