Before founding the Felicis Ventures fund, Aydin Senkut held a key position in the genesis of Google: that of First Product Manager. He participated in the launch of Gmail, the structuring of the advertising offer, and the emergence of a product culture that has become a model for a whole generation of startups.
Today, at the head of Felicis, he is one of the most respected investors in world tech. He bet early on Shopify, Canva, Concept, Runway. And when asked about the ingredients of the best products, He does not talk about design or marketingbut radical decisions, culture of effort and measure in real time.
Create a “10x” product or not create it at all
For Aydin Senkut, a useful product has never been a simple improvement. He must represent a break. This is what he calls the 10x principle : A solution ten times better, faster or less expensive than the existing alternative.
This principle does not tolerate any half measure. It immediately excludes weak iterations or MVP without ambition. Aydin Senkut saw it at work with Gmail – which offered, from its launch, 1 GB of storage when the standards rushed at 100 MB. He found it at Shopify, with an interface that allowed any merchant, without developer, to create an operational online store.
“We do not build a major company with an improvement of 10 %. We must disturb the established order.” – Aydin Senkut
Undervalue its price to overvalue its use
One of the most striking aspects of Aydin Senkut’s reasoning concerns price positioning. In his eyes, Some of the best products are deliberately under-car.
He quotes the example of Shopify. Rather than maximizing the margin, the platform has chosen to grow with its users. By offering affordable prices, it has become the base of a new generation of independent merchants. It was not a short -term strategy: It was a long -term vision, oriented towards massive adoption.
Same logic for distribution channels: Aydin Senkut recalls that Shopify has paid for life agencies that brought customers, where the standard was unique. This incentive structure has built an aligned, motivated, sustainable ecosystem.
Three founding decisions are better than a hundred features
In the analysis of Aydin Senkut, large products are not built by accumulation. They are based on Some crucial choiceswell executed and non -negotiable.
Gmail was thought from the start as a breakup tool – not as an improved messaging. Concept made the bet of extreme flexibility, allowing each team to use it in their own way, from freelance to the structured company. Shopify knew, at the right time, to integrate native payments, thus unlocking a new growth phase.
“It is not the features that make a product. These are the decisions.” – Aydin Senkut
Real -time measurement as a performance lever
Aydin Senkut insists on an often overlooked point: The quality of the product is also based on the quality of the piloting tools.
From the first years of Google, the teams had internal dashboards which made it possible to follow the state of the servers, traffic, advertising performance, in real time. Shopify has reproduced this model. According to Aydin Senkut, No product can achieve excellence without fine instrumentation.
He compares this approach to Formula 1: “We gain a thousandth of a second. This is only possible if we measure everything.”
A product has value only if it transforms a use
The best products, according to Aydin Senkut, are not content to exist. They redefine behavior. They become Effortable marketing efforts. They impose themselves as reflexes, not as options.
“The products that matter change what people do every day. Not because they are more visible. Because they have become obvious.” – Aydin Senkut
The product is not a deliverable, it is a strategic position
In Felicis’ investment choices, Aydin Senkut applies a simple, but demanding reading:
- The product must solve a real problem, on a very large scale.
- He must disturb the existing.
- It must be measured and piloted on a fine scale.
- It must be part of a growing market, but also Create your own uses.
There is no magic formula, recognizes Aydin Senkut. But there is a minimum requirement: Never do a product for convenience. Do it because it deserves to exist. Because it has a chance to become an invisible infrastructure, such as Gmail, Shopify or notion.
And for that, he concludes, you need a team that does not negotiate with ambition.
