The Tao of Product, Part 6: The Release (Or, Knowing How & When to Let Go)

There comes a moment when the product is no longer yours. You ship it. You watch people interact with it. You realize that it's no longer just an idea in your head—it's something living in the hands and minds of others.

This is where the ego gets in the way of many founders. There's a temptation to control, to cling, to dictate how people should use what you've made. But products, like art, like music, like books, take on a life of their own. Your job isn't to resist that evolution. Your job is to watch, listen, and adjust.

The best products allow customers to become part of the ongoing creative process. The product will tell you what it needs to become next. Customers will offer feedback, and you, as the product's steward, must help determine which ideas will help the product develop to its highest potential. This reflects what psychologists recognize as co-regulation—the dynamic process through which relationships evolve and grow through mutual responsiveness and adaptation.

This is another point where the Tao of Product diverges from the "move fast and break things" Silicon Valley ethos. It's not about imposing your vision at all costs—it's about entering into a relationship with both the product and its users, remaining receptive to how it wants to grow.

Here's where so many founders fall apart: They build something meaningful, and then they hide it. They feel uncomfortable promoting their work. They think marketing is somehow beneath them. They don't want their name attached to something that isn't "perfect." They worry about criticism from people whose opinions shouldn't matter.

They're afraid of failing publicly.

They don't talk about it. They don't market it. They let it sit in obscurity, waiting to be discovered, hoping that if it's good enough, people will magically find it.

But here's the truth—if you've put in the work, if you've co-created something that deserves to exist, then part of your responsibility is to let it be seen.

Marketing isn't self-promotion. It's not vanity. It's the final act of bringing a product to life. Just like an artist exhibits their work, just like a musician goes on tour, you owe it to your product to give it the space to reach its people. I distinctly recall before one of Microsoft's big press events, Panos Panay saying: the launch is the final phase of building the product. To launch properly is to honor both the product and the team that built it.

Tyler the Creator expressed a similar frustration: "You spent all this time recording, mixing, and mastering your album, and you put it on your IG story ONCE?!" You have to stand by the product you made. Don't abandon your creation the moment it's most vulnerable.

Branding, storytelling, and positioning—these aren't superficial concerns. They're how you create an invitation. They're how you say, "This is what I made. This is why it matters. This is who it's for."

The Tao of Product isn't just about building. It's about honoring the full journey—from idea to execution to impact. Because if you've built something worth loving, the least you can do is let people discover it and love it.

In this way, the product completes its journey—from the mystery of inspiration, through the discipline of development, to the generosity of sharing. Not a straight line of pure will, as Thiel might suggest, but a dance between receptivity and action, between listening and building, between holding on and letting go.

This circular path echoes Joseph Campbell's hero's journey—the departure into the unknown, the initiation through challenges, and the return bearing gifts. The product creator follows this archetypal pattern: receiving the call of inspiration, struggling through development, and ultimately sharing the creation with the community that awaits it. Through this process, both creator and creation are transformed.

Growing in a Spiral

In therapy, we talk about how healing happens in a spiral. You revisit the same wounds over and over in a way that initially feels irritating that you’re not “over it,” but each time it’s revisited you gain self-insight in a new way. 

The product journey I've described is similar - it is not linear, but cyclical—a continuing spiral of receptivity and action, listening and building, surrender and choice. It stands in quiet rebellion against the dominant narrative of creation as conquest, offering instead a path of creation as communion.

This approach requires a certain courage—the courage to allow yourself to be changed by what you create, to hold your vision firmly while remaining open to surprise, to trust the unfolding process even when the path ahead isn't clear. It demands a willingness to embrace paradox: that the most impactful products emerge not from total control but from an exquisite balance between intention and receptivity.

I believe we're entering an era where this balanced approach to creation will become not just spiritually satisfying but strategically essential. In a world saturated with soulless products with copy-paste UIs, optimized only for metrics, people increasingly hunger for digital experiences that honor their full humanity—tools that serve not just efficiency but meaning, not just functionality but emotional resonance.

The most successful creators of our time understand this intuitively. They know that lasting impact comes not from imposing their will onto the world but from aligning their efforts with deeper currents of human need and aspiration. They approach their work not with the arrogance of conquerors but with the humility of gardeners—creating favorable conditions, removing obstacles, and trusting in the mysterious unfolding of what wants to grow.

This is the essence of the Tao of Product: not a methodology to master, but a relationship to nurture. Not a destination to reach, but a path to walk with awareness and care. Not a formula for control, but an invitation to co-creation.

The products that emerge from this approach don't just solve problems—they become companions on our human journey. They don't just disrupt markets—they elevate experiences. 

They don't just drive metrics—they foster moments of genuine connection, clarity, and joy.

In bringing such products into the world, we participate in something larger than ourselves—a continuing conversation between human creativity and human need, between what technology makes possible and what humanity makes meaningful. This is work worth doing with our full presence, our deepest attention, and our open hearts.

The Tao of Product isn't just about building better products. It's about becoming better creators. And perhaps, in the process, better humans.