I've been doing customer development this week, and one benefit to thinking in terms of separate economic buyers and end users is that it helps you to consider

I've been doing customer development this week, and one benefit to thinking in terms of separate economic buyers and end users is that it helps you to consider their relevant issues separately: usability and usefulness. Because I use my own software, I'm very aware of how easy (or not) it is to use, and of course I'd really like to make it great to use. But in doing this, I tend to overlook what it's doing. What does it do that makes it worth buying? Separating these issues into different persons makes it easier to think about them clearly (especially when the usability one is so concrete, immediate and, well, personal.) Also, when the user and economic buyer are combined, people will sometimes buy based on how beautiful it is, how it feels and so on. But I would like my product to actually make things better, not just make them feel better. Both are important (and of course it doesn't excuse enterprises who build/buy inefficient and unpleasant software).