I've been a part of two startups, neither of which did anything remotely like "Customer Development". The one was consumer oriented, and they sort of stumbled

I've been a part of two startups, neither of which did anything remotely like "Customer Development". The one was consumer oriented, and they sort of stumbled through the launch of a prototype that was built to scratch their own itch (i.e. they were their own customer, so they kind of knew what it needed). The 2nd still has very little revenue and I would say is still struggling to align with the customer. They've spent many years now developing a product that they think will fit the customer based on their experiences working in the target industry 10 years ago. Its a little scary to watch this company spend their money after only showing a mockup to a customer once, about 3 years ago. This 2nd company is starting to get paying customers, and then they panic when the customer says, "Wait. It doesn't do x, y, and x? I assumed it did, I mean, everyone in our industry does that! You didn't know that?" I'm curious to know how these 2 companies would be different had they done solid customer development first.