What do Customers know anyway & How we Build the next Apple.

If you have read about design thinking, the Lean Startup movement or Agile methodology then you know that they all have one thing in common: Always Be Listening to your Customer.

It preaches understanding a user’s real life needs/problems, building a minimally viable solution and testing that solution with users. And in that way, startups can more quickly tweak the idea into something that will actually sell and be used.

And while this all sounds great, I was recently asked a very interesting question that made me revisit what it meant to listen to your customer.

Bob (not his real name) asked, and I very inaccurately quote,

“How do you innovate or land on the right solution when people themselves sometimes do not know what they need and/or want? For example, Apple was never created by asking customers what they wanted. At that time, people didn’t know what computers were, how to use them or the fact that they needed them. How do you build the next Apple?”

It was an interesting question because, well heck, if I knew how to build the next Apple, I would have already done it by now.

But to try and answer the question, I would have to break the answer into 2 parts.

“Listening to your Customer” is a far more complex concept than simply asking them what do you need/want?

Bob took the mantra “Listen to your Customer” almost too literally. But that is not Bob’s fault. Unfortunately, what I have seen recently is that the concept of “Listening to your Customer” has been reduced to observing web usage to be able to optimize clicks, asking customers very literal questions about usability, or understanding if they want a t-shirt or those jeans.

And while, this is not terrible and also required in some instances, it is also not what “Listening to your customer” really means. God knows Steve Jobs never ran around with a computer in his hands and asked people if it is what they wanted. In those days, they probably would have just thought he was crazy — and he probably was anyway.

Whether people know what they want or not, uncovering user needs requires looking at perfectly ordinary processes and the world around us to notice opportunities for more. It requires a greater understanding of human behaviour, unbiased observations and asking the right questions. Very often, there is a big difference between what people say versus what they think is noteworthy versus what they actually do.

Apple and Microsoft saw a need to optimize our everyday tasks and did not just throw the technology out there. If they never built technology around our needs (such as being able to store, access, sort and analyze information), the adoption of that very technology would have never been a reality. And so, while computers were a brand new technology capable of a variety of things, just like any other product, it had to be built with a user in mind.

Which brings me to the second part of my answer.

The ability to have and stay strong to a Vision.

We all know that Steve Jobs had a vision. But what does that really mean, why was his so impactful, and what does this have to do with the initial question?

A larger vision is what people buy into, it helps you do a lot! A solid vision gives you the ability to:

• Motivate potential team members to join you
• Gain potential clients
• Get investment
• And most importantly build an impactful business that can transform or even create a whole industry — like Apple and Microsoft did.

Take the case of Apple’s “Knowledge Navigator” for example. If you have not watched it, here is the video below:

It was of course well ahead of its time and it created an imaginary world for that era. However, some very important technological advances you see in that video is actually happening right now. Like the talking virtual assistant actually coming into fruition in the form of Siri.

A vision is vital and goes hand-in-hand with market validation. It takes user needs a step further from building products around everyday processes to getting anyone to imagine a better, non-existent future that they too want to create.

While we have to “Listen to customers” we also need to use our brain and stay strong to an overall direction. Being stubborn is a regularly cited trait of many successful entrepreneurs.

But having vision is hard now-a-days because of all th oile skepticism and realism floating around. If you have ever called someone delusional, I’m looking at you buddy. This is sadly a product of living in a society that has lost its childlike sense of wonder. And everyday, I am more and more frightened at how even children don’t have, or even want it anymore.