Care fanatically about users

"You have to care fanatically about these people..."

Incredible insight from the Co-Founder and former CEO of Twitch, Emmett Shear, on the topic of user feedback and insight in product prioritization.

The quote in full...

“You have to care fanatically about these people... these people as people, and these people as in the roles they are doing.

What they believe about their reality, you have to accept as base reality because that is how they see the world.

But you need to literally have no regard for their ideas to solve the problem. And it's a little paternalistic in a way, but it's more about just respecting that they are experts in this thing. And you need to understand them in that thing. And what people are looking for when they are looking for the product idea from the person, it's that they don't want to do the work, they don't want to take responsibility for it.

It's my job, I have to solve the problem, and no one's going to tell me what the answer is.

There's no teacher, there's no customer; it's up to me to come up with the truth. And then defend it when other people are like, 'No, that's wrong.' I have to be able to say, 'No, no, let me explain this, let me explain why this is actually a good idea.' And that's scary; you're responsible."