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I feel like I read things like this on HackerNews about once a month. All of these posts can be summed up like this: 1) I built stuff without talking to people

I feel like I read things like this on HackerNews about once a month. All of these posts can be summed up like this: 1) I built stuff without talking to people 2) I built custom work for a client and it wrecked me 3) I didn't listen to customer feedback Yes, your business will fail if you don't talk to customers. We're all terrified of showing off our children. What if the world thinks they're ugly? What if the child actually is ugly? Well then, that child is still going to have to make its way in the world, isn't it, or not? Some of the best solutions to problems I've seen start out as ugly children, but, in truth, over time they find their place in the world. The difference between what makes an ugly child grow up strong, versus one dying, is the development. If your friend tells you that your kid would look better if he had a tail, and he's willing to pay you to put it on, you'd be doing a disservice to your child to attach that tail. You have to do what's best for your business; no silver bullets, no easy answers. I think that writing these kinds of things can be cathartic, but, to be honest, if you read enough of these they all start to look the same. The one thing I know is that your time wasn't wasted. Learning lessons is what life is all about; doing something with them is what success is all about. TL;DR: Your product failed because you didn't talk to customers and no one is surprised. I look forward to a follow-up post about your new product, driven by customer feedback :).

dack 13y ago
Like many of us, I've been reading hacker news and related sites for years, but it was only after I attempted to actually apply all that knowledge I thought I had that I realized how unprepared I really was. It's natural to read an article about a failure and feel like the points made are obvious - but that's because we aren't imagining all the pitfalls that we may have fallen into along the way that others would have avoided. Not only that, but the rules have so many exceptions that it could have just as easily gone the opposite way (I wish I hadn't listened to my customers) and we would still say it was an obvious conclusion. I agree, the conclusions raised are all pieces of advice I have heard before, but I still enjoyed reading about his particular mental model of what he thought was the right course of action, and then seeing how it got shattered by the (lack of) results.
- josh2600 13y ago
  I enjoyed reading it to, I was just lamenting the fact that it seems like we hear this advice day in and day out. I'm right in the beginnings of the growth phase at my startup and I can tell you, we've made every mistake you can possibly make without drowning the baby in the bath water. You name it, at one point we did it. I'm talking: * Feature Creep * 90% revenue from one client * Not listening and building a whole GUI in the Dark * Attacking customers who weren't in the target market I could go on and on, but the point is; I've been there, we've all been there. It's so easy for me to say, as an armchair observer, how easy it might be to manage a business like that, but the truth is I have no idea. The problem is when you think you understand your target market, and you don't. I guess the point of my previous post wasn't to tear into the author, as they're very brave to put their opinion and their work out there. My point was that the lesson we can all learn is a hard one, and one we may need to learn multiple times. I think we're largely in agreement, but I thank you for your comments :).
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  I've been reading hacker news and related sites for years, but it was only after I attempted to actually apply all that knowledge I thought I had that I realized how unprepared I really was. This is the key bit. When my kids started getting "real" homework sometimes they would say "But Dad, why do I need to do the homework? I completely understood what the teacher was talking about!" And my response was, "Great, since you already understand it, doing the homework will be no problem at all." But the real message was there are two kinds of understanding, one where you think you know what you know, and one where you know you know what you know. Only by applying the knowledge you think you understand to a new problem, can you prove to yourself and others that you have actually got that knowledge. In my case it actually feels like it moves into a different part of my brain (weird I know but it's the simplest way to describe it). In Boy Scouts we got a lot of training in various camping "skills" but it was the Jamborees where you had to use those skills in competition where the knowledge went from theoretical to practical.
swamp40 13y ago
Actually, you DID read this last month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5782761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5782761

dack 13y ago

Like many of us, I've been reading hacker news and related sites for years, but it was only after I attempted to actually apply all that knowledge I thought I had that I realized how unprepared I really was. It's natural to read an article about a failure and feel like the points made are obvious - but that's because we aren't imagining all the pitfalls that we may have fallen into along the way that others would have avoided. Not only that, but the rules have so many exceptions that it could have just as easily gone the opposite way (I wish I hadn't listened to my customers) and we would still say it was an obvious conclusion. I agree, the conclusions raised are all pieces of advice I have heard before, but I still enjoyed reading about his particular mental model of what he thought was the right course of action, and then seeing how it got shattered by the (lack of) results.

josh2600 13y ago
I enjoyed reading it to, I was just lamenting the fact that it seems like we hear this advice day in and day out. I'm right in the beginnings of the growth phase at my startup and I can tell you, we've made every mistake you can possibly make without drowning the baby in the bath water. You name it, at one point we did it. I'm talking: * Feature Creep * 90% revenue from one client * Not listening and building a whole GUI in the Dark * Attacking customers who weren't in the target market I could go on and on, but the point is; I've been there, we've all been there. It's so easy for me to say, as an armchair observer, how easy it might be to manage a business like that, but the truth is I have no idea. The problem is when you think you understand your target market, and you don't. I guess the point of my previous post wasn't to tear into the author, as they're very brave to put their opinion and their work out there. My point was that the lesson we can all learn is a hard one, and one we may need to learn multiple times. I think we're largely in agreement, but I thank you for your comments :).
ChuckMcM 13y ago
I've been reading hacker news and related sites for years, but it was only after I attempted to actually apply all that knowledge I thought I had that I realized how unprepared I really was. This is the key bit. When my kids started getting "real" homework sometimes they would say "But Dad, why do I need to do the homework? I completely understood what the teacher was talking about!" And my response was, "Great, since you already understand it, doing the homework will be no problem at all." But the real message was there are two kinds of understanding, one where you think you know what you know, and one where you know you know what you know. Only by applying the knowledge you think you understand to a new problem, can you prove to yourself and others that you have actually got that knowledge. In my case it actually feels like it moves into a different part of my brain (weird I know but it's the simplest way to describe it). In Boy Scouts we got a lot of training in various camping "skills" but it was the Jamborees where you had to use those skills in competition where the knowledge went from theoretical to practical.

swamp40 13y ago

Actually, you DID read this last month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5782761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5782761