

How Steve Jobs validates the Customer Development model. - charliepark
http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/08/steve-jobs-method.html

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sachinag
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.

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rjurney
Your 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.

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sachinag
I 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.

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rjurney
Having 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 :)

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idlewords
This is a completely speculative article with no actual information. The
author takes an interview with Steve Jobs (interesting in its own right) and
reads in whatever happens to validate his preexisting beliefs about product
development.

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rjurney
The customer development model is interesting, and its important - because it
solves the problem that causes most startups to fail: they build something
nobody wants.

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.

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charrington
Henry Ford?

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rjurney
Bob Ford.

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prakash
_Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we've got less than 30 major products._

incredible!

