The best predictor of your SaaS failing is visualising your future too soon

The best predictor that a startup will struggle to achieve its vision isn’t lack of ambition or ideas: it's attempting make the vision look real before it’s ready.

Every founder recognises the moment in front of an investor or an early customer and the question comes

So what does it look like?

A perfectly reasonable question. And so, the design or marketing team is asked to produce some high-fidelity mockups. Now suddenly we have something concrete to show that feels like progress.

In reality, it’s often the start of a bigger problem that quietly suffocates many early-stage SaaS products.

Why we reach for visuals too soon

Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.

— Niels Bohr

Startups run on uncertainty, and understandably, that can make people feel quite uneasy. Founders want confidence that progress is being made. Investors want proof their money is building something tangible. Early Adopter Customers need something to react to. They want a glimpse of the thing they're committing to.

Visuals scratch this psychological itch. High fidelity mockups make the abstract appear concrete. Shiny prototypes create a sense of control. We can point at it, share it, and tell a story around it.

The problem is that, at the earliest stages, these are not truths. They are guesses presented as forecasts.

The high cost of premature visualisation

When immature designs gain too much polish, they stop being sketches and start becoming specifications. They stick in people's minds. First impressions harden into expectations.

High-fidelity mockups trigger an anchoring effect — a bias where early impressions distort later judgements. In product development this becomes cognitive lock-in: once people see something, it feels real, and reversing course becomes harder and much more expensive.

Exploration are mistaken for commitments. Thought experiments are mistaken for decisions. The drawings define the product more than evidence from the market.

Conversations shift from fundamental questions about user needs and workflows to surface debates about placement and colour. Instead of exploring options, teams defend decisions made before the problem was understood.

Discoveries that only emerge through iteration, usage and feedback are overlooked.

Lock-in spreads.

Founders and sales teams pitch from decks that depict products not yet built.

Investors interpret early visuals as implicit commitments, shaping expectations around features and timelines before the product is validated.

Customers remember polished versions and measure reality against an idealised promise.

Visuals that help. Visuals that harm.

Now, I’m not saying “never draw anything” but fidelity is a cost best spent on refined working software, not presentations, mockups, and prototypes.

Visualisation is an essential element of any design process — but only when used intentionally and appropriately. They can clarify thinking, align teams, and spark critical conversations.

The question isn’t whether to visualise — it’s when and by how much. Early visuals should be deliberately crude. They’re props for discussion, not blueprints for delivery. The moment something looks too finished, it stops being a question and starts being an answer.

Fidelity should only ever increase inline with increased understanding or reduced risk.

Learning to live with ambiguity

The best SaaS products grow out of ambiguity, and in the early days it can feel uncomfortable, sometimes excruciating.

Living with ambiguity is not weakness. It is a strategic advantage and a survival strategy.

Success depends on tolerating that ambiguity longer than feels comfortable. Anchoring around problems, outcomes, and key metrics creates the space to discover what a valuable product should truly be.

Focus on hypotheses, not polished visuals. Run experiments, observe behaviour, measure results, and test priority assumptions. Move quickly, save resources, and iterate repeatedly. Let data and feedback guide decisions, not mockups.

Investors and customers are not buying pretty pixels — they are buying confidence that your team can learn, adapt, and deliver real value faster than competitors.

Evidence of that capability is more compelling than any perfect picture.