Build what customers ask for?
Customers know what hurts. They don’t always know what to build.
Marketing
Listen to customers
Your customers will tell you.
Ask buyers what annoys them and they’ll tell you for free. Their complaints are often the cheapest product plan you’ll ever get.
- Right when
- When customers describe a problem: what’s slow, confusing or annoying. They use the product every day and know exactly where it hurts.
- For example
- Customers of a food delivery app keep complaining that they can’t change the address after ordering. Fixing that one thing saves orders that were being cancelled, without a rupee spent on ads.
- Wrong when
- When every feature anyone asks for gets built, and the product turns into a crowded mess.
Strategy
Focus
Say no to most good ideas.
Saying no to good ideas so one great idea gets all your time and money. Every yes is paid for with something else.
- Right when
- When customers ask for things that pull you away from what you do best. Each request sounds reasonable. Together, they bury the product.
- For example
- A simple billing app for kirana stores is asked to add payroll, stock tracking and chat. Saying yes to all three makes it as complicated as the software those stores were avoiding.
- Wrong when
- When focus becomes an excuse not to hear real problems.
What decides it
Is the customer describing a problem, or prescribing a solution?
Listen closely to problems, because customers are the experts on what hurts. Be careful with their solutions, because they can’t see the whole product. Fix the pain, and design the fix yourself.
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