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Why Steve Jobs Never Listened to His Customers

28 points by JRutherford 14y ago

ignaciogiri 14y ago
He was the #1 customer. I think he was building products that were good enough to use himself, because he knew that would impress others. He was a respectful narcissist. Maybe I'm not using the correct words or my sight isn't accurate, but at least that's the legacy I got from his life. Building something that makes you proud and you strongly believe it's the best. And convincing people to think about your product the way you do yourself.
- radio4fan 14y ago
  I'll give you narcissist, but I don't think Jobs had any respect for anyone else or their opinions. This may have been a good or bad thing, according to taste.
snowwrestler 14y ago
Steve Jobs did listen to customers--more than most business executives. He famously read his own email and would write back to customers directly. He made major strategic decisions based on customer feedback, for instance by reversing direction and releasing an SDK for native apps on the iPhone. He just didn't let customers set the future direction of products. The reason for that is well explained in The Innovator's Dilemma.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  >> The reason for that is well explained in The Innovator's Dilemma. Side note/question: I know there's three books in that "series": Innovator's Dilemma, Innovator's Solution, and Seeing What's Next. For someone who has not read any of them, what's the correct order? Are all three required, or is there overlap between the contents?
  - andyidsinga 14y ago
    you could go published order. But no matter what you must read Dilemma - its the seminal text.
  - ryanmolden 14y ago
    I've only (yet) read Innovator's Dilemma, I would definitely recommend it. As for order, I suspect publication order would be the best as it would show progression of ideas/learning.
  - SatvikBeri 14y ago
    Innovator's Dilemma is much more academic and research-filled, Innovator's Solution is more "here's what you do with it." I'd recommend Innovator's Solution first as it's a somewhat lighter introduction. (I haven't read Seeing What's Next, so can't comment there.)
- rimantas 14y ago
  > for instance by reversing direction and releasing an SDK > for native apps on the iPhone. There was no "reversing direction", SDK was released as soon as it was ready.
  - aviraldg 14y ago
    afaik, the original plan was not to allow third party apps on the iPhone
    - pyre 14y ago
      That's what he said in public, but there was a lot of suspicion that an SDK just wasn't ready for the iPhone launch, but was planned all along. Jobs never would have gone on stage and talked about how an SDK was ~ a year down the road, during the launch of a brand new product. It would have detracted from the, "look at this brand new shiny thing that we've built," buzz.
      - snowwrestler 14y ago
        Every piece of reporting I've read, including books like Isaacson's bio and Lashinsky's Inside Apple, shows that the initial plan was to not have an SDK for the iPhone, because of fears about security and terrible apps "ruining" the experience. It was only after it launched that Jobs reversed himself and Apple came up with the idea of the App Store process to manage those fears.
    - abeh 14y ago
      as i remember, iPhone sdk was released after Android. it seemed to be that iPhone sdk was not intended for developers, but Android forced them to, because it seemed like an obviously good idea.
      - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
        It's very clear who reacted to whom: "The Software Development Kit for iPhone OS was announced at the iPhone Software Roadmap event on March 6, 2008. [...] The App Store opened on July 10, 2008 via an update to iTunes. On July 11, the iPhone 3G was launched and came pre-loaded with iOS 2.0.1 with App Store support." [1] "Android 1.0, the first commercial version of the software, was released on 23 September 2008." [2] "The Android Market was announced by Google on 28 August 2008, and was made available to users on 22 October. Support for paid applications was introduced on 13 February 2009 for developers in the United States and the United Kingdom" [3] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS) [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history#Version_history_by_API_level http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history#Version... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Play#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Play#History
- malkia 14y ago
  Or the lock orientation button, which Steve wanted to be used only for turning sound on/off, but after many users complaining about there was an option put in the settings.
- gfodor 14y ago
  The SDK example is a great example of "faster horses." The crowd clamoring for the SDK was not asking for the App Store, it was asking for a model like PCs.
tawgx 14y ago
I think the best way to work with customers (and I do believe you should) is not having theoretical discussions with them about the market or whether a new product can take off, but rather give them a number of tangible alternatives (can be mock ups) to play with and see how they react to them.
- epo 14y ago
  If you are devising a new product concept, the very first telephone (or ipod or ipad) say, then what is gained by doing this? Your customers have no point of reference. In general, asking customers what they think is only useful if you are iterating on the known and familiar. Otherwise it is just harvesting random opinions, most of which will be variants of "make it more like what we already know".
