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I'm going through @startupschool and I just finished @ericmigi's "How to Talk to Users", which is full of useful information and I recommend it.
It feels like a good time though to share some of my hesitations on the topic. 1/ https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6g-how-to-talk-to-users
It feels like a good time though to share some of my hesitations on the topic. 1/ https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6g-how-to-talk-to-users
I think it is safe to say that the importance of talking to your users is pretty much the first fundamental theorem of startups at this point.
I do agree with this, but I want to play the devil's advocate and consider two powerful counterarguments that don't get due credit. 2/
I do agree with this, but I want to play the devil's advocate and consider two powerful counterarguments that don't get due credit. 2/
I want to note that I'm not talking about the misinterpretation of talking to users as doing what they say. I think that distinction is well understood and elaborated on. Rather my two concerns are: 3/
1. There is a two trillion dollar counterexample in Apple, which happens to be the most successful company in the world.
There are attempts to recast Jobs to reach another conclusion but I am simply not convinced. He built to his taste, marketed heavily, and sold. A lot. 4/
There are attempts to recast Jobs to reach another conclusion but I am simply not convinced. He built to his taste, marketed heavily, and sold. A lot. 4/
It is a powerful counterexample, and it deserves more than the usual dismissal it receives. If the singular most successful company in the world explicitly rejects a paradigm, it bears an explanation by the proponents of that paradigm. 5/
2. Here is another counterpoint. Consider Pablo Piccaso or Van Gough. I don't think they became great artists by talking to users. I mean, of course they talked to the consumers of their art, but I doubt they became great artists by trying to make art that their users wanted. 6/
In fact, if they did try to make art that users wanted, if they worked from the mind of the art consumer, they would be much worse artists. They produced what they thought was worthwhile, and that was an important part of being great. 7/
I am not comparing myself to Steve Jobs, or Picasso, and you could make the case that producing art and building products are different, but I think it should give us pause and force us to consider the premise more carefully before accepting it as dogma. 8/
