The app developer will spend hundreds of man hours writing lines of perfect code in the hope of making his final product the best in the world. The cafe owner could pull thousands of shots in order to create the perfect cup every time. The entrepreneur might invest months agonising over design decisions to launch with a more compelling website. The author can labour for years crafting perfect sentences that will surely make his book worthy of a slot on the bestseller list.

And yet—they have less control over what the people who buy their end product believe, feel, think and say than they would like to imagine. When Cadbury ‘improved’ the shape of their chocolate bars (a decision a behemoth brand would not take or implement lightly), customers pushed back.

We might know that our product really is the best in the world, but it isn’t us who gets to decide. What we do and what we ask customers to believe is only part of the story. It’s humbling to realise that the people we serve, not our technologists, publishers, innovators, designers or marketing departments decide what’s worthy and what wins.

Image by Joe.