Why our customers are smart

Sunday, January 04, 2009 by Dave Winer.

I often tell stories about companies who treat their customers or developers as if they were idiots. But that's not to say my own company, the one I started, didn't do this too -- it did. It's human nature, but it's bad human nature, it's self-defeating, it's dysfunctional.  

When I heard someone say a customer was stupid, I said if that's true we're really fucked.  

Here's how I reasoned... 

1. We have to believe our customers are the smartest people, because they were smart enough to choose the best product.  

2. If they were stupid, then they chose the wrong product and we're dead, so you'd better start looking for a new job 

The only logical way to proceed is to: 

1. Make the best product. 

2. Find the smartest customers. 

3. Treat them like the geniuses they are. 

4. And earn their respect. (Which they never failed to give us, as long as we did 1, 2 and 3.) 

Our customers really were the smartest people -- we made products that you had to be smart to want. But I think every company has to feel their customers are the smartest, or else why bother coming to work? 

Further, we don't look for "feedback" from customers, we look to learn from them. Feedback is what you ignore. Learning is how you build.