Should you build a product based on market demands?

it depends…

For anyone that has read The Lean Startup, they emphasize building a product based on MVP (minimal viable product), and iterate on that based on your customer’s needs and feedback. While this is great on determining whether you are really adding value to your users, you quickly become a trapped in becoming a client services company; tailoring your product to the market demands.

This assumption holds more true in some industries and products than other, and has been the case for the product we’ve built. We work in an industry with very few but large clients, this means that we’re constantly holding hands with each individual client and finding what their needs are. We play the balancing role between the small number of clients with sometimes differing needs. While we do a good job at setting expectations and meeting their needs, this gives us very little room to follow an overall product vision or diverge too far from market demands.

So how do you mange this conflict?
One approach is to prioritize and spend resources on both vision and market demands. Great approach, but in some instances, your market demands are so strong that it doesn’t leave much resources to spend on your vision (and those visionary milestones requires heavy resources).

Another approach is to ignore (or de-value) market demands and inputs. In this extreme case, the company is dedicated to its vision and overall direction; it may make adjustments based on market’s aggregate feedback, but not driven but individual needs.

In actuality, these are solutions off the same continuum. Finding the balance between keeping your customers happy by satisfying their direct needs while innovating in the direction of the company’s overall vision. Depending on your market and the company’s objective this can often be difficult to manage. There’s no clear answer or rule of thumb — that’s why you have a key person making decisions in the first place, right? You do however need to keep a balance so the company maintains sustainability.

In the long run however, unless your company (and more specifically, your product) maintains its vision as a priority, you’re unlikely to meet the demands of the greater market. You’ll build a client services business tailoring the product to the specific needs of the narrow market you currently serve. Building the best __(fill in your product’s purpose here)__ application isn’t a product vision…