Let’s face it, we build companies to solve a problem, or fill a void, or insert whatever cliche you can think of, but we build companies to solve for something, make our users / customers happy and make (hopefully) a ton of money along the way. The building of the company to solve a specific problem is the founder’s thing, he/she saw that something needed to be solved and came up with an idea, a business plan, a revenue model, distribution model, built a team and launched a product. That is what founders do after all, they lay the groundwork for what they hope is for a product / service that will be well received by its users and will be wildly successful beyond anyone’s imagination.

Along the way though, things can change a bit, and the company needs to be able to adapt to those changes (especially if they are changes that a bunch of users are clamoring for) and make the product / service better as a result. Every company experiences this, users submitting suggestions that they feel will make your product / service even better, but all of this has to be taken with a grain of salt. Some of the ideas are just plain out there and have no relevance to your product / service, others are suggestions that would only benefit a small percentage of users and then once in awhile there are those suggestions that would make the product / service all around better for the vast majority of people that use it.

There is a fine line that a company must walk between listening to what their users have to say and letting their users dictate what their product / service ultimately is. There are different camps that support both sides to this problem, one side of the camp would argue that you know better than your user, therefore you ignore anything they have to say and the other side would argue that you listen to everything that your users say and you change accordingly, after all they are the ones that are using your product / service, why not make them happy?

The fine line that must be walked and stayed as closely on as possible gives you the best opportunity to not only execute on the vision and strategy that you laid out for your company (not to mention pitched to your investors and promised that this vision / strategy was going to make them a lot of money), but also gains you insight into how your users are using the product and gives you the ability to make changes where change makes sense, as long as it is for the benefit of the company and of your users.

If you do not listen to a word that your users say, you are simply operating with blinders on and it will only be a matter of time before you turn your remaining users off and they will be on to better products. If you listen to every suggestion that they throw at you, you are going to loose site of what it is you are doing, loose focus, and potentially cause harm to your company. Either situation is bad and has the potential to end the same way, just the arrival is different.

Like everything else in business, it is easier said than done, and if it was so easy, everyone would be doing it. To ensure your survival and success, you do need to listen to what your users are saying, but do not take what they are saying as gospel, after all, they are most likely not prophets :-).