The $10,000 Excel Button: A Hard Lesson in Real Value
Let me start with a story.
(A story that completely changed how I think about value.)
A software company built a new product.
An engineer—proud and eager—went to demo it to a customer.
The customer asked,
“Can I export the data to Excel?”
The engineer smiled. “Sure! Give me 10 minutes.”
He added the feature on the spot.
Came back excited and told the CEO.
But the CEO wasn’t impressed.
He said,
“This is not about how easy it was.
That feature is valuable.
We could have charged $10,000 for it.”
That moment hit hard.
And the lesson? It’s one I’m still learning every day:
Don’t measure value by effort. Measure it by impact and usefulness to customer
As an engineer, I’ve found myself in this dilemma more times than I can count.
I often thought,
“Oh, this is too trivial to matter.”
Only to find out later that the customer loved it.
And sometimes, I spent weeks on a project—polishing every detail—
Only to discover no one really cares about it.
It’s humbling.
I’m slowly realizing:
Just because something feels simple, doesn’t mean it’s not valuable.
And just because something is complex, doesn’t mean it’s useful.
The real skill?
Putting ourselves in the user’s shoes.
Seeing through their eyes.
Feeling their pain points.
I’m not there yet. But I’m learning.
And I hope one day, I’ll have that power—to perceive real value before I even write a line of code.
If you’ve ever underestimated your own work or misunderstood what your user truly needed—
You’re not alone.
Engineers like us… we build things.
But understanding what’s worth building? That’s a different game.
#EngineeringMindset #UserFirst #ValueDrivenDesign #TechLessons #ProductThinking
Shuvangkar Das, PhD
Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
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