“Listen to your users!" It’s the golden rule of product development and user experience (UX) research, and for good reason. Your customers hold the key to understanding their pain points, what they need and where your product might be falling short.
But what happens when that advice goes too far? When listening too closely to your users derails your vision, slows your momentum and leads you down an endless rabbit hole of tweaks that don’t actually serve your product’s greater purpose?
Here’s the hard truth: sometimes, you should stop listening to your users.
This doesn’t mean ignoring them altogether. It means developing the judgment to filter feedback, prioritise what’s truly valuable and trust your own instincts when necessary. As a founder, you’re not just building what users want, you’re building what they’ll need in the future. Striking that balance between listening to your users and staying true to your vision is the skill that separates great products from mediocre ones.
There’s a widely accepted principle in UX research that says you only need 5 users to uncover 95% of usability problems. Why? Because patterns emerge quickly. After 5 interviews, testing sessions or rounds of feedback, you’ll likely hear the same core issues repeated. Adding 15 more voices won’t necessarily give you new insights, but it will drown you in noise.
The same principle applies to broader product feedback. If you’re giving equal weight to every opinion, you’re not prioritising. Instead of solving real, recurring problems, you’re spreading yourself thin trying to address edge cases or highly subjective preferences.
Takeaway: Trust patterns, not one-offs.
Your users know what they want today. But as a founder, your job is to build what they’ll need tomorrow. That requires a strong, unwavering core vision – a north star that guides every decision you make.
The danger of listening too closely to user feedback is that it can pull you off-course. A passionate customer might suggest a feature that solves their niche problem but fundamentally disrupts the product experience for everyone else. Or worse: it pushes you into building something that doesn’t align with your long-term vision.
Ask yourself:
Sometimes, saying no to a user is the best way to stay true to your product.