A Designer Guide to build opinionated products
why Kim Kardashian and a16z are betting on opinionated, loud products, and how to build them
This article is written in collaboration with Fons Mans. He is a much-celebrated designer whose work featured in Figma, The New York Times, and Wall Street Journal
Dear friends,
We’re living through a golden era of software creation. The tools are cheap. AI is fast. You can launch something beautiful in a weekend.
But when everyone can build, the question isn’t how — it’s why.
Why this product? Why this way? Why now?
In this noisy, commoditized landscape, the winners aren’t always the most polished. They’re the most opinionated.
Take Kim Kardashian’s “nipple bra.” Yes, really.
A product designed to mimic the effect of cold, hardened nipples. It went viral — and sold out — not because it solved a functional problem, but because it sparked conversation. It made a statement. It had a point of view.
This is the shift: products that make a statement win attention.
Products that know who they’re for win loyalty. We call these opinionated products — and they’re quietly reshaping everything from email clients to nipple bras.
What are opinionated products?
An opinionated product is one that chooses sides.
It doesn't try to please everyone. It believes something — about design, behavior, or values — and builds accordingly.
These products:
Embrace a clear aesthetic or workflow
Reflect the worldview of their makers
Take a stand on how things should be done
Turn functionality into identity
They’re not just useful. They’re felt.
They spark delight, friction, and sometimes debate — but always leave an impression.
Why now is the Age of Opinionated Products?
The barrier to building tech is getting lower. With AI, templates, and no-code tools, polished SaaS can be spun up in days. But sameness spreads like a virus. Everyone starts looking the same.
So the differentiator becomes: why this product? People choose tools that get them. Harry Stebbings, the creator of the 20VC podcast raised $400 million to invest in the best companies of our generations. He believed that “not being opinionated enough” is the biggest mistake people make with brands and products:
How to design opinionated products?
To design opinionated products, a team first needs total clarity on who they’re building for. If you try to speak to everyone, you speak to no one. Especially in startups, the temptation is often to broaden appeal, but the products that build trust and community are the ones that speak directly to a specific group. Not just through messaging, but through design, values, and identity embedded in the product itself.
Over the years, we stripped so much character from our interfaces that they’ve become robotic — which ironically made it easier for robots to mimic them. A polished design isn’t enough anymore. It has to be human. That doesn’t mean sloppy, it means having a clear point of view, even if it’s not for everyone. That’s what pulls people in and makes products memorable.
A playbook of winning opinionated products.
So how do you build something that bold, specific, and resonant? Here’s a playbook based on what we’ve seen from the most successful opinionated products.
Observe the current status quo. Many amazing products have their roots in people-watching. TikTok founders got ideas for TikTok from watching teenagers lip-sync on a train. Head out to your local malls or trade conferences where your users are. As much as digital research is convenient, nothing beats real engagement with your users.
Being helpful where your users hang: We are inundated with sales pitches and targeted ads now. The key to stand out is to be authentic and genuine. If you remember sellingl is to help. You should do well.
Show fearless confidence but not arrogance. You cannot build great products without being confident. Believe in yourself, knowing that humans are very good at sharing experiences. As long as you can find a crowd who supports your ideas, you will have a great business.
Advocate deeply against the incumbent and speak for user pains. This intro from Notion Mail is a masterclass in announcing your opinionated software product.
There’s a reason why email has stuck around since the 1970s. It’s become our digital identity—every account you create starts with your email address.
But while most work tools have evolved to meet our needs over the last fifty years, email has largely been frozen in time—or gotten worse. An overflowing inbox that demands constant attention. The same manual sorting and filtering. The same routine replies to repeat messages. The same endless back-and-forth to schedule quick meetings.
So we asked ourselves: “What might email look like if we started from scratch?”
Enter Notion Mail, the inbox designed to think like you. A more personalized, powerful, modern way to communicate. And with Notion AI built in, all of those tedious tasks are handled for you.
- Notion Blog
Spin the wheels of influence. Linear’s marketing was relatively quiet in the beginning. But as the company gained traction over the last few years. The CEO, Kari Saarinen appears in many industry blogs, promoting the Linear way of managing software development. This is the right way, this is why all SAAS founders promote themselves as the thought leaders of the industry verticals. To distribute opinionated products, you must believe in your ability to craft the future of the industry.
Ship and Learn. The only way for you to figure out whether your opinion resonates with the audience is to launch. Many startup literature love to flaunt a single moment when they struck gold but the best teams iterate by 5 or 10% over many years. Even with a giant like Intercom, they only learn to tweak their design of data model by shipping and hearing customer feedback.
The risks of designing opinionated products and how to handle them
Some users might dislike the software without knowing why
“Why can’t I do it my way?”
→ Power users might get frustrated with the lack of customization. Example: Notion vs. Obsidian.“I feel dumb using it.”
→ When the product’s opinion clashes with their mental model. They might think they’re the problem, not the product.“Too slick, too bossy.”
→ Some people get turned off when a product has too much personality or tries to force a workflow.
To relieve the friction for popular products, Intercom advocates for this product principle. They are opinionated by default, but flexible under the hood
Opinionated by default, but flexible under the hood - Intercom Product Principle
A fine example is their custom data model. These data models help businesses support and retain customers better. They used to have a pretty inflexible and opinionated data model. Then they learned that the original opinionated design was not enough. So Intercom introduced Custom Object which enables their customers to import data that is relevant to their business.
Our favorite opinionated products of the moment:
In a world where most try to build more addictive devices. Daylight Computer has gone in the opposite direction. The founder, Anjan Katta wants to create a more caring computer that empowers us to play outside more, to touch more grass, and to protect our wellbeing. I am very excited about his product thesis and the level of execution. I believe Anjan Katta could be the next Steve Jobs of our time if the public realizes that doom scrolling is the new smoking.
We are facing a looming public health epidemic with how little sleep we are getting. Sleep deprivation puts you at risk of premature death. While the majority of sleep wellness brands go for the dreamy, dark aesthetics. Sleep or Die is bold, brave, and memorable as hell. The brand creative is on-point with captivating visuals and even the humor in the brand character of a sheep.
Any founders who want to master virality instincts should study Cassey Ho. Originally, a pilate influencer, Cassey leveraged her platform to champion her original, opinionated designs. Many of her designs became hits, with Taylor Swift as one of her clients. Her YouTube channel is a fine lesson in how to turn your opinions into winning products. Cassey knows how to work an online crowd and make them cheer for her product drops.
Mercury: The founding team opines that the legacy bank accounts are not good enough for startup operations They set out to build the most powerful banking experience to support critical financial workflows. . Many operators swear by Mercury’s innovation. An investor, Moiz Ali wrote them a 5 million dollar check without any due diligence just because he loves the product experience so much.
One of the most common questions in the investing world: “What if Google also builds it?”.Supabase is a fine example of how you can build a formidable, opinionated product to compete with a Google offering. It is an open-source backend-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that helps developers build web and mobile apps faster by providing a ready-made backend.
My former co-worker Loi Luu is building Optimex, a native DeFi solution to create more value for Bitcoin. Users can do so much more than just hold Bitcoin. They can trade, lend, and margin-trade directly on the Bitcoin network without the extra steps of bridging Bitcoin or relying on third-party custodians. Loi has been a frequent collaborator of Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum. His previous startup Kyber Network, a decentralized exchange hit USD 26.65B in aggregator volume last year (total trading volume from smart routing).Loi is proving that he is a visionary in DeFi again by building Optimex.
Why VCs Are Betting Big on Opinionated Products
When Superhuman raised its seed money in 2015, it was met with much skepticism. Do we need another email client? But after a decade of fighting in the trenches and making email delightful, Superhuman now has a valuation of 800 Million dollars.
And VCs are backing the opinionated stance hard:
The fundamental thing that Linear did differently was this idea of being highly opinionated - Stephanie Zhan, Partner at Sequoia Capital
Sequoia is backing Linear, the issue tracker and project management software challenging Jira. For the investment team, being opinionated is proof that the team has a deep, compelling insight into the user experience. Linear is much loved among young, innovative teams in Silicon Valley. The company now has a valuation of 400 Million USD.
Sequoia Capital is not alone in this quest:
Atomic VC is backing Sauron, a military-grade home security system.
Designer Fund supports beautiful, functional products designed by designer-founders who want to shape the world around them.
There are more. If you look at the entire seed/pre-seed portfolios of notable funds. You will see the key opinions in building venture-backed startups of 2025: simpler, faster, better, more AI.
Erica Wenger, the founding partner of Park Ranger Capital— a force in backing community-driven products shared her working thesis:
Furthermore a16z, the famous Silicon Valley investment fund that backed OpenAI, Facebook, and Airbnb is launching a new initiative to bet on delightful product experiences. They are investing 1 million dollars in this fun factor thesis. And called it the Speed Run program.
In a mini-essay on Linkedin, Robin Guo–an Investment Partner at a16z advocated for the new deadly combo of breakout startups.
We have maxed out consumers’ senses in many key products. The new bar is higher. We must now create intuitive, rewarding interfaces with vivid personalities. I highly recommend you read the whole post. It was a condensed masterclass to craft your next big hits in product. It is also proof that money loves opinions and products with personalities.
To conclude
We don’t need more polite products. We need brave ones. Weird ones. Specific ones.
In a world where anyone can build, the only thing that makes something unforgettable is a point of view.
So choose yours. Make it loud. Make it felt. Make it unmistakably yours.
Build for someone, not everyone.
Say what you mean — in pixels, in code, in color, in design patterns.
And if it doesn’t please everyone? Good.
You’re not here to be neutral.
You’re here to matter.
Got a product that’s unapologetically opinionated?
Tweet us. We’d love to see it — and might even feature it in the next edition.
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Awesome 🔥, comprehensive and in-depth.
I learned a lot, thanks for sharing
Yes it will