{"id":5903,"date":"2025-06-02T13:55:23","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T13:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prelaunch.com\/blog\/?p=5903"},"modified":"2025-07-16T11:03:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T11:03:19","slug":"why-google-killed-300-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prelaunch.com\/blog\/why-google-killed-300-products","title":{"rendered":"Why Google Killed 300+ Products – Alistair Rennie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What if the secret to great innovation isn\u2019t creating something wildly new but smashing together the right inputs at the right time? In this episode of Innovation Impossible, Danniel sits down with Alistair Renie<\/a>, Global Head of Innovation & Thought Leadership at Protocol Theory and former Google strategist. Together, they unpack a fresh way of thinking about product strategy, the evolving role of insights, and why building for \u201cpassengers\u201d beats building for \u201cpilots.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From insights at Google to groundbreaking crypto work, Alistair has spent over 20 years translating complex ideas into clear, usable strategies. And in this conversation, he reveals the simple but powerful model that guides his thinking and how it helped him nearly launch a mobile wallet product before the market was ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s walk through the main takeaways from the episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A System for Innovation That Actually Works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the heart of Alistair\u2019s work is a deceptively simple Venn diagram model with three circles: your product, the macro environment, and your consumer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start with your product: What makes it strong and unique?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, zoom out to the macro trends across economic, cultural, technological, and legal forces that could either fuel or crush your idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, zero in on the consumer: What job are they hiring your product to do? Use frameworks like \u201cJobs to Be Done\u201d to uncover real pain points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal? Smash all three together. \u201cWhen the right elements start to come together, they create gravity,\u201d<\/em> Alistair explains. That gravity attracts investors, users, stakeholders, and momentum. It\u2019s not about luck. It\u2019s about orchestrating the right collisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Google Missed Its Own Mark<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

During his time at Google, Alistair witnessed the company launch nearly 300 products that ultimately didn\u2019t stick. The reason? A lack of integration between engineering and insights. \u201cAll that behavioral data we had never made it into product development,\u201d<\/em> he says. Instead, many teams built without understanding the macro forces or user needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That disconnect led to shiny but shallow products like messaging apps and social platforms that mimicked others without offering meaningful differentiation. And while Google could afford a few misses, most innovators can\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Messy Middle: How We Really Buy<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of Alistair\u2019s biggest contributions at Google was defining the \u201cmessy middle\u201d, the non-linear chaos where consumers explore and evaluate options before buying. With behavioral science in hand, his team identified six key nudges that help people move from discovery to decision. The framework became the most-read global publication in Google\u2019s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n