Product First. Customer Second.

What would be the next step of evolution for your product or service? This is a trillion-dollar question which if answered can make any organization invincible. Because if you get that question right, you can invent the future rather than be stumped by some maverick start-up.

But where will the answer come from? From the customer? Well, if you go by the recent hype about Human Centred school and its fancy framework of Design Thinking, it would certainly appear that deep insight of the customers’ desires will get you the answer. But that is not just wrong. Its plain dangerous.

A cursory look at the great inventions in human history will tell you that most of them have come not from customer inputs. In fact, many of the pathbreaking products were first actively opposed by customers and only slowly gained acceptance. People adapted to them and not the other way round.

The answer to this ever elusive question lies in studying the great inventions and extracting the universal and timeless principles which underlie their evolution. And these principles are immutable and independent of any sort customer behavior.