Are You Building a Business or Showing Off?

If you’re in the middle of building something right now, pause and ask yourself: am I solving, or am I showing off?

A few years ago, a friend called me to review his new product.

He’d spent months building it. The branding was crisp. The interface looked like something out of Silicon Valley. It had multiple dashboards, layered features, smart automation, and even a chatbot. He had ticked every box—except the most important one: what the customer actually needed.

He launched. And nothing happened.

People didn’t sign up. Sales didn’t come. The silence was louder than the hype.

He was confused. Angry. Frustrated.

So I asked him a simple question.

“What problem did this product solve?”

He paused. Then gave a long answer filled with buzzwords and assumptions. That’s when I knew—he built a solution looking for a problem.

This is the trap of performance surplus. It happens when you build a product or service that’s over-engineered, over-designed, and over-delivers on things the customer didn’t ask for and won’t pay for.

It’s like someone saying, “I need a car to get from Ikeja to Yaba,” and you pull out a Rolls-Royce.

Sure, it’s premium. It’s luxurious. But it’s unnecessary. They would have happily taken a Toyota Corolla. It’s cheaper, simpler, and gets the job done.

Now apply that to your business. You’re building for prestige when you should be building for function. You're adding features no one asked for, branding it to impress investors, and pricing it for an audience that doesn’t exist yet.

This is not a flex. It’s a recipe for burnout. I’ve seen small business owners spend months trying to match the aesthetics of global brands while ignoring what their actual customers are asking for. Fancy packaging, premium versions, layered services. And yet, they can’t convert one paying customer.

Why?

Because the customer doesn’t want the extra. They just want the core.

So how do you avoid performance surplus?

1. Build with the customer, not for them.
Talk to real people. Ask them what they struggle with. Test solutions with them. Build what they confirm they’ll pay for. Not what you think will blow their minds.

2. Your MVP should make you slightly uncomfortable.
If your first version feels too polished, it probably is. A real MVP feels raw but useful. It’s not about being proud. It’s about being practical.

3. Don’t copy companies with deep pockets.
You’re not in the same race. They have teams, funding, and years of iteration. You’re in year one. Copying their polish without their infrastructure is setting yourself up to fail.

4. Align price with value.
Don’t build Rolls-Royce energy for Corolla money. If your customers want something functional, give them that. Keep your overhead low. Protect your margin.

Most early-stage businesses don’t fail because the idea was bad. They fail because they built more than they needed, spent more than they could afford, and served less than they promised.

You don’t need to be impressive right now. You need to be useful.

Toyota didn’t become a global giant by trying to build luxury. They built reliable cars for everyday people. That’s how the Corolla became a global bestseller.

Start simple. Start clear. Start with the Corolla.

Luxury will come. But right now, solve one problem well and build your name on that.

P.S. If you’re in the middle of building something right now, pause and ask yourself: am I solving, or am I showing off? Be honest. Then adjust. The difference might just save your business.