When developing the novel Mirror concept, Bryn Putnam found that early customer surveys and "ugly" mockups yielded universally negative feedback. She learned to trust her gut, recognizing that consumers often can't envision a truly new experience until it's tangible and polished.
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Don't just collect feedback from all users equally. Identify and listen closely to the few "visionary users" who intuitively grasp what's next. Their detailed feedback can serve as a powerful validation and even a blueprint for your long-term product strategy.
When pursuing breakthrough ideas ("10x thinking"), the process is inherently uncomfortable. It's crucial to distinguish this discomfort, which signals you're pushing boundaries, from the feeling of being wrong. Embracing this discomfort is key to innovation in ambiguous, early-stage product development.
Product teams often use placeholder text and duplicate UI components, but users don't provide good feedback on unrealistic designs. A prototype with authentic, varied content—even if the UI is simpler—will elicit far more valuable user feedback because it feels real.
Product teams often fear showing prototypes because strong customer demand creates pressure. This mindset is flawed. Having customers eager to buy an unbuilt feature is a high-quality signal that validates your roadmap and is the best problem a product manager can have.
The most effective product reviews eliminate all abstractions. Forbid presentations, pre-reads, and storytelling. Instead, force the entire review to occur within the actual prototype or live code. This removes narrative bias and forces an assessment of the work as the customer will actually experience it.
When building a product to solve a partner's problem, be wary of their feedback. They may hold the product to an impossibly high standard or fall into a user segment that would never pay, making them a poor proxy for the broader market. Their critique is valuable but can be emotionally taxing and misleading.
To develop your "people sense," actively predict the outcomes of A/B tests and new product launches before they happen. Afterward, critically analyze why your prediction was right or wrong. This constant feedback loop on your own judgment is a tangible way to develop a strong intuition for user behavior and product-market fit.
To truly validate their idea, Moonshot AI's founders deliberately sought negative feedback. This approach of "trying to get the no's" ensures honest market signals, helping them avoid the trap of false positive validation from contacts who are just being polite.
