Vick's

Product Management is often glamorized as being the "CEO of the product." The reality? It’s far more challenging. You have zero executive authority, yet you are responsible for the outcome. You are the glue between business, tech, and design, constantly navigating trade-offs.

To make sense of this chaos, successful PMs use a framework known as the Four Lenses of Product Development: Value, Viability, Feasibility, and Usability.

If a product misses even one of these, it risks failure—no matter how cool the technology is. To understand how this works in the real world, let’s tune into a conversation between two PMs, Alice and Bob, as they break down the rise (and regional fall) of the video editing giant, CapCut.

🎙️ The Podcast: Alice & Bob Deconstruct CapCut

Bob: "Welcome back to The Daily Standup. Today we’re talking about CapCut. Alice, I honestly don't get it. The app is brilliant. My teenage cousin edits better videos on her phone than I do on my laptop. Why is it getting banned in places like India and facing heat in the US?"

Alice: "It’s a classic case of the Four Lenses, Bob. Specifically, how you can ace three of them and still fail if you miss the fourth. Let’s break it down. Start with Value."

Bob: "Oh, the Value is undeniable. Before CapCut, if you wanted to make a viral TikTok, you needed Adobe Premiere or Final Cut. That’s a high barrier. CapCut solved a massive pain point: 'Make me look like a pro editor, but do it on my phone in 5 minutes.' People actively wanted this."

Alice: "Exactly. High desirability. Now, what about Usability?"

Bob: "Also a home run. The interface fits the user's mental model perfectly. Drag, drop, add music, done. It passed the 'Mom Test' easily. Unlike the Snapchat redesign that confused everyone, CapCut felt intuitive immediately."

Alice: "Right, and Feasibility? Was it hard to build?"

Bob: "Technically, yes, video processing on a phone is heavy. But ByteDance (the parent company) nailed the engineering. It works smoothly on mid-range Androids, not just high-end iPhones. So, they crushed Value, Usability, and Feasibility."

Alice: "And that brings us to the dealbreaker: Viability. This is the lens that asks, 'Does this work for the business and the legal environment?'"

Bob: "Ah, the geopolitical angle."

Alice: "Precisely. Viability isn't just about making money; it's about your license to operate. Because CapCut is owned by ByteDance, governments in India and the US flagged it as a national security risk regarding data privacy.

Bob: "So, even though the product is perfect (High Value/Usability), the business risk (Low Viability) killed it in those markets."

Alice: "Exactly. And that’s the hard lesson for PMs. You can build the best tool in the world, but if regulatory or business constraints make it 'unviable,' you have no product."

🔍 The Four Lenses Explained

As Alice and Bob highlighted, a PM's job is to constantly balance these four competing interests. Let's look at them in detail.

1. VALUE (The "Desirability" Lens)

• The Question: Does this solve a real customer problem?

• The Trap: Building "cool tech" that nobody needs (e.g., Google Wave).

• PM Insight: Use your curiosity here. Don't just jump to solutions. Ask why users are behaving a certain way. If you aren't solving a burning pain point, customers won't switch to your product.

2. VIABILITY (The "Business" Lens)

• The Question: Should we build this? Does it align with our strategy and laws?

• The Trap: Launching a feature users love but that bankrupts the company or gets you sued.

• PM Insight: This is where Ownership kicks in. You aren't just an advocate for the user; you are a guardian of the business. Sometimes you have to say "No" to a great feature because it doesn't make financial or strategic sense.

3. FEASIBILITY (The "Technical" Lens)

• The Question: Can we build this with our current resources and time?

• The Trap: Over-promising a feature that requires a massive infrastructure overhaul (like Hotstar’s "Watch Together" feature).

• PM Insight: You need to influence engineers without authority. You can't just order them to "build it faster." You must understand the technical debt and trade-offs.

4. USABILITY (The "Experience" Lens)

• The Question: Can users figure out how to use it?

• The Trap: A powerful tool that is so complex users abandon it.

• PM Insight: Empathy (EQ) is critical here. You must see the product through the eyes of a confused new user, not the eyes of the team who built it.

🏁 The Zomato Case Study

The PM's job is rarely about finding a "perfect" feature that scores 10/10 on all lenses. It is usually about navigating messy trade-offs.

Let's look at Zomato's "Schedule Order for Later" feature to see how a real PM team navigates this:

• ✅ VALUE (Passed): Research showed heavy user demand. People wanted to plan meals for parties or meetings in advance. It solved a real anxiety: "Will my food arrive on time?"

• ✅ VIABILITY (Passed): Business models projected this could increase overall order volume by 8-12% by capturing future intent that might otherwise be lost.

• ⚠️ FEASIBILITY (Warning): This was technically difficult. It required building a new backend system to "hold" orders and trigger them later, plus deep coordination with restaurants to ensure they didn't ignore a ticket that popped up hours before it was due.

• ⚠️ USABILITY (Warning): Adding a scheduling button risked cluttering the UI. If the checkout screen becomes too complex, users might get confused and abandon the cart.

The Verdict: The PM team decided the Value and Viability gains were worth the Feasibility and Usability risks. They moved forward, but they likely had to work extra hard with design (to keep the UI clean) and engineering (to ensure the backend was robust).