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It sounds like you were working on the project without enough contact with users to understand the value of the thing you were building. That doesn't sound lik
by maptime 4y ago
It sounds like you were working on the project without enough contact with users to understand the value of the thing you were building.
That doesn't sound like it's your fault!
- bombcar 4y agoThe only people worse at knowing what the customer wants than management/sales is the customers themselves. It's really strange the first time you experience it.
- maptime 4y agoAgree, never ask a user what they want But you can't go wrong with talking to users to understand the problems they are dealing with
- bombcar 4y agoI've heard "The Mom Test" is a good book around that, but I've never read it. https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/dp/1492180742 https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/...
- srcreigh 4y agoIt’s great. It strongly warns against ego pitching, aka talking about your fancy solution, which only prompts people to say “That’s great” so you go away. The whole book is basically how to get useful information by being curious about the potential customer, how to decode “That’s great” by asking for commitments/intros/money, and also a bit about how to know whether you’re talking to the right person in the first place.
- spiffytech 4y agoDeploy Empathy is another great book on this. Think of it as the 102 course to The Mom Test's 101.
- neweroldguy 4y agoIf the only thing between business failure and business success was contact with users, there’d be a lot fewer failed businesses. Sometimes you just don’t see it, and that’s ok. Not everything is “I would have succeeded if only…”
- notimetorelax 4y agoI don’t think it’s anyone’s fault at all. Business people’s job is to understand what users want and developer’s job is to figure out how to best build it.