The new Facebook design has picked up lots of critics with nearly 800,000 users giving it the thumbs down.
However Dare Obasanjo claims Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg doesn’t care. Apparently Mark’s view is “the most disruptive companies don’t listen to their customers“.
That’s true – Steve jobs ignored the howls of protest when Apple dropped support for floppy disks and the Apple Desktop Bus which left millions of Mac users stranded with obsolete equipment.
Even more famously, Henry Ford told customers they could have any colour Model T they liked as long as it was black.
Both were right and the customers followed them, although not without some grumbling.
So you can succeed by knowing your customers needs better than they know them, but it’s a risky ask as Microsoft found with Windows Vista, Ford with the Edsel and Coca-Cola with New Coke.
Time will tell if Mark Zuckerburg’s right. It’s a high risk strategy though.