Automakers: Don't Ask Customers What They Want
In all the cases here, what the customer wanted was available in some other car. Thunderbird owners said they wanted 4 doors. But there were several 4-door fast cars on the market which they didn&#x27;t buy, so you shouldn&#x27;t believe them.<p>A common situation in startups is, there are two current products on the market A and B. A has 99% of the market, B has 1%. The amount of feature X (speed, ease of use, scalability, ...) they provide is limited:<p><pre><code>    ---A----B--------------------------------------&gt;  X
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A startup is proposing to make product C. It will be awesome because it provides way more X:<p><pre><code>    ---A----B---------------------------------C----&gt;  X
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But you need to ask, if people <i>really</i> value X, why aren&#x27;t they already switching from A to B?<p>It happens all the time that startups ask customers, &quot;Do you want a product with more X?&quot; and they say yes. But if they&#x27;re not already using the product out there with the most X, you shouldn&#x27;t believe them.