Steve Jobs

He died October 11, 2011 Ten Years Ago and we lost a visionary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

What Jobs Really Thought About Research

Jobs’ thoughts about market research: (Walter Issacson’s biography)

In 1982 the Mac team, “thought they should do market research to see what customers wanted. ‘No,’ [Jobs] replied, ‘because customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.’”

“When he unveiled the Macintosh, a reporter asked Jobs what type of market research he had done. Jobs responded , ‘Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the phone?’”

Jobs: “Some people say, ‘Give customers what they want.’ That’s not my approach. We figure out what they’re going to want before they do. Henry Ford once said, ‘If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, “A faster horse!”

Market Research that Jobs Agreed With

First, spend time understanding and gaining insights into customers' needs.

Never ask “What should we develop to make your life easier?” Get into their shoes. He saw that people wanted easy computers and they loved music and understood how people engaged with technology. He used himself as a “focus group of one”

Ford’s customers didn’t say that they wanted a “safer” horse or a “more comfortable” horse. They said that they wanted a faster horse. They were perfectly clear about what they wanted: speed

Customer feedback on ideas helps you refine your product.

and is what the Apple team does every day.

Focus on People, Not Numbers

>Nearly every kind of consumer research generates numbers. Use numbers to uncover insights.

Never Conduct Research to “Validate”

What people usually mean when they use the “v-word” is: “We know we have a winner, but someone higher wants to see some proof.”

Research Must Drive Action, Not Delay Decisions

“Let’s get some more research…” has become the classic delay to progress and can postpone hard decisions. Research should be a driver of decisions and progress.

Conclusion

Don’t believe in market research - it’s probably an internalized bias and you are just using Steve Jobs success to justify this belief.

https://medium.com/@mktgwithmeaning/that-steve-jobs-research-quote-should-rip-e8f3335ec66