The Most Expensive Assumption a Leader Can Make: "We Know What Our Customers Want"

A few years ago, I was working at a fintech company that was about to launch a new product. By the time I got close to it, the product team had done its job: the new concept was built, the roadmap was set, and everyone was moving toward the launch with the confidence that comes from months of work.

Almost as an afterthought, someone suggested running a survey first, just to gauge how appealing the product actually was and obtain feedback for potential improvements. Everything was ready, and a survey at that stage can feel more like a formality that only slows things down.

We sent it anyway. And what came back stopped the launch.

Customers were not lukewarm about the product. In fact, they were completely against it. A striking number said plainly that if this product went live, they would close their accounts immediately. Not complain, not churn slowly over time, but leave. We had been weeks from shipping something that our most engaged customers were telling us, in their own words, would push them out the door.

Validation Should Not Be the Last Step

A few years have passed and I still think about that experience and what I took from it.

It changed how I lead, and the lesson is about timing. We only launched the survey after months of work were already sunk into something the market did not want. Had we launched it at the start, that same customer feedback would have been a compass instead of an emergency brake. We were rescued, not guided, and the gap between those two words is where a lot of time, budget, and team morale quietly disappears.

We tend to treat validation as the last step, the check you run once the work is finished to confirm that nothing was missed. So the real question, whether anyone actually wants this, gets asked too late to matter. But no amount of execution can save a decision the market has already rejected.

A leader's judgment is only ever as good as what they actually know about the people they are deciding for. And most of the time, what we think we know is biased by our own beliefs and preferences. Repeated often enough, an opinion hardens into fact. When a team believes they know everything about their customers, and no one can point to the last time they actually tested that belief, that is not knowledge. It is a guess with a deadline attached.

The Real Skill is Not Just Asking

When you listen to your customers and understand how they describe their own experience with your product or services, you are gathering the kind of Customer Insights that no amount of internal conviction can produce. In our case, a single well-timed question overturned a belief the whole team held with confidence.

The real skill is not just asking. It is asking in a timely manner, while the answer can still shape the work instead of just cancel it. A few practical ways to build that habit:

• Validation should be ongoing, not a final gate. Customer feedback should inform the decisions and strategy from the start, not arrive as a last check before launch. Build a system that captures it continuously, so insight is already on hand when a decision appears, instead of scrambling to gather it under deadline.
• Listen in their words, not your scale. Open conversations surface the reasons a rating never will. Let customers describe the problem the way they experience it.
• Treat strong internal conviction as a flag. When everyone agrees customers “want” something and no one has asked, that unanimity is a reason to check, not a reason to skip checking.

Knowing Beats Guessing

The strongest decisions do not start with a confident opinion. They start with knowing, not guessing, what the people you serve actually want, and knowing it recently. This matters most when you are running lean, because a small or mid-sized business rarely gets a second shot at a wasted quarter.

So before you commit the resources, pause on the one thing everyone assumes and no one has confirmed. That gap between your beliefs and what your customers have actually told you is where the risk lives, and where the cost quietly adds up. Close it first, and every decision you make afterward stands on firmer ground.