Systems That Outlive Products

TL;DR Products fade. Systems persist. Design for durability, legibility, and compounding leverage.

Most products are built for launch. Systems are built for time. The difference is not polish, but structure: how information moves, how decisions are made, and how feedback changes behavior.

A durable system has three properties: it is legible to new people, resilient to change, and able to compound learning. That means designing not only features, but protocols, rituals, and narratives.

When I build, I try to locate the long-term spine of the product: the thing that will still matter after the trend shifts. That’s usually a workflow, a trust loop, or a shared language.

Related: Tarya (relationship system), LifeOS (personal system).