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Comment by brainpool | Hacker News Reader

My take is that this was a case of hubris. Can happen to the best of us. Where it really derailed was here:

“Others were not decision makers, so I had to take their feedback with a grain of salt.”

Most users of this kind of product are not decision makers, at least when it comes to selecting the product. But they are the ones that have to use it and their opinions are critically important.

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The idea of soliciting feedback before building a start up really doesn’t make sense to me. If you like your idea (“this is something I’ve always wanted”), are willing to dedicate yourself and have the means then you should try it. Otherwise you’ll never find out. If the creator of the automobile had listened to people they probably would’ve thought it was a dead end because unlike horses cars can’t reproduce. The idea that you can explain your vision to people who will spend one minute thinking about it with you and get useful feedback is also not obvious. Build the product or you’ll never know.

That's true of products that are true innovations, that is, they create entirely new product categories. Here, however, he's just improving on an existing product. Getting opinions about what's wrong with the current product makes a lot of sense.

For sure. I've worked in finance and we did tons of market research when before giving loans to companies like Rite-Aid, CVS, etc, knowing that they did their own market research, too. But, I'm not sure how far that carries over to tech. Even "commodity" ideas aren't always so commodity in this sector.

> If the creator of the automobile had listened to people they probably would’ve thought it was a dead end because unlike horses cars can’t reproduce.

Actually, a true story: Ford said that if he were to listen to what people want better than a horse, he would have built a carriage with hitch for 6 horses :)

It's not a true story. People wanted less manure and fewer horse corpses. They were thrilled with the automobile because it neatly solved their top two transportation complaints.

Not sure about my particular anecdote, I can't verify that to be accurate or attribute it to Ford (I have heard it on many occasions, and even once saw a clipping from a newspaper but can't find it now), but https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/01/get-horse-americ...

Skeptical at first, but came around quickly. The quote is apocryphal.

> If I’d asked people what the wanted, they would have said, ‘A faster horse’

Is how I believe that quote goes.

The cold hard truth is that just because you like it and want to build it doesn't mean anyone else gives a shit.

The idea that everyone should just roll the dice with months/years of their lives because they like an idea isn't actually tenable.

That's what I'm saying, but I'd go further that even in 100/100 people tell you that they love your idea, that may translate into 0/100 using it. You shouldn't just try anything willy-nilly, but you won't know until you try it.

It is a matter or wording: you don't ask for feedback per se, you do user research to understand their needs and their pain points with existing solutions. Developers are not necessarily good communicators :)

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