In a previous blog post, I told you about Sarah—the founder who lost $80,000 on an MVP that went nowhere.  Her story is a stark reminder of how costly tech mistakes can be.

Today, I want to help you avoid walking the same dark path.

🚩 Red flags are the early warning signs that something is going wrong—and knowing how to spot them early can save you time, money, and frustration.

I initially planned to share all four major red flags to watch for during development in one post, but it became clear that there’s too much information to pack into a single post. So, I’ve split the red flags into two parts

In today’s post, we’ll cover:

• Red Flag #1: Vague Requirements
• Red Flag #2: Slow Progress and No Updates (radio silence)

In part 2 you’ll we’ll cover:

• Red Flag #3: Scope Creep
• Red Flag #4: No Metrics or Data

Let’s dive into the first two red flags and how to spot and address them before they derail your progress.

Red Flag #1: Vague Requirements

Imagine hiring a contractor to build your dream house and vaguely saying, “I want maybe 3 bedrooms, a somewhat large kitchen, and a couple of bathrooms.” Sounds like you might not get the house you’d envisioned…vagueness is a recipe for disaster!

Yet, that’s exactly what many founders do with their development teams.

If your product requirements aren’t crystal clear and very detailed, you’re setting your team up to make a lot of guesses—and every wrong guess costs time, money, and trust.

For non-technical founders, this is especially challenging.  

How to Spot It:

• Does your team keep asking questions you thought were already answered?
• Are features turning out differently than what you expected?

What to Do:

To avoid this, create finely and minutely detailed and actionable technical specifications for your product.

These specifications serve as a roadmap, clearly defining:

• What needs to be built
• How all of it should function
• Any expectations around design, performance, and scalability

Think of technical specifications as a shared language between you and your team. When written clearly and thoroughly, they eliminate guesswork, minimize misunderstandings, keeping everyone—from developers to stakeholders—on the same page.

In a nutshell: most non-technical founders don’t know how to do this—how to translate their big-picture vision into the granular details developers need to execute. It’s not just a skill; it’s a superpower that can drastically reduce mistakes, delays, and frustration.

That's why at TechSpeak, we have an entire module (module 3) focused on teaching founders how to write technical specifications effectively. It’s one of the simplest ways to avoid costly mistakes and ensure your developers build exactly what you envision. When you learn how to communicate with your team more effectively, you take control of your product—and your success.

Without well-defined specs, mistakes and miscommunications are inevitable.

Worse, these issues don’t just affect your timeline and budget—they create frustration and delay progress at every stage of development.

Red Flag #1: Vague Requirements

One of the most common complaints I hear from founders is: “I haven’t heard from my developers in weeks, but they say they’re working on it.”

Radio silence is dangerous.

Development should never feel like a black box where you’re left out wondering if progress is being made or if your product is heading in the right direction.

When there’s a lack of updates, it often signals deeper issues:

1. You don’t know what’s actually being built.
2. Your developers may be working without clear priorities or alignment with your business goals.
3. You’ve lost control of the process.

How to Spot It:

• Long periods without seeing anything tangible (no demos, updates, or progress reports).
• Your team struggles to explain what they’ve been working on.
• You feel like a bystander instead of the driver of your product’s development.

What to Do:

1. Set Clear Expectations for Communication and Stay Actively Involved in the Process.  From the start, establish a culture of transparency and accountability.
   
   Insist on regular updates—at least weekly, if not daily - clearly communicating priorities and defining/re-defining success metrics to ensure alignment.
   
   The closer you are to the team, the earlier you can spot red flags and problems.
   
   Whether it’s a delay in completing a feature, a misunderstanding of requirements, or a misaligned priority, staying actively engaged with your team helps you catch and address these issues before they snowball. 
   
   
2. Focus on Frequent, Small Releases.  The TechSpeak process emphasizes using agile practices to release small, functional pieces of your product early and often (module 8).
   
   This keeps progress visible and ensures you’re always working on what matters most. Short development cycles (ideally two weeks or less) allow you to:
   • Catch priority misalignments early.
   • Incorporate user feedback into your next iteration.
   • Avoid the risk of overbuilding features no one wants or needs.

When founders don’t actively manage their developers, they risk losing control of the process—and the product.

But when you set clear expectations, work closely with your team, and focus on launching early and often, you create a culture of alignment and efficiency.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post, where we’ll dive into Red Flag #3: Scope Creep and Red Flag #4: No Metrics or Data — both of which can derail your project if left unchecked.

reflect

✍️ take a moment to reflect: Have you seen any of these red flags in your development process? If yes, it’s time to address them before they grow into bigger problems.

P.S. Most red flags aren’t obvious until it’s too late. But with the right processes in place, you can spot—and fix—issues before they become disasters.