Kate Sleeman

The initial spark of an idea usually starts with a grand purpose and a wave of high motivation. However, over time, this process can turn into a cycle of professional and psychological exhaustion. As the project progresses, the idea hits walls relative to its purpose and fails to align with the real world. Sometimes, you have to give up right in the middle of building it; other times, as time passes and the idea keeps coming back to you, you begin to think it was just a nonsense idea in your mind all along. Watching a concept you once cherished slowly disintegrate like this is a process that pushes you to your psychological limits.
As a founder or product leader, how do you prevent your mind from manipulating you with these ideas?
When and how do you realize that an idea will actually work and that it isn't just a mental trap?

I was thinking about this because it sounds like such a small product decision, but I don t think it actually is.

Someone signs up with Google. Six months later they are on their iPhone and tap Sign in with Apple. Same person, different identity provider. And if they use Hide My Email, you may not even get the same email address.

So what should the product do?

Creating a new account feels wrong because now their history, billing, settings, or subscription can end up split across two profiles. But automatically linking accounts based on email also feels risky, because now you are assuming that matching email addresses are enough proof that both identities belong to the same person. And then Apple makes it even messier because the emails may not match at all.

Over the last few months, I've been building salary calculators and researching compensation data across different industries.

One thing surprised me.

People often say they want "more salary transparency," but in practice, raw salary numbers rarely answer the questions people actually have.