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Listen to Your Customers, They’ll Tell You What to Build

blog.tailwindapp.com

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Re: Listen to Your Customers, They’ll Tell You What to Build

#41

Post by atopiler »

joeyspn wrote: post #37
jasode wrote: post #23

There can be counterexamples to that advice. Maybe since Tailwind is in the B2B space, this affects their bias of the recommendation. If you're in the Enterprise/SaaS/B2B space, it seems more common to closely track what your (paying) customers want. However, if you're in B2C or mass market, there are successful examples of being bold with providing something your customers didn't ask for . An example is the Facebook…

> It's the modern variation of Ford's apocryphal "if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." This x100 times. After building several B2B products I've found that the most successful features are the ones the customers weren't expecting and didn't ask for... It's ok to do customer development in order to track what your users want and at least cover their expectations, but you'll neve…

"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 right. However, customer development isn't mean to track what your users want and cover their expectations; it's to uncover the biggest pain points/real problems to come up with amazing solutions for - what's actually _worth_ pursuing and potentially building? How exactly those solutions manifest themselves often times does not come directly from customers, but the amazing ones are just as often inspired by insights gleaned from customer development.

The article you shared actually backs up my point exactly. Example: what could be obvious to one of your customers can end up being amazing to you and your other customers. In practice, I've found this dynamic play out time and time again.

Re: Listen to Your Customers, They’ll Tell You What to Build

#42

Post by atopiler »

arca_vorago wrote: post #36

I think there needs to be a certain separation between the artist and the customer, in the sense that the customer says what they want, but how you get there is part of the artistry. For example, Michelangelo was told to paint certain things, but it's how he did it that made him legend. The real beauty, the real success of a thing, lies in the how, not necessarily the what.

Agree 100%. Great analogy.

Re: Listen to Your Customers, They’ll Tell You What to Build

#43

Post by dsr_ »

Kurimo wrote: post #34
rpeden wrote: post #4

I agree that doing more listening than speaking when talking to customers is important. It's also important to remember that customers will tell you they want features they they won't actually use or pay for. So it's necessary to develop an understanding of what your customers do and what problems they're trying to solve. This often helps more than just listening to features they say they want. If your customers aren…

I agree with most of your points. I would add that when you put a person in a position that you have asked them for input, they will feel pressured to give SOME kind of input, whether or not it is actually warranted. You're kind of setting them up to give input in the same way you might set someone up to tell a joke, they feel pressured to fill that space with SOMETHING. Most of the time when I have built features th…

Instead, you need to ask your customer about what they are doing in areas around your software. Not "What would you like in a new car?" but "What have you been doing in your car?" and "How much maintenance do you have to do?" and "What's the worst thing about the stuff you do in the car?"

Then maybe you can find out that the brakes make a squealing sound because they are mis-adjusted and are wearing out the pads too early.

Re: Listen to Your Customers, They’ll Tell You What to Build

#44

Post by atopiler »

Namrog84 wrote: post #38
donatj wrote: post #18

And you'll get faster horses all around.

This the difference of listening to what your customers literally say and being able to deduce what it is what they need. "I want faster (or better) horses". Needs a follow up question or ability to understand the deeper core meaning. From the above quote. These are some off top of head self distilled thoughts on what that means I want to get from point a to b faster. (faster vehicle or teleportation.) I want less ti…

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 want is a 2-inch hole in the wall.

Re: Listen to Your Customers, They’ll Tell You What to Build

#46

Post by wbsun »

atopiler wrote: post #32
fredgrott wrote: post #20

If Apple did that than they would been out of business 25 years ago.. Steve Jobs did not ask Apple customers what to build but predicted what in the future apple should build to get more customers. This is not to say that customer feedback is not important but to clarify that it pertains to very short-term marketing in that it only refers to somewhat minor-point increments in fine-tuning the current product.

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 truth. The "They'll tell you what to build" isn't meant to be taken literally. If you listen and try to truly understand people's problems, they'll guide you towards the most useful solutions. Coming up with those solutions is still up…

> However, from understanding the market and the pain points that people had with mobile phones...

Any reference on this?

Re: Listen to Your Customers, They’ll Tell You What to Build

#47

Post by elliottcarlson »

api wrote: post #2

This is both true and dangerous advice. You must listen to your customers, but then you must conceptualize their needs, prioritize them, and think about how to solve those needs well . There is nothing worse than a "Christmas tree product" where every customer has hung some requirement and there is no conceptual unity or design. Loads of "enterprise" products are hairballs like this. TL;DR: It's not listen -> impleme…

http://www.tamingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/tree-sw...

Re: Listen to Your Customers, They’ll Tell You What to Build

#48

Post by ant512 »

jasode wrote: post #23

There can be counterexamples to that advice. Maybe since Tailwind is in the B2B space, this affects their bias of the recommendation. If you're in the Enterprise/SaaS/B2B space, it seems more common to closely track what your (paying) customers want. However, if you're in B2C or mass market, there are successful examples of being bold with providing something your customers didn't ask for . An example is the Facebook…

The Atari Lynx wasn't massive because it needed to be; the creators listened to their customers:

"In all the focus group testing, and we did a lot of it with consumers, we had a bunch of different models that we showed them," Mical recalled in an interview with 1UP.com. "[We asked] "which one do you like? Which one would you like to have it be?" We showed them big ones; we showed them little ones. We showed them gigantic ones; we showed them little tiny ones. They loved the big ones. They all told us, 'Make it big. Make it big. This one feels like it's substantial and I'm really getting my money's worth.' They all told us to make it big, so we made it big. And when it came out on the market, they all said, 'Why is this damn thing so big?' It'd drive me nuts, because the original Lynx was mostly air space inside. We put it in, because that's what they told us they wanted."

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/too-good-for-its-day-ataris-...

Re: Listen to Your Customers, They’ll Tell You What to Build

#49

Post by logicallee »

chinedufn wrote: post #28
logicallee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then ignore the stupid advice in the title and likely article (I just skimmed but only saw noise) and instead of listening to anyone else, build something amazingly great. Seriously, build something amazing and then tell people about it. Nobody is going to tell you how to do it. it has to come from you.

Super interesting perspective here :) Question - in this no-customer scenario what's the downside of trying to solicit feedback from others while you go along?

"imagine if I made a night-sky, but, like, out of swirls"

-Vincent Van Gogh, hypothetical

Starry Night (Value: est. ~$80M-$100M+)

Vincent Van Gogh, Actual

Re: Listen to Your Customers, They’ll Tell You What to Build

#50

Post by logicallee »

atopiler wrote: post #30
logicallee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then ignore the stupid advice in the title and likely article (I just skimmed but only saw noise) and instead of listening to anyone else, build something amazingly great. Seriously, build something amazing and then tell people about it. Nobody is going to tell you how to do it. it has to come from you.

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 they think is "great" they end up realizing that nobody actually cares. It's a sure-fire way to waste a ton of time of money, which for startups, are the two scarcest resources you have.

this actually isn't bad advice for idiots. so if you're an idiot, by all means it's probably better to ask someone, "how'd you like it if" rather than build it and see. As a great example, everyone knows people like battery life. So if you're an idiot, a great question to ask your customers might be, 'How'd you like it if we made a giant battery, like a car battery, that you can take along as an external battery booster for your next Samsung, so that you can just have it connected and have 72 days of life. It would be deep discharge, so that you have hundreds or thousands of cycles." Why did I use this example? Because only an idiot would ask any customers this. It's idiotic. But if you're the kind of idiot who would make that - then by all means! ask them.

On the other hand, steve jobs didn't need to ask his customers how they'd like an iphone - he told them why they'll like it.

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