- Ciotti 14y ago
  So mostly relying on reactive feedback rather than proactive suggestions? I agree.
- benjaz 14y ago
  Often, customers don't see the consequences of "small" changes that they'd like to see. At AOL we had so many people giving feedback on products that it became a customer support issue. One solution proposed was to have a dummy site that allowed users to move elements around. Whenever they moved something on the page (or dragged/dropped from a dynamic list of popular suggestions) they'd see the consequences in real-time. Big bold messages declaring all the changes that were just made would make it obvious that they need to think through their ideas.
bslatkin 14y ago
Can we stop perpetuating this myth please? From http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/apple-reveals-for-monday-trial/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/apple-reveals-for-mon... ""Apple is famous for eschewing market research and focus groups during the creation of new products. However, it turns out the company does research consumer sentiment on existing products in order to optimize future designs. Apple conducts detailed, quarterly iPhone buyer surveys, according to a joint motion regarding the sealing of trial exhibits. "The surveys reveal, country-by-country, the factors driving customers to buy Apple products versus competitive products such as Android," court documents state. The results break down which demographics are most satisfied with Apple’s products, and how different demographics respond to different features. The results also show how consumer preferences differ country to country. Apple is asking the results of these surveys only be shown to the jury when proceedings begin next week. Language in the joint motion states, "Knowing what Apple thinks about its customer base preferences is extremely valuable to Apple competitors because it would allow them to infer what product features Apple is likely to offer next, when, and in what markets."
- gdubs 14y ago
  The Isaacson biography talks a bit about, if I recall correctly, how a lot of post-game analysis done on apple products is meant to institutionalize knowledge gained during the development process.
- mratzloff 14y ago
  Please also stop perpetuating the fake Henry Ford quote about faster horses. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4877934 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4877934
  - aggie 14y ago
    It's interesting to hear about the historical facts (thanks for sharing) but I have to disagree with your position. The quotation is a concise and eloquent means of making a point about consumer opinion that is true in some cases, even if not in the historical case being exemplified. The historical accuracy is not important when it isn't integral to the argument being made. I could make a similarly weak argument about your word choice: "quote" is a verb, "quotation" is a noun, but the use of "quote" as a noun is concise and communicates the intended meaning without causing any problems.
samspenc 14y ago
> When asked why he bristled at his peers’ suggestion, Johnson responded, "We didn't test at Apple.” That is pretty funny, obviously he didn't realize JC Penney is a completely different beast from Apple. People shop at JC Penney for price drops, not for quality products.
tlogan 14y ago
Maybe instead of saying "you should listen to your customer", we should say "you should observe and learn from your customers".
r0s 14y ago
It seems like there's two sides to creating demand for a product, natural customer desire and customer desire plasticity. Of course, focusing on both is the best approach. Personally, I've never gleaned the appeal of apple products. They don't seem simple or intuitive such as how they're sold, from my perspective. Maybe this is my advanced user perspective talking, but it seems like just another UI with a different terminology and tropes. A new interface to memorize. So from this perspective, the trick is getting users to want to invest time and money in that new system. In that, apple is quite successful.
- babesh 14y ago
  Yeah sure, that trickery is what makes iOS so easy to use for very young children. Time to put away the blinders and put yourself in the perspective of other people.
  - r0s 14y ago
    iOS isn't a full open computing environment, any simple interface is just as "intuitive", compare to android or WP8.
MisterBastahrd 14y ago
CEOs who don't listen to their customers end up unemployed quickly.
kstenerud 14y ago
Some important things to note: 1. Apple spent many decades innovating things that customers weren't that interested in. It's only within the last few years that Apple really captured the public's imagination. 2. You don't ask customers to tell you what revolutionary product they want, because 99.9999% of the time they can't even imagine it. Imagining it is YOUR job (provided you're in the business of carving out new industries). You DO, however, ask customers about products that already exist, once they've had time to get used to them. Steve Jobs knew the difference. He (usually) listened when it was appropriate to listen.
supercanuck 14y ago
Never?
mandeepj 14y ago
I think the title is wrong. Steve jobs listened to his customers and their feedback but never asked them - what should we develop next or what type of computer, music player or phone you like to have?

