How to Figure Out What People Want

• Instead of trying to force a vision, here is how you can lean into unfolding.
  
  
  • You observe the context (when applying to university, trying to figure out what my career should be, this would have meant, among other things, observing what kind of tasks I liked doing again and again and again; what kind of people I want to surround myself with; how th

What does someone do right before the outcome occurs? What’s unique about the company? What user actions are easier to facilitate because of those unique aspects of the company (specialized skills, a special relationship with the users, etc.)? What do users already do that’s similar? Why aren’t people making the outcome happen? Why would users want

product. You get there by starting with people. What do people need, what do they care about, what are their passions and dreams, their desires and fears? Then, and only then, can you begin to understand how your product fits into the equation. By focusing on the problem

Whether you’re an author suffering from writer’s block or a start-up team struggling to satisfy its customers, the solution is to change the question you’re asking. If the original question plaguing you is “Why aren’t people signing up for our product?” maybe the better question is “What kinds of people would benefit most from our product?” When yo

If you want to build a successful product, you need to understand your customers’ actual behavior—their reality—not the story they tell themselves.