Baby monitors

Most purchase decisions follow a pattern: they're driven by how well a product matches stated needs, its price, and how easy it is to get. But this framework breaks down fast.

1. Needs are non-exhaustive, not static, and not explicit. And they can be influenced by other people or external events. And some needs are "must-have," while others are "nice-to-have." Oops.
2. Needs are of two types: functional and quantifiable ("I need a glass of water NOW"; "I DO NOT want sugar in my cocktail"). In this case, it is easy to supply the feature because there is a binary outcome: whether you can meet the need or not. But equally often, needs are not functional or quantifiable; e.g., "status" or "risk aversion" are perfectly acceptable needs and the basis of whole industries (luxury goods, many services you buy). And don't forget that these can be must-have or nice-to-have (you can make a "2x2" if you're into that). More complexity? Most purchase decisions involve a mix of functional and quantifiable needs and non-functional/non-quantifiable needs (today often called "vibes"). In fact, many companies try to inject "vibes" as a need into the consumer's purchase decision, often because every competitor can meet the functional needs but fewer can meet the non-functional needs. This is known as branding.
3. If you don't actually buy a product, the purchase decision looks incomprehensible. This is why startup advice always says "build something you want"—reverse-engineering someone else's needs is exhausting.
4. Companies also wield price and availability as levers. A cheap product (Amazon, cloud credits) or an omnipresent one (Coca-Cola in every vending machine, Copilot in every IDE) wins on more than just features. But these are separate forces from the feature-needs match itself.
5. But here's the flip side: sometimes customers gladly pay more and wait longer because the feature-needs fit is just that good. See Hermès Birkin bags and Ferraris. This brings us to the Motorola AM21 baby monitor. I just bought one, and it's a masterclass in feature-needs matching—and it achieves this by doing less, not more (hello margins). No screen (good: parents get a break from constant surveillance). No camera (good: babies deserve privacy, and yes, it's unhackable). Three buttons: power, volume up, volume down. That's it. No app. No setup beyond plugging it in. No Wi-Fi. Parents are tired—they want things that work, not "smart" things that require a PhD or apps that look like cockpits. The AM21 costs INR 5,000 for what's essentially 50-year-old technology (and probably costs INR 50 to manufacture). It takes 15 days to ship. And none of that matters.