How will we find people who actually want this?

This question makes us want to face reality. Actually, confront is the right word, which isn’t fun.
Building is fun; you are in your sweet world, reminiscing about how your buttons look, how the colors blend in the screens, and how you envision that the customer would use your product as you have envisioned it. The flow of usage in the App is as you thought; they wouldn’t touch those parts of the App that you don’t want, and they would seamlessly go through the menu and find what they want as we envisioned it. The sweet bubble that we live in. A world where the product is the hero.

Now, someone enters someone with a big pin, the real hero — the customer. Ready to burst the sweet bubble. Customers don’t behave the way you expect them to. They would use your product as they want or sometimes not use it at all. Go into your phone and see how many apps you have downloaded but not touched for months. That is proof of the usage of products we thought we might use but never touched.

The customer might touch those portions of the App where you do not want them to, adventurous as he is. He might want to try something vital to him, so he veers to places that he fancies. Thus, the real test starts there, and sometimes the journey of a product ends there as well. They may not see the value in the product, as many others might be giving him the value he is looking into. He is the true critic. How do we reach him, work with him, and evolve the product?

We often get stuck in a bubble of adding features that we, as product developers, think are important or what the sales folks think might sell. We still fantasize about the product, how it eases the life of the imaginary good customer, and how the revenue flows into our bank account. To add to the beautiful drama, the now happy customers are gaga about the product and are recommending it to others.

To burst this bubble, the only way would be to frequently review some inevitable questions in the product journey.

What do our customers look like? In this dynamic environment, a customer might want a feature now, but in some weeks, he might think that isn’t the most essential as he saw another product with the same and didn’t love it as much as he thought. So he is the king; he commands, and we oblige. Otherwise, we might have to make a product that keeps him alive.

How would he use the product, and how frequently? — He is the whimsical one and has tremendous choices.

Where would we find him, and how much would he pay? Or would he ever pay? Yes, there are so many products on a freemium model, so why should he pay? Even if he switches from one product to the next, he can get his things done.

And more importantly, would he use the product sustainably.

A reality check on these is the only way to sustainably develop good features that your customers want and generate revenue to pay you to be the bubble which you fancy.

what we wanted to build instead of the people we were building for?