28 points by JRutherford 14y ago

He was the #1 customer. I think he was building products that were good enough to use himself, because he knew that would impress others. He was a respectful narcissist. Maybe I'm not using the correct words or my sight isn't accurate, but at least that's the legacy I got from his life. Building something that makes you proud and you strongly believe it's the best. And convincing people to think about your product the way you do yourself.

radio4fan 14y ago
I'll give you narcissist, but I don't think Jobs had any respect for anyone else or their opinions. This may have been a good or bad thing, according to taste.

snowwrestler 14y ago

Steve Jobs did listen to customers--more than most business executives. He famously read his own email and would write back to customers directly. He made major strategic decisions based on customer feedback, for instance by reversing direction and releasing an SDK for native apps on the iPhone. He just didn't let customers set the future direction of products. The reason for that is well explained in The Innovator's Dilemma.

enraged_camel 14y ago
>> The reason for that is well explained in The Innovator's Dilemma. Side note/question: I know there's three books in that "series": Innovator's Dilemma, Innovator's Solution, and Seeing What's Next. For someone who has not read any of them, what's the correct order? Are all three required, or is there overlap between the contents?
- andyidsinga 14y ago
  you could go published order. But no matter what you must read Dilemma - its the seminal text.
- ryanmolden 14y ago
  I've only (yet) read Innovator's Dilemma, I would definitely recommend it. As for order, I suspect publication order would be the best as it would show progression of ideas/learning.
- SatvikBeri 14y ago
  Innovator's Dilemma is much more academic and research-filled, Innovator's Solution is more "here's what you do with it." I'd recommend Innovator's Solution first as it's a somewhat lighter introduction. (I haven't read Seeing What's Next, so can't comment there.)
rimantas 14y ago
> for instance by reversing direction and releasing an SDK > for native apps on the iPhone. There was no "reversing direction", SDK was released as soon as it was ready.
- aviraldg 14y ago
  afaik, the original plan was not to allow third party apps on the iPhone
  - pyre 14y ago
    That's what he said in public, but there was a lot of suspicion that an SDK just wasn't ready for the iPhone launch, but was planned all along. Jobs never would have gone on stage and talked about how an SDK was ~ a year down the road, during the launch of a brand new product. It would have detracted from the, "look at this brand new shiny thing that we've built," buzz.
    - snowwrestler 14y ago
      Every piece of reporting I've read, including books like Isaacson's bio and Lashinsky's Inside Apple, shows that the initial plan was to not have an SDK for the iPhone, because of fears about security and terrible apps "ruining" the experience. It was only after it launched that Jobs reversed himself and Apple came up with the idea of the App Store process to manage those fears.
  - abeh 14y ago
    as i remember, iPhone sdk was released after Android. it seemed to be that iPhone sdk was not intended for developers, but Android forced them to, because it seemed like an obviously good idea.
    - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
      It's very clear who reacted to whom: "The Software Development Kit for iPhone OS was announced at the iPhone Software Roadmap event on March 6, 2008. [...] The App Store opened on July 10, 2008 via an update to iTunes. On July 11, the iPhone 3G was launched and came pre-loaded with iOS 2.0.1 with App Store support." [1] "Android 1.0, the first commercial version of the software, was released on 23 September 2008." [2] "The Android Market was announced by Google on 28 August 2008, and was made available to users on 22 October. Support for paid applications was introduced on 13 February 2009 for developers in the United States and the United Kingdom" [3] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS) [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history#Version_history_by_API_level http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history#Version... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Play#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Play#History
malkia 14y ago
Or the lock orientation button, which Steve wanted to be used only for turning sound on/off, but after many users complaining about there was an option put in the settings.
gfodor 14y ago
The SDK example is a great example of "faster horses." The crowd clamoring for the SDK was not asking for the App Store, it was asking for a model like PCs.

tawgx 14y ago

I think the best way to work with customers (and I do believe you should) is not having theoretical discussions with them about the market or whether a new product can take off, but rather give them a number of tangible alternatives (can be mock ups) to play with and see how they react to them.

