> and perhaps pivot into a different product, one that people are actually willing to pay for. Or of course pivot into a different market. I think the hardest

> and perhaps pivot into a different product, one that people are actually willing to pay for. Or of course pivot into a different market. I think the hardest lesson to learn is that different people can value the same thing differently. The value of a product isn't just a product, but with respect to a user. It's not just the observed, but also the observer. You cannot evaluate it as a tuple of its qualities (particular features, price etc). You have to weigh each quality by the user's valuation it. And different users value them differently. It's seeming to me more and more that this summarises the entire startup problem. As a developer, you have a clear idea of what features you want to add, how difficult they will be, how general they will be, and how cool they will be. You're not even evaluating it as a user, but as a creator. It's the difference between a novel that was interesting to write, and one that's interesting to read. But even if you do manage to shift your perspective to being a user, you'll still only have one user's perspective. In fact, there isn't "a user", but a whole world of different situations, tasks, skills, equipment, knowledge and values - each of which counts as "a user", who will evaluate the qualities of the product different. e.g. for some users, a higher price makes it more valuable. This is an incredibly obvious point, but it's one that I have to be constantly reminded of. Perhaps because the more deeply immersed I am in my work, the less evidence I have of other viewpoints (I can't see them, at best they're imaginary) so it's easy to not think about them. Or maybe I'm just excessively egocentric and solipsistic. Different strokes for different folks. What might be right for you might not be right for someone else. One solution is to imagine your ideal user (who'd love what you want to make anyway - whether they exist or not), and keep evaluating your product in terms of that person - including marketing. Users who are similar to that person will tend to fit themselves into the image. Guy Kawasaki (early Apple guy) talks about this. And that's what's happening in ThomPete's intriguing two examples.