Building trust (especially for AI products)

Trust is the foundation under everything

All products run on trust. Users let you store their data, take their money, shape their work, and stand in front of their customers. Without trust, none of that happens. With it, even an imperfect product can succeed.

Building trust is slow. It’s an accumulation of small actions — how the product behaves, how the company communicates, what users see when they look closely. Breaking trust is fast. A single visible mistake can undo months of careful work.

Founders who think of trust as the ground all other product work stands on tend to make better decisions about everything else. Founders who treat it as a feature to add later usually find it expensive to build back when they need it.

Where trust comes from in any product

Trust isn’t a single signal...

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