epo 14y ago
If you are devising a new product concept, the very first telephone (or ipod or ipad) say, then what is gained by doing this? Your customers have no point of reference. In general, asking customers what they think is only useful if you are iterating on the known and familiar. Otherwise it is just harvesting random opinions, most of which will be variants of "make it more like what we already know".
Ciotti 14y ago
So mostly relying on reactive feedback rather than proactive suggestions? I agree.
benjaz 14y ago
Often, customers don't see the consequences of "small" changes that they'd like to see. At AOL we had so many people giving feedback on products that it became a customer support issue. One solution proposed was to have a dummy site that allowed users to move elements around. Whenever they moved something on the page (or dragged/dropped from a dynamic list of popular suggestions) they'd see the consequences in real-time. Big bold messages declaring all the changes that were just made would make it obvious that they need to think through their ideas.

bslatkin 14y ago

Can we stop perpetuating this myth please? From http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/apple-reveals-for-monday-trial/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/apple-reveals-for-mon... ""Apple is famous for eschewing market research and focus groups during the creation of new products. However, it turns out the company does research consumer sentiment on existing products in order to optimize future designs. Apple conducts detailed, quarterly iPhone buyer surveys, according to a joint motion regarding the sealing of trial exhibits. "The surveys reveal, country-by-country, the factors driving customers to buy Apple products versus competitive products such as Android," court documents state. The results break down which demographics are most satisfied with Apple’s products, and how different demographics respond to different features. The results also show how consumer preferences differ country to country. Apple is asking the results of these surveys only be shown to the jury when proceedings begin next week. Language in the joint motion states, "Knowing what Apple thinks about its customer base preferences is extremely valuable to Apple competitors because it would allow them to infer what product features Apple is likely to offer next, when, and in what markets."

gdubs 14y ago
The Isaacson biography talks a bit about, if I recall correctly, how a lot of post-game analysis done on apple products is meant to institutionalize knowledge gained during the development process.
mratzloff 14y ago
Please also stop perpetuating the fake Henry Ford quote about faster horses. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4877934 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4877934
- aggie 14y ago
  It's interesting to hear about the historical facts (thanks for sharing) but I have to disagree with your position. The quotation is a concise and eloquent means of making a point about consumer opinion that is true in some cases, even if not in the historical case being exemplified. The historical accuracy is not important when it isn't integral to the argument being made. I could make a similarly weak argument about your word choice: "quote" is a verb, "quotation" is a noun, but the use of "quote" as a noun is concise and communicates the intended meaning without causing any problems.

samspenc 14y ago

> When asked why he bristled at his peers’ suggestion, Johnson responded, "We didn't test at Apple.” That is pretty funny, obviously he didn't realize JC Penney is a completely different beast from Apple. People shop at JC Penney for price drops, not for quality products.

tlogan 14y ago

Maybe instead of saying "you should listen to your customer", we should say "you should observe and learn from your customers".

r0s 14y ago

It seems like there's two sides to creating demand for a product, natural customer desire and customer desire plasticity. Of course, focusing on both is the best approach. Personally, I've never gleaned the appeal of apple products. They don't seem simple or intuitive such as how they're sold, from my perspective. Maybe this is my advanced user perspective talking, but it seems like just another UI with a different terminology and tropes. A new interface to memorize. So from this perspective, the trick is getting users to want to invest time and money in that new system. In that, apple is quite successful.

babesh 14y ago
Yeah sure, that trickery is what makes iOS so easy to use for very young children. Time to put away the blinders and put yourself in the perspective of other people.
- r0s 14y ago
  iOS isn't a full open computing environment, any simple interface is just as "intuitive", compare to android or WP8.

MisterBastahrd 14y ago

CEOs who don't listen to their customers end up unemployed quickly.

kstenerud 14y ago

Some important things to note: 1. Apple spent many decades innovating things that customers weren't that interested in. It's only within the last few years that Apple really captured the public's imagination. 2. You don't ask customers to tell you what revolutionary product they want, because 99.9999% of the time they can't even imagine it. Imagining it is YOUR job (provided you're in the business of carving out new industries). You DO, however, ask customers about products that already exist, once they've had time to get used to them. Steve Jobs knew the difference. He (usually) listened when it was appropriate to listen.

supercanuck 14y ago

Never?

mandeepj 14y ago

I think the title is wrong. Steve jobs listened to his customers and their feedback but never asked them - what should we develop next or what type of computer, music player or phone you like to have?