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Message: <blockquote data-quote="inputchip" data-source="post: 880211" data-attributes="member: 46945">I think this quote often gets misinterpreted to the point where entrepreneurs think that they don't need to do market/user research. He isn't implying that at all. In my opinion, Steve is saying that customers might not be able to articulate the SOLUTION to their problems, (i.e. they don't know what they want as a solution), but they can surely articulate the problems that they face and what they would like to see improved. Sure, most people would state that they wanted a faster horse, but this is just one of many solutions to the problem of slow transportation. People would say, "we need a faster way to type on our phones, we want letters on our dial pad!" But really, there are multiple solutions to this problem (e.g. T9 texting, flip-out keyboard, sliding keyboard, blackberry keyboard, touch screen keyboard, and then something completely outside the box, voice to text transcriptions.)Apple has perfected problem-solving in innovative ways. More-so in the Steve Jobs era than the present day. But make no mistake, product improvements are always based on end-user feedback, whether or not they can explicitly articulate it. It helps when the innovators are also end-users of their own products such as in the case of Steve Jobs.</blockquote>