Making and supporting a product why trying to grow a company is hard work. I’ve often told my non-co-worker friends that I imagine it to be very much like raising a child.
In the early days, before there is any real product, you have an idealized picture of what your baby will grow up to be: innovative, paradigm changing, etc. And then, after nine months of hard word, and a terrible period of labor getting the first version out to market (beta or first customer ship), you’re exhausted.
You were running hard for the finish line only to figure out that once released, the real work begins.
Each hour you pour more of your heart and soul into the application, working hard to craft it in a way which meet your understanding of the need and helps you to accomplish the revenues required to either keep your doors open or the investors happy enough to continue funding your efforts.
Inevitably, the customers who start using your product have a different vision for its future than you do. This is your baby, but it is their tool. And, like any good parent, you have to do what you can to provide the best environment for your child, but you have to let it grow up on its own. When you are exhausted, working hard, and already anxious because no matter what you do you’re not seeing the level of growth you though you would see when the whole process started, its easy to get edgy. Its easy to start to take comments personal.
The one thing we must keep in mind, its not personal. Its business. If our business isn’t helping others to get their business done, this it does get personal. For our customers, it gets personal really quickly.
When I see something like this, it makes me cringe. I know I’ve been frustrated at times… having my best efforts criticized, critiqued, and told it came up short. Its not fun.
But, you know what? It’s part of the process. One commenter on this post at 37Signals pointed out the irony of how the customer’s word choices so closely mirrored their own using Google as proof.
