UIProbe: Early Visual Mockup Feedback Tool for Indie Founders

If you're building a product for other people, not yourself, then talking to those other people should really be a no-brainer, but unfortunately it's not. That's why there are so many popular product management books talking about customer co-creation and conversations, customer development, user research and so on. A quick glance through this reddit community on the other hand shows that most people here like to build stuff, then think about who they are building it later :) so common sense is not that common. But yes, in a sense, you've just discovered that user research exists and that it should be a critical part of product development. But I disagree about "That's why a good product must necessarily be the result of a long and deep conversation with the ideal customer. ". It doesn't. Some people just have a good inspiration, or build a product to scratch their own itch and other then discover other people who had a similar itch. User research as a discipline involves a lot more than just deep conversations, and sometimes observing people is a lot more powerful than having a conversation with them. People can have inconsistent opinions, describe intent and not follow through on it, and not think through their actions and needs fully. Observing is often more reliable than talking. Word of mouth (your "conversation among the customers about the product") is one of the most valuable and most resilient growth channels, but it is incredibly slow. Once the flywheel spins fast, it just keeps spinning. Bill Aulet even suggests that the opportunity for word of mouth is critical when choosing first segment of users a product decides to address (the "[beachhead segment](https://www.votito.com/methods/beachhead-market/)" item #3, "the customers within the market talk to each other, and there is a high probability of word-of-mouth refferals")

If you're building a product for other people, not yourself, then talking to those other people should really be a no-brainer, but unfortunately it's not. That's why there are so many popular product management books talking about customer co-creation and conversations, customer development, user research and so on. A quick glance through this reddit community on the other hand shows that most people here like to build stuff, then think about who they are building it later :) so common sense is not that common. But yes, in a sense, you've just discovered that user research exists and that it should be a critical part of product development. But I disagree about "That's why a good product must necessarily be the result of a long and deep conversation with the ideal customer. ". It doesn't. Some people just have a good inspiration, or build a product to scratch their own itch and other then discover other people who had a similar itch. User research as a discipline involves a lot more than just deep conversations, and sometimes observing people is a lot more powerful than having a conversation with them. People can have inconsistent opinions, describe intent and not follow through on it, and not think through their actions and needs fully. Observing is often more reliable than talking. Word of mouth (your "conversation among the customers about the product") is one of the most valuable and most resilient growth channels, but it is incredibly slow. Once the flywheel spins fast, it just keeps spinning. Bill Aulet even suggests that the opportunity for word of mouth is critical when choosing first segment of users a product decides to address (the "[beachhead segment](https://www.votito.com/methods/beachhead-market/)" item #3, "the customers within the market talk to each other, and there is a high probability of word-of-mouth refferals")