Even a perfect solution can get erased by something bigger than the problem it solves.

Years ago, I bought a Tile after losing my wallet, which had somehow slipped behind the clothes dryer.

Not long after, it proved itself.

This time I left my wallet at a grocery store, but the staff couldn’t locate it. After a few awkward minutes I triggered the chirp.

It led us straight to a drawer behind the customer service counter.

The product worked exactly when it needed to.

A brilliant mentor once told me something I’ve never forgotten: sometimes a torpedo is coming for you, and there is nothing you can do. That’s business.

A torpedo had Tile’s name on it.

A couple years after that grocery store moment, Apple introduced AirTag, and without any failure on Tile’s part, the context around the problem changed entirely.

The job didn’t change, but the way it was delivered sure as heck did.

Now it lived directly in the system I already used every day, required no additional setup, and was less like a product decision and more like a default extension of everything else.

I switched, quickly and without much thought.

Not because Tile stopped working (it didn’t), but because it stopped being the best choice.

That’s the part product builders don’t like to talk about.

You can identify a real need, solve it with tremendous elegance, and deliver EXACTLY what people want in the moments that matter.

And still get blown out of the water.

Maybe not by something better in isolation, but by something that smashes the frame entirely.

That’s the torpedo.

It don’t give a rip how well your product performs, or how many times it’s saved the day!

It might arrive at the system level, and by the time you feel it, the decision has already been made for your customer.

What was your worst torpedo moment?

Want to make your product harder to displace? That’s what we do as product marketing consultants at Graphos Product, helping innovators turn need-driven ideas into market-ready successes.