At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Mark Pincus’ Proven-Better-New: Copy precisely, improve universally, innovate sparingly
- Mark Pincus explains his product strategy framework “Proven Better New,” where teams copy proven experiences at a pixel level, add universally desired improvements, and isolate a small zone of true innovation.
- He defends copying as inevitable and often essential, arguing that the real skill is executing borrowed patterns so well that they feel new to users.
- Using Zynga Poker, FarmVille, and Supercell’s Hay Day, he shows how platform timing changes strategy—early platform eras reward minimal novelty because the platform is already new.
- He argues teams commonly misuse frameworks by defining “proven” too broadly, mistaking personal preferences for “better,” and letting weak onboarding/top-of-funnel execution hide potentially good innovation.
- Pincus urges founders to run fast top-of-funnel tests (ads, naming, positioning, channel experiments) to fail quickly and avoid building full MVPs before validating demand and distribution.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasCopying is normal; the craft is doing the “magic trick” better.
Pincus argues most successful products are derivatives; the real differentiator is execution quality—making the experience feel fresh while leveraging what already works. He frames the taboo against copying as “moral arbitrage” because society praises originality while products routinely borrow proven patterns.
Define “Proven” narrowly and concretely—pixel-level, for this audience, on this platform, now.
In Proven Better New, “Proven” means copying what’s already validated for the same audience and platform down to the click-by-click, pixel-level experience. Teams fail when they label something broad (e.g., “Instagram”) as proven instead of identifying the specific proven flows (e.g., onboarding, retention hooks, interaction patterns) that work today.
Better must be universally desired by current users, not an internal ‘nice idea’.
“Better” is not your opinion; it’s an improvement that virtually every existing user (his “10/10”) would immediately prefer—less friction, fewer clicks, faster load, no download, smoother onboarding. If only some users prefer it—or it’s just clever—it’s likely “New,” not “Better.”
Trust instinct, but assume your idea is wrong—optimize for learning, not ego.
Pincus’s mantra pairs confidence with humility: trust your instinct (often right) while assuming your specific idea/implementation is likely wrong. This drives heavy reliance on external proof and fast learning cycles rather than attachment to your first concept.
Assume new will fail; isolate it so you don’t fail for the wrong reasons.
He claims “all new fails” as a default expectation, which helps teams treat novelty as sacred but fragile—something to validate quickly and be willing to kill. The practical implication: isolate the “new” component so you don’t fail due to avoidable issues in proven basics like onboarding.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesI copied the leading poker game, the table, the UI, like the sounds the chip made, the colors of the chips. Like, you could not tell my table from any other leading poker game.
— Mark Pincus
trust your instinct. Your instinct's more right than you know. So I like to say your instinct's right 95% of the time. And assume your idea is probably wrong.
— Mark Pincus
better is what 10 out of 10 of the existing users would say, "Fuck yes, I want that."
— Mark Pincus
my mantra they still say inside of Zynga today is, "All new fails."
— Mark Pincus
The earlier we are in a platform shift, the beginning of the internet, beginning of mobile, the beginning of AI, the less new you should pursue.
— Mark Pincus
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
