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FWIW, I feel this quote is often misinterpreted -- too many people take it to mean "If my audience thinks I'm building the wrong thing that's ok -- I must hold
by pinkmuffinere 2y ago
FWIW, I feel this quote is often misinterpreted -- too many people take it to mean "If my audience thinks I'm building the wrong thing that's ok -- I must hold my conviction and they'll thank me later". The reality is that any new product is a balance between building something familiar, fulfilling explicit customer desires, and improving in ways they didn't even expect. All of these are important. Maybe we can balance out the Henry Ford quote with this one from Peter Theil:
"No one can predict the future exactly, but we know two things: it's going to be different, and it must be rooted in today's world."
- randomdata 2y agoYou may still be misinterpreting it (or, more likely, I am misinterpreting you!). The "faster horse" is exactly what the customer wants. It it is what you need to provide. The trouble is that people don't have the words to properly describe what they want (It doesn't yet exist. It cannot be fully described using existing language!), so you cannot take what they say literally. You have to really dig in and truly understand them and what they are trying to say.
- pinkmuffinere 2y agoI think I more or less agree with you. But I feel the quote itself is often misinterpreted to mean “I can ignore my users’ concerns, because I know better”.
- randomdata 2y agoTrue enough. Ironic that a quote that is trying to basically say "Don't read into things literally, understand what is actually being said" is oft taken only literally.