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Hey all - Troy McAlpin, CEO and co-founder of atono here.
In our last $70M ARR SaaS venture, we learned the hard way: the customer is not always right.
Yes, customer experience matters. Yes, they’re the ones paying the bills.
But no, they don’t always know how to design the best solution.
Steve Jobs famously said, “Customers often don’t know what they want until you show them.”
At @Atono, we’ve taken a stand. We may lose some potential customers along the way (who would have churned), but we believe it’s the right answer. Customer preferences and vision don’t always align with your product’s 3-7 year roadmap.
A few thoughts on customer feedback:
Listen intently and be grateful for feedback, but dig deeper to understand the pain.
Build solutions that address real pain, but stay within your through-line.
Avoid being all things to all people - it’s a very real competitive disadvantage.
Opinionated software development recognizes multiple competitors can thrive in a market. It drives differentiation and embraces a growth mindset over a closed one.
We’ve learned this through years of experimentation, failure and success - happy to share! AMA
