# If you can't show it, it isn't a product yet

Published 10 March 2026

[Originally posted on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7437132495038603264/)

Most technical founders I know can demo their product to me perfectly — on *their* laptop, in *their* environment, with *their* setup. 😅 And when I asked them to let me try it myself, there are suddenly twelve reasons why "it's not ready yet."

I'm not sure if this is a universal pattern, but I see it often enough to think it's worth talking about.

**My idea is this: if you cannot show it, you are probably not building a product yet — you are just writing something in the repository**. And three months can quietly disappear that way, without anyone outside ever actually touching what you built. 💡

Maybe the more useful question to ask early — before "*how do we make it better*" — is just: "**how will we show this to the world**?"