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Amazing! That is the true essence of customer development. When you walk into a hardware store and ask for a 2-inch drill bit, it's not the tool you really want. What you really wa…

Agree 100%. Great analogy.

"You'll never create amazing products with this mentality..." I think that this kinda misses the point. If you're only building the things they explicitly ask for, then yes, you're…

That's a fantastic analogy!

I have to whole-heartedly disagree with this. Customer development and feedback don't just apply to short-term marketing and minor-point improvements. That couldn't be further from…

The point is to talk to people to know whether something you want to build is actually going to be great before you go and build it. Most of the time when people go and build what …

Would recommend you check out "The entrepreneurs guide to customer development"! Customer Development is a process that's really meant to be applied to prospective customers. The w…

Absolutely - huge thanks for reading and for the thoughtful replies!

Very true. The helicopter vs. rush hour example is kind of like finding the holy grail, and that's what you strive for. In practice, the majority the improvements you can extract f…

Boom shakalaka! Perfect quote.

Great points! Being willing to listen is step 1. That's the product culture that needs to exist first and foremost. Completely agree with you: knowing what to do with the feedback …

Couldn't agree more. Very very well said.

Thanks for the comment. I totally hear you - it irked me a bit too at first, but ultimately I thought to myself - the feature was out in their production environment already, and t…

You're right about the tone- I didn't mean it to come off that way, but I guess it did. I'm sure Pinterest isn't doing it to spite users.. and I agree they are likely testing the f…

Love it.. nothing replaces or beats amazing personality that resonates with fans and leaves an impression. Kudos to Lyft for putting themselves out there. You might put off one or …

Awesome complementary wisdom to a great post. Thanks Frank.

I think you're right that they track this very closely internally. You hit the nail on the head with LTV - with the amount they spent to acquire what they already have, the outlook…

Another great point - churn is their biggest concern. They need to continue to keep the product relevant somehow so people who do actually read and buy continue to come back, or fi…

Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Jacob. That's definitely a great way to look at it.. At the very least you'll also see how many Groupon's it takes to cover and then better under…