I'm a product manager at a large, trendy technology company. The answer to this question is boring, because it's the same answer that ends up being the answer

I'm a product manager at a large, trendy technology company. The answer to this question is boring, because it's the same answer that ends up being the answer for most questions in life, generally. The answer is it depends. Sometimes you listen to customers, sometimes you take a flier on something you think they might like that they haven't answered. The trick is to try a lot of things and get egos out of the way so that if something sticks that isn't necessarily your idea, you can get on board and enthusiastically move it forward. Customers don't always have an idea of new things they want, or the solutions to the problems they need fixed, but they very, very often know exactly what's broken.