Working with software product companies, we always debated on the product is "technology driven" or "market driven". Back to the days of using EJB, often times

Working with software product companies, we always debated on the product is "technology driven" or "market driven". Back to the days of using EJB, often times we were technology drive (not all). That's why we have product team and product manager to work out the requirements before the development team start to prototype and implement. For startup companies, this kind of process may seem too luxury in the early stage, we called it "discover" stage. Once we define the target market and learn the customer needs, we will build the most compelling features first. We listen, but not tight to specific customer needs, because we know the direction we want to build, and gradually lead the customers toward that end product. For any new product, customer friction is always there very naturally. That's why we need marketing and sales team to remove the friction. It's a lot easy to say than to do.