Listen to what customers are not asking for
principle — attributed to Andrew Garcia
Event planners were not asking for new suppliers. They were asking for faster responses from the suppliers they already trusted. Garcia and Dreyer discovered this by staying close enough to actual customers to hear what they were not requesting, which is the harder form of customer listening: not what people say they want but what the absence of a solution reveals they need. Most founders leave before that moment of clarity arrives.
Product Development / Customer Listening
problem framing, founder insight, iteration