How Steve Jobs validates the Customer Development model.
startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com
startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com
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.
Seriously, read up on it. Don't just dismiss it as paralysis analysis. There's real value here.
For fuck's sake, you have a vision. Act on it. Then get some feedback.
The middle path of product development :)
Precisely the opposite of the model Ries talks about.
The 'Steve Jobs' (and other visionaries) phenomenon is a common counter-point: "If John Ford had listened to the market, he'd have built a better horse whip!"
All Eric is saying is that customer development does not reduce the need for a visionary. Visionaries are more connected with the market than anyone else. But don't do what most startups do and assume that you are one. Validate, validate, validate. You can't afford not to.
incredible!