Building new products, especially in this AI era, requires drawing inspiration from diverse sources that aren't immediately obvious.

Start with competitors—not to copy, but to identify what they're getting right and reverse engineer their decision-making process. Then ask: How can you take these insights, blend them with your unique perspective, and execute 10x better?

Don't dismiss the incumbents. Those old and clunky tools survived for a reason. Traditional systems reveal which UX patterns have withstood time and which pain points need solving. Where can you leverage familiar patterns to create comfort and where should you break convention to deliver something better?

The most valuable insights often come from tangential products. Our work at thatworks.ai draws heavily from document editors, interactive canvases, complex ERP systems, and data visualization tools—none of which we're directly building. When you use our platform, you're experiencing a synthesis of inspirations from these seemingly unrelated domains.

Great product thinking isn't about following the crowd with minor improvements. It's about cultivating curiosity about everything around you and studying how different systems solve different problems differently. The joy comes from weaving these diverse insights into something entirely new that delights users.