As it turns out, users lie. They will often say whatever they think will please you, especially if they are your friends. They also have a hard time imagining h

As it turns out, users lie. They will often say whatever they think will please you, especially if they are your friends. They also have a hard time imagining how they will use products that don't exist, and a hard straightening out the reasons for their feelings. They will say "Yes, I totally want a site that will help me find cool things to do my city!" when what they really mean is "Yes, I wish I had more free time to go out with my friends!" Ways to deal with this sad fact: * Ask users "how much would you pay for this?" Follow up with "seriously, if I build it, you'll commit to paying that much?" Tends to bring them back to reality, but doesn't make sense for all products. * Look for external evidence for user pain. If there is no tool on the market for doing X, but users manage to sorta-kinda cobble together four other products to sort of do X poorly, you can believe that they want X. * Build quick little prototypes, as cheap as possible, and see what users actually do with them. (You've just done that -- good job :))