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I've always been of the opinion that you need a very strong auteur at the head of a company driving product to make something awesome. Tivo, Sling, Flip, Apple
by sachinag 17y ago
I've always been of the opinion that you need a very strong auteur at the head of a company driving product to make something awesome. Tivo, Sling, Flip, Apple, and others are clearly true to themselves and not full of compromise. Posterous, Skitch, Balsamiq, and Google are examples of the same.
But that doesn't mean you don't heed feedback. Apple wasn't against cut-and-paste; they just didn't want to have an offering that wasn't up to their standards. Google tests the hell out of everything.
I still think you have to put your first visionary offering out there - IMVU had their client that Eric had to throw away - and see what happens. Too much CD "work" is just an excuse to not build something and is just the same wasted "effort" as premature optimization.
- rjurney 17y agoYour comment shows you do not understand the 'customer development' methodology Eric is talking about. You never stop building. You build concurrent with customer development. Seriously, read up on it. Don't just dismiss it as paralysis analysis. There's real value here.
- sachinag 17y agoI agree that there's a ton of value there - but I've been involved in projects where the "suits" want to do all sorts of bullshit AdWords/Facebook Ad tests, surveys, storytelling, and God knows what. For fuck's sake, you have a vision. Act on it. Then get some feedback.
- rjurney 17y agoHaving a vision is important, and it gets the ball rolling. The important part is: Get feedback as you're acting on it. The problem comes when you spend too much time in the cave building, or too much time not building crap, doing a survey. Do both! The middle path of product development :)
- _pius 17y agoToo much CD "work" is just an excuse to not build something . . . Precisely the opposite of the model Ries talks about.