Building great software products is a lot like being a doctor.

Your customers come to you with symptoms, but they rarely tell you the underlying condition.

I recently had an fascinating conversation with Dr. George Shannon on my Product Driven podcast about this exact challenge.

With his background in mechanical and industrial engineering before moving into software, he brought a unique perspective on understanding customer needs that really resonated with me.

The Symptom vs. Problem Challenge

Your customers will tell you things like "this takes too long" or "I can't do X."

These are symptoms.

Just like telling a doctor "my stomach hurts" doesn't reveal if you have food poisoning or appendicitis.

At Stackify, we constantly faced this challenge.

Customers would complain about specific features or missing functionality, but the real problems were often deeper than what they initially described.

The Voice of the Customer Isn't Always Clear

One crucial insight Dr. Shannon shared was about the difference between frequency and importance.

Just because you hear certain feedback often doesn't mean it's what matters most to your customers.

He shared a fascinating example from healthcare, where what doctors said they needed most didn't match what the nursing staff thought the doctors wanted.

This disconnect happens in software all the time.

The Bells and Whistles Trap

The most dangerous trap in software development is chasing bells and whistles while ignoring fundamentals.

I've seen it countless times - customers sign up for some cool AI feature, but then churn because basic functionality like single sign-on or multi-user support is missing.

The flashy features might sell the software, but the fundamentals keep customers around.

Learning to Think Like Your Customer

The key lesson Dr. Shannon emphasized is that we need to learn to think like our customers. This means:

Going beyond just listening to what they say

Understanding their unspoken needs

Watching how they actually use your software

Looking for opportunities to surprise and delight them

The Path Forward

Great product teams are like skilled diagnosticians.

They know how to read between the lines, ask the right questions, and understand the real problems their customers face.

Remember, your customers aren't bad at explaining their problems - they're just human.

It's our job to become better at understanding what they really need.

The magic happens when you can solve problems your customers didn't even know they had. That's when you create those "I don't know how they did this, but it's absolutely incredible" moments that transform good software into great software